Just Saying.
As frustrating as it might be to take two steps forward and one back, you will still get to your destination eventually.
August 13th, 2009 - Posted in Musings | | 0 Comments
Atlantic Soto Zen Centre’s Annual Sesshin, July 16-20
I received this last night from the abbot of the Atlantic Soto Zen Centre. I would have liked to attend this myself but didn’t realize it was coming up so quickly! Oh well. If you can make it, read on:
Details are being finalized concerning yearly Zen Meditation Retreat of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center. The retreat will take place in Shad Bay, just outside of Halifax on June 16-20. It is an excellent opportunity to deepen one’s practice under the guidance of the patriarch of the Moku-Rai lineage. If you are planning to attend any portion, including the regular Sunday meditation service at the Dalhousie Multifaith Centre, and are not listed on the attached registration form, please let me know which days you will attend so that we can plan for the correct numbers of participants. All sangha members (especially initiates and disciples) are encouraged to attend as much of the schedule as possible. Carpooling is being organized. If you can act as a driver or require a ride on any of the five days please let me know, along with your phone # & address, and an updated carpooling schedule will be forwarded to you.
July 6th, 2009 - Posted in Announcements | | 0 Comments
Gampo Abbey Retreats
The Shambhala mailing list forwarded an interesting opportunity for those of you who want a taste of the monastic life:
In-House retreat is the one time in the Gampo Abbey year that people have the opportunity to participate in Abbey life without having to make a minimum 8 month commitment. The daily schedule at the Abbey provides a retreat-like environment for the community aimed at providing four hours of meditation practice and service (work) each day. Participation in all aspects of the daily schedule is required for those joining the community for an In-House retreat. Due to the nature of the schedule we strongly recommend that those applying to come to the Abbey for an In-House retreat already have an established meditation practice.
In-House retreatants will be asked to support the community by helping in the kitchen, working in the garden, tending the grounds or assisting with housekeeping tasks as their service. Each retreatant will be assigned a meditation instructor. There will be a dharma talk each week for the In-House retreatants given by a member of the monastic community. The Abbey also has an outstanding library of Buddhist and other literature and an extensive tape library of dharma talks particularly by Ani Pema Chodron, the Gampo Acharya. The Abbey is located near Cape Breton’s scenic Cabot Trail with many walks and trails accessible virtually from our front door.
PLEASE NOTE: Ani Pema Chodron will be on retreat in the US and will not be at the Abbey during the period In-House retreats are scheduled.
The Abbey can only accommodate a small number of in-house retreat guests at one time; the accommodations given to retreatants are small, simple, generally shared and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
We practice silence daily from wake-up until lunch and again after evening chants. Saturdays are open days (no schedule). Each Sunday is an intensive practice day in silence.
For more information and to apply, please visit the web site and download an application. We hope to see you this summer!
May 29th, 2009 - Posted in Announcements | | 0 Comments
Finding the Edges
It’s unusual for me to actually have an epiphany while doing my daily sit. But this morning I was looking at the walls of the room I have been repainting for that very purpose and it occurred to me that the painting has been taking a while. And then it occurred to me that I have a number of projects, both at work and in personal life, that have gone unfinished. Some for a very long time. And I suddenly wondered: when did I become a guy who doesn’t finish things? When and why did that happen?
It is both funny and sad that I should realize this now, especially after all my posts and reminders to myself about “what needs doing.” What needs doing? Finish what you start. Or let go of what will never be finished, and move on.
April 29th, 2009 - Posted in Musings | | 0 Comments
Absorbing the Blows
I have noticed a funny phenomenon lately thanks to my participation in forms of immediate digital communication, like instant messaging, Twitter, and texting. You can be having a perfectly reasonable conversation when suddenly your correspondent exclaims “OH NO!” or some similar interjection, and they continue to sound upset for some time. Naturally you try to find out what the matter is, you worry that you have done or said something wrong, and eventually you ascertain that your friend is having a general reaction to some piece of bad but not catastrophic news; the death of an aged celebrity, perhaps, or the announcement that a mutual friend has reunited with a partner that you dislike. Eventually you carry on, having weathered the ripple, and life resumes normally.
If the immediacy of Twitter and other instant messaging carries this potential for momentarily upsetting an entire circle of friends, I wonder if it can also have the opposite effect? What if we suddenly texted “OMG I’M SO HAPPY!” as if someone just asked us to marry them, only to reveal later on that we’re enjoying a particularly good sandwich?
