Buddhism 101: Adult RE class to be offered at First Parish

Brenda will be offering a four-week exploration of Buddhism starting Wednesday, October 19, as part of the First Parish adult religious education program:

On Sunday October 4th, there will be a half-hour meeting after church for a sharing of resources about Buddhism (books, videos, websites, meeting times/places of local Buddhist meditation groups). Following that, for four weeks starting October 19th (dates subject to change as we figure out calendar commitments), there will be four evening meetings for a short practice period and discussion on the following topics (subject to change, depending on interest):

Week 1 (October 19th): Buddhism in America Today
Week 2 (October 26th): The Buddha
Week 3 (November 4): The Main Teachings of the Buddha
Week 4 (November 11): Summary and Closing Discussion

This should be interesting and informative for anyone in our group who would like to understand more about the origins and broader context of our meditation practice.

If you are interested or have questions, please contact Brenda.

Photos from Ajahn David

Ajahn David offered a couple of photographs for sharing. The first couple are from Ajahn Mangkone’s recent trip to Laos, where he put his civil engineering background to good use by designing and constructing a new kuti (monks’ quarters) at the Wat Ban Thaio monastery.

These photos were taken in April at Songkran, the Thai New Year.

The last photo is of Ajahn David, Ajahn Mangkone, the 14th Dalai Lama, and Tibetan monk Tenzin Josh, taken a few years ago at His Holiness’s residence in Dharamsala, India.

The Buddha: In his own words Extended!

The extraordinary life of the Buddha assembled from the original texts and performed as a one-man play
Conceived & Performed by Evan Brenner

http://www.thebuddhaplay.com/

EXTENDED!
April 22-25 at the Boston Center For the Arts
Tickets go on sale Tuesday, April 14th at Noon
Playing:
Wednesday, April 22nd 7:30pm
Thursday, April 23rd 7:30pm
Friday, April 24th 8pm
Saturday, April 25th 3pm & 8pm

Good stuff. Lots to learn and reflect on…I’ve seen it twice now….)

Practising Anger

I heard an interesting segment about anger on NPR’s “Morning Edition” today. The story is about a woman who, inspired by her own experience, opened a business called The Smash Shack which caters to people seeking a cathartic outlet for their anger and aggression. Modern psychological research, however, seems to suggest that “the more you get angry, the angrier you get.”

While it’s nice to see Western psychology finally catching up (for the most part), this insight is rather old news from a Buddhist perspective. In brief, when we practice something, we become good at it. This goes for both pleasant and unpleastant mental states. When we “practice” anger, we simply become more skilled at being angry. And the more we train ourselves, the more automatic it becomes.

Certainly there may be a kind of short-term satisfaction in venting our feelings, and it can be just as harmful — if not more so — to suppress them. However the short-term satisfaction is just that, and never truly addresses the underlying causes and conditions for our anger. The trick, then, to working skillfully with strong emotions is finding a balance point: acknowledging our feelings without letting them take control of our actions. And this requires being able to stop and pay attention to what’s going on in our own minds.

While smashing plates or hitting a pillow may seem like perfectly harmless activity, training in the unmitigated expression of anger is like building a bomb: it has the potential to go off when we least expect it, and in ways that can be truly harmful – such as road rage, mass shootings, and so on.

So the next time you’re so mad you feel like smashing something, do everyone a favor: just take a couple of minutes and watch your breath.

Diehard Dhamma

The Major League Baseball season gets under way — finally! — in less than a week, which undoubtedly prompted a very interesting article in the Boston Globe: “A Brief Inquiry into the Nature of Sports Fandom.” The author takes a lighthearted jab at diehard sports fans — himself included, apparently — concluding that “If you actually care deeply about your team, you are probably wrong.” The issue, it seems, hinges on “an ancient philosophical problem, that of identity over time.”

Funny, You Don’t Look a Day Over 10,950

I read a great article in the March 2009 issue of Ode Magazine introducing me to futurist, physicist and author on spirituality, meditation and the human mind, Peter Russell.

The article is a fascinating read, as is Peter’s website. Highlights of particular interest to fellow Buddhist practitioners:

Peter recommends measuring human age in days, not years. Here in the Northeast, we are able to experience the changing seasons that comprise a year, making the year of some relevance to our perception of age and passage of time. (Sidebar: An excellent book that uses the theme of seasons to help build a sense of gratitude is here). However, the passage of a single day may well be even more relevant, and certainly much more so for those living in regions with less or virtually no discernable change in seasons.

It was something I started doing 20 years ago. It just struck me that the day is the more natural cycle of our life. We’ve got 70, 80, maybe 100 years, but 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 days to live on the planet. It’s a whole different perspective and makes us value each day. When you look at your life in days, time seems to expand. It helps make me more present.

The Pursuit of Happiness

 

TV host Bill Moyers recently sat down with writer/teacher/activist Parker Palmer for a conversation about “maintaining spiritual wholeness even as the economy and political order seem to come apart.” One quote of Parker’s particularly struck me:

I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy.

Quotes from the Buddha

I found these quotes from the Buddha at this url: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/buddha.html

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quotes, but I found them interesting food for thought. Number 21 puzzles me. Number 39 brought a moment of clarity.  And many of them just confirmed what I think I understand about the teachings.  So for your consideration and enjoyment:

A Journey To Wisdom with Joseph Kappel at Back Bay Yoga

Matt T. kindly brought the following to my attention, if anyone’s in town and interested in attending:

A Journey To Wisdom with Joseph Kappel

Starts Wednesday, February 18
Continues February 25, March 4, 11, 18, 25
7:30 to 9pm
$85 for all six sessions

Joseph Kappel lived as a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition for 20 years as Venerable Pabhakaro – “Maker of Light”. He studied with Ajahn Chah in Thailand for 13 years and another 7 years with Ajahn Sumedho in Great Britain.

His initial interest in Buddhism was inspired by visits to Thailand from Vietnam where he served as a combat helicopter pilot in 1969-70. During his sojourns to Thailand, Joseph was deeply moved by a country and its people who have been immersed in Buddhist teachings for hundreds of years. In short, Joseph’s combat experience compelled him to search deeply within himself. The result has been a lifetime commitment to explore the profundity and mystery of our shared suffering and humanity, while continuing to sow the seeds and cultivate the fruits of Buddhist practice in his life.

For more details: http://www.backbayyoga.com/events.html#kappel

The Dhamma Brothers — Take Two

This past Friday evening Carrie and I ventured down to the First Parish (UU) Church of Stow and Acton, where the Peace Task Force of their Social Action Committee hosted a screening of the documentary The Dhamma Brothers.

The Dhamma Brothers is truly a must-see film. It tells the story of inmates at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama who volunteered to participate in 10-day meditation retreat under the guidance of two instructors from the Vipassana Fellowship. The two instructors were invited at the behest of Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, Director of Treatment at Donaldson, who had been inspired by a meditation program at the Tihar Prison in India.

What struck me most about the film is the poignancy with which the humanity — both positive and negative aspects — of the prisoners is conveyed. This something that is often lost in the public discourse about our system of justice/corrections. Certainly each man has been incarcerated for very good reasons, and there are graphic discriptions of the horrific crimes for which they have been convicted. Still, in hearing their individual stories one feels great compassion (karuna) for the suffering — often deeply repressed — that in many ways are the preface to the actions that eventually landed them in prison.