Sat, Oct 31: 9:30am – 5pm
Beginning with an overview of the teachings on nibbana, Ajahn will elaborate on definitions the teachings of “non-self”. The afternoon will address the essential themes of attending to the deathless, unsupported consciousness and the unconditioned and non-locality. He will then discuss applications of the teachings to the Gradual Path, stream entry and the blessings of nibbana, followed by discussion.
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The Balance of Mindfulness from Insight Meditation Center on Vimeo. Gil Fonsdal recorded on September 9, 2009 at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA. Thursdays October 29 – November 19, 7:30 to 9pm Exploring Samadhi: Right Effort, Right Mindfullness, and Right Concentration of the Eight Fold Path with Richard Shankman In this 4-week series we will explore the understanding of these final three elements of the Eightfold Path, how they work together and how they apply in our meditation practice. Richard Shankman has been a meditator since 1970 and teaches at dharma centers and groups throughout the Bay Area. He is a co-founder of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and the Community Partnership for Mindfulness in Education, and the author of The Experience of Samadhi: An In-Depth Investigation of Buddhist Meditation. November 21, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm Introducing the basic practice of mindfulness, with direction in mindfulness of the breath, body, emotions, thoughts, walking and eating. There will sitting and walking meditation and discussion. Suitable for both beginners and those wanting to review the basics of practice. Bring lunch. Ines Freedman first became interested in meditation through her yoga practice in 1970. She has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 1985, with Gil Fronsdal being her primary teacher since 1995. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program and a past Managing Director of Insight Meditation Center. She directs and teaches the Audiodharma Online Meditation Course, and serves on the IMC Chaplaincy council. She is a retired chiropractor. November 14, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Practicing mindfulness on retreat is one of the foundations for maturing insight meditation. The simplicity, silence and support of retreats contribute to letting go of many of the distractions that get in the way of clear seeing. Retreats also are a wonderful environment for developing a continuity of awareness for an extended period. This particular daylong retreat is meant for people who already understand the basic practice of mindfulness; no instruction will be given. The schedule consists of alternating periods of sitting and walking meditation. At the end of the day Gil gives a Dharma talk. Brief interviews to talk about the practice will be available with Gil. Previous experience is recommended. Interviews available. Bring Lunch. November 6, 1:00 – 4:00 pm All teens are welcome. Sat, October 17, 9:00am – 4:30pm Practicing mindfulness on retreat is one of the foundations for maturing insight meditation. The simplicity, silence and support of retreats contribute to letting go of many of the distractions that get in the way of clear seeing. Retreats also are a wonderful environment for developing a continuity of awareness for an extended period. This is a daylong retreat with alternating periods of sitting and walking meditation, instruction in mindfulness practice and a dharma talk. It is recommended for both beginners and experienced practitioners. Bring lunch. Six Wednesday evenings Insight Meditation or Vipassana, is a simple technique, beginning with focusing the attention on the breath. The practice concentrates and calms the mind. At the heart of Insight Meditation is the practice of Mindfulness, a practice of moment-to-moment observation which cultivates a clear, stable and non-judgmental awareness. While mindfulness practice can be highly effective in helping bring calm and clarity to the pressures of daily life, it is also a spiritual path that gradually dissolves the barriers to the full development of our wisdom and compassion. During this introductory course, the basic instructions in insight meditation will be given sequentially, starting with a focus on mindfulness of breathing, followed by mindfulness of the body, of emotions, of thoughts, of mind and of the application of mindfulness in daily life and on retreats. Fridays, 9:30am to 3:30pm Each of these Dharma Practice days will focus on one of the 7 factors of Awakening through teachings, meditation, and discussion. Everyone is welcome. Bring lunch. The dates for this event are:
Saturday, October 24, 9am to 4:30pm Zen teacher Lew Richmond will be offering a one-day workshop on “Aging as a Spiritual Practice.” The experience of growing older is one important way we experience in our own bodies the fundamental Buddhist truths of suffering and impermanence: see Lew’s blog. The workshop will explore the connection between our own experiences of aging—loss, disappointment, loneliness, fear, as well as the positive aspects of gratitude, compassion, and a sense of wise perspective—with the basic Buddhist teachings of impermanence, the Five Great Fears, liberation from a fixed self, mindfulness (of aging) and loving kindness. The format of the day will combine periods of formal teaching with small and large group discussion. People will be encouraged to share their own personal experiences of aging with each other. Bring lunch. Chikudo Lew Richmond is an ordained disciple of Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, and a lineage holder in that tradition. Beginning in 1967, for fifteen years he lived and trained at Tassajara Zen Monastery, San Francisco Zen Center, and Green Gulch Zen Temple, where he was its Head of Practice from 1977-1983. He is the author of three books: WORK AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE, A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job; HEALING LAZARUS, A Buddhist’s Journey from Near Death to New Life; and A WHOLE LIFE’S WORK, Living Passionately, Growing Spiritually, was published in February, 2004. Lew’s