Either way, I find myself wondering if those of us who have embraced this kind of quick-venting are happier than those who don’t. Do we bottle things up less? Are we in better touch with our feelings? Or is it a bad thing; are we distributing and multiplying the anxiety that we would usually deal with ourselves in the normal course of a day? Are we creating an unnecessarily negative psyche in the virtual world that will somehow leak into the real one?
We Buddhists like to go on about right speech and mindfulness. What, if anything, can we do to apply these principles to social media?
April 26th, 2009 - Posted in Musings | | 0 Comments
Resolution for Today
Stop worrying about what you don’t have.
Start worrying about what you do have.
Better yet, don’t worry at all.
February 27th, 2009 - Posted in Musings | | 0 Comments
Shambhala Curriculum Changes
I got a pretty big announcement in my email yesterday, from someone at Dorje Denma Ling:
——————-
Greetings Everyone,
I expect that you did know that there was a new curriculum coming out of Shambhala International. A few years ago it was a pilot programme in Halifax and other selected cities in N. America. Now it is the New Curriculum merging Shambhala Training Levels 2 – 5 with the study of Buddhism. This replaces the previous curriculum Shambhala School of Buddhist Studies (SSBS).
This new curriculum is entitled The Way of Shambhala: Tiger, Lion, Garuda, Dragon (TLGD) and consists of a Shambhala Training Level ( post Level One) plus a 6 week evening course of Buddhism.
Dorje Denma Ling is offering the first of the series, Tiger, in a one week residential programme starting January 31st. This program is open to everyone who has completed Shambhala Training Level 1, (which is offered as a one-day program on January 31st.) Level 2 begins on the evening of January 31st, and the “Tiger Series” classes begin on the evening of February 1st.
“The Tiger Series explores the foundational views of the Hinayana Buddhist teachings and meditation in action for daily life. As we understand further the painful conditions and emotions that keep us trapped in habitual patterns, we can open to our inherent goodness and experience the qualities of the Tiger: gentleness, appreciation and steadiness. ”
The schedule for the remaining three modules at Dorje Denma Ling is:
LION (including Shambhala Training Level 3): May 1-7, 2009
GARUDA (including ST Level 4): July 17-23, 2009
DRAGON (including ST Level 5): November 20-26, 2009
Co-ordinators and M.I’s Please note This is important information for everyone to know as this programme will be required study for future seminary applicants. Therefore this schedule and upcoming module is the place to start…and to do each of the series in one week at our wonderful Canadian Practice Centre.
See the Denma Ling NEW WEB PAGE for more details, and to register.
All accommodations are in Gyatso Lodge, and low income rates are available.
Dorje Denma Ling: Shambhala Meditation & Retreat Centre www.dorjedenmaling.com
info@dorjedenmaling.com, (902) 657-9085
Jan Watson
In Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.
—————————–
I find that very interesting. I don’t mean to judge the Shambhala people one way or another, but I do wonder why the change and why now. Feel free to correct me, because I am certainly no authority on this or anything, but my impression was that Shambhala was designed originally as a way to reach the Western audience in a non-denominational, non-openly-Buddhist way. Is this restructuring a sign of the times, where perhaps the average Westerner has a general awareness of Buddhism, knows people who are Buddhists, and are perhaps not especially attached to a faith-based religion? Or is it a more practical reflection of a reality where students are not taking all five levels before desiring entry to “real” Buddhist instruction? It is interesting to note that the email specifically mentions Hinayana instruction. Not that there is something wrong with that- it just interests me.
Anyway, this is pretty big news from a big organization. Best of luck to my fellow sitters and DDL with the new approach.
January 5th, 2009 - Posted in Announcements | | 0 Comments
Doing and Doubting
A chronic issue in my life has been a sense of anxiety over how much time I spend doing something. Generally this means that I always feel like I need to keep busy, and sometimes I find it difficult to simply relax and do nothing. In the past I would push myself to multitask, not necessarily to impress anyone or accomplish more, but rather to keep my mind engaged at all times.
Since I started meditating and studying Buddhism, I have tried to shift my habits so that I do relax more, and approach things with single-pointed concentration. I don’t always succeed, but I think I have improved. Still, there are times, such as today, when I feel so overwhelmed with what needs doing that I feel distress.
Not long ago I started to develop a sort of two-stage solution for addressing this feeling: the first stage is to simply ask myself “what needs doing?” and then do whatever is the most obvious, achievable, important thing. How those things get ranked is more or less a matter of common sense. The baby crying for supper takes priority over dusting the top of the television, but once the first is done, the second can follow. This approach lends itself to a more fluid and realistic life, I think, recognizing