home sangha is http://www.vimalasangha.org/ Peter Schireson and Karen Geiger are both long time practitioners of Zen. Peter ordained as a Zen priest after retiring from a successful career in education and business. Karen is a professional grief counselor working with hospice volunteers and their patients and recently graduated from a 4-year Sangha leader training program. Friday, October 30, 7:30 to 9pm Anyone who has lost a family member, friend or other dear person over the last year is welcome to join us for a chance to remember and honor those who have died and who enriched our lives and community. With the Buddhist practices of mindfulness and compassion, we will have a period of silent sitting and rituals of remembrance, bereavement, and farewell. Bring pictures or mementos for our altar of persons who you wish to honor/remember. If you cannot come to the ceremony, you are welcome to send Maria the name of the person you would like us to include in our remembrance. Contact: Maria Straatmann Maria serves on IMC’s chaplaincy council, as a volunteer for Zen Hospice Project and is a Spirit Rock Buddhist Ritual Minister. Saturday October 10: 9am to 4:30pm The joy of community! Please join us for a very special day of meditation and community building. This daylong will include periods of silent meditation, group discussion, sacred music and talks on the theme of the day which is community and sangha. Please invite all of your friends and bring a special dish for our potluck lunch! Spring Washam is a meditation teacher and co-founder of the East Bay Meditation Center. She has practiced meditation intensively since 1997 with many teachers and is known for her joyful heart and loving spirit. She pioneer s bringing mindfulness-based meditation practices to youth and communities of color. Spring is a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and leads a weekly sitting group in Oakland. She is in teacher training with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Deep, indeed is this dependent origination. It is through not understanding and penetrating it that people become entangled like a tangled ball of threads. —The Buddha (Long Discourse No. 15) When the Buddha awakened, he awakened to something. With the stilling of his mind and the dropping of his attachments, he awoke to Dependent Origination and attained liberation. This insight is the foundation of everything else he subsequently taught. The principle of Dependent Origination is that when anything arises dependent on particular conditions, it ceases with the ceasing of those conditions. So, for example, rain is dependent on clouds; when the clouds vanish, the rain stops. The Buddha used the principle of Dependent Origination to understand human suffering and how to bring that suffering to an end. According to the principle, if suffering depends on some thing, and that thing is eliminated, the suffering will come to an end. With his awakening, the Buddha understood the causes and conditions of suffering and how to remove them. It is with this insight that the Buddha could then teach a path to liberation. By understanding the concept of Dependent Origination, the Buddha’s teachings become clear. By personally seeing Dependent Origination, the Buddha’s teachings become liberating. The importance of this insight is emphasized in the ancient saying, “One who sees Dependent Origination sees the Dhamma; one who sees the Dhamma, sees Dependent Origination.” The Buddha’s first, succinct way of teaching Dependent Origination was with four Noble Truths which explain the cause of suffering and the conditions required for the ceasing of this cause. The first truth concerns knowing when suffering is occurring. The second truth is understanding craving as the cause of suffering. The third points to the possibility of ending that suffering. And the fourth truth describes the path to do this. When suffering seems impenetrable and the Four Noble Truths seem too simple for penetrating the complex tangle that gives rise to the suffering, it can be useful to investigate further with the Buddha’s teaching known as the Twelve-Fold Dependent Origination. This teaching lists a sequence of twelve psycho-physical processes where each process is presented as a necessary condition for the arising of the next process. When suffering, the final link, is seen as a condition for ignorance, the first link, the twelve links are often depicted as a circle. The image of a circle is useful in that it suggests that when the processes are not interrupted, people can all too easily loop around and around in cycles of suffering. However, all twelve processes seldom operate in a neat twelve-step sequence. More often they all also interact and shape one another in complicated ways. Instead of a circle, it might be useful to see each as different threads of a matted ball of threads. The task of mindful investigation is to discover some of the individual threads and the connections between them. It then becomes possible to begin unraveling the tangled ball of suffering. Because of the way they are all intertwined, loosening any one thread loosens the rest. Beginning with ignorance, the first seven processes in the twelve-fold list are the conditions that give rise to craving, which is the eighth item on the list as well as the second Noble Truth. The ninth to eleventh processes are those that build on craving to create the necessary conditions for suffering, which is the twelfth process in the sequence of Dependent Origination and the first of the Noble Truths. Ignorance, as the first step in the sequence, refers specifically to “ignoring”, or at least not understanding, our experience through the framework of the Four Noble Truths. When we are ignorant of our suffering or its cause, it is easy to look for happiness and peace in the wrong places. For example, pleasure can be mistaken for happiness; clinging and aversion can be assumed to be helpful strategies; and depending on a self-identity can be seen as important. One of the most significant symptoms of ignorance is believing that our psychological suffering is caused by external events. The teaching on Dependent Origination acts as a corrective to this by pointing to the role that our inner mental life has in suffering. Because ignorance is the first process in the Twelve-fold Dependent Origination, all the subsequent processes are dependent on it. In other words, ignorance runs through the other eleven processes. It is said, therefore, that applying the Four Noble Truths to any of the twelve processes can untangle the ball of suffering. Ignorance has consequences when it is the basis for how we react to the world. Ignorant reactions shape or “form” us, and this is why the second step in the twelve-fold cycle is called “formations“. Most prominent are the array of intentions and dispositions that arise dependent on ignorance. They can include such mental reactions as anger when a craving is frustrated, or anxiety when we are attached to a particular self-identity. Some of these may be momentary intentions; others may be pervasive motivations that shape both our personality and how we experience the world. The third step, usually called ‘consciousness‘, consists of the mental processes by which we cognize or pay attention to things – processes influenced by our dispositions and conditioning. How we are mentally disposed can shape how we pay attention and what we pay attention to. Our awareness is seldom unbiased. When connected to suffering, our awareness is selective and colored by our ignorant dispositions. How we pay attention has an influence on how we experience our ‘body and mind‘, the fourth step. So, for example, if I get angry at my suffering, this anger activates my body and mind in particular ways: I tense up, get hot, and become impatient. In addition, I might focus my attention so that I mostly notice what I don’t like about my body and mind. The first four processes are powerful conditions for how we use our ‘senses‘, the fifth step in the sequence. For example, if the first four links are shaped by selfishness, then we may use our senses to notice only things that have an impact on our self-centeredness. If they are shaped by anger then that may filter how we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the external world or how we ‘perceive‘ our inner world. How the senses are directed conditions how we directly experience the world. Sixth in the sequence is ‘contact‘, the meeting of our senses with the outside world or with thoughts and feelings. People often assume that the world they experience through the senses is how the world actually is. The teaching on dependent origination suggests that when we suffer, we do not perceive accurately and the way our senses connect to the world is biased. The seventh link is the ‘feeling tone‘ associated with any sense contact or perception. It is the seemingly impartial way in which we experience things as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. However, the feeling tones that are part of the twelve-fold sequence are influenced by the preceding six links and are therefore not necessarily objective. Feeling tone is a condition for the arising of ‘craving‘, the eighth link in the dependent origination of suffering. In other words, craving is a reaction to feeling tone. It can be quite humbling to discover how many of our desires, even seemingly sophisticated ones, are responses to feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness. Craving is a necessary condition for ‘grasping‘, the ninth process. We are not going to cling to something unless we crave it. The tenth step, ‘becoming‘ refers to the creation of states of being or states of mind based on grasping. It is called ‘becoming‘ because it is an ongoing process of coming into being. If I grasp onto anger, it is more than a passing reaction, it can ‘become’ a habitual response, or even a pervasive and enduring mood. Based on my ongoing anger, I may define myself by it: ‘I am an angry person.’ Giving birth to an identity based on our state of being is the eleventh process of Dependent Origination, and is called ‘birth‘. A fixed identity is a very significant condition for suffering because of all the expectation, assertion, disappointment, fear, and anger that can be triggered as we try to support or defend ideas we hold about ourselves. The combined working of the first eleven processes is the dependent condition for suffering, the final process in the sequence. In looking carefully at suffering it is important to remember we are always investigating the particular form it is taking. The word ‘suffering‘ is an abstraction and abstractions are difficult to explore. As a reminder to look into the particular expressions, the twelfth link has a long name: “aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.” Each link is dependent on all the preceding links. This means that if a particular step is removed, the subsequent links cannot occur. If one of the links is occurring, it will cease when any of the earlier processes are stopped. As we explore the tangled ball of our suffering, some threads are easier to discover than others and some can be addressed more directly. Using the framework of the Four Noble Truths helps untangle ignorance; insight into how our dispositions shape our experience can help us see more clearly; learning to not react to the feeling tones of experience lessens craving; not acting on cravings, lessens grasping which, in turn, lessens becoming. When the tangle of suffering is tightly woven, all these approaches may be needed. When the threads have become loose enough, a gentle tug on one strand may be all that is needed for the whole ball to unravel. And when suffering is untangled, what’s left is profound and peaceful. What’s left is not dependent on anything. —Gil Fronsdal (1) Ignorance → (2) Formation → (3) Consciousness → (4) Body & Mind → (5) Senses → (6) Contact → (7) Feeling Tone → (8) Craving → (9) Grasping → (10) Becoming → (11) Birth → (12) Suffering The October-December 2009 Newsletter is now available for download Gil Fronsdal talks about how “non conflict” is one of the central themes in Buddhism. Recorded at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California on Sept. 2, 2009.
Non Conflict from Insight Meditation Center on Vimeo. |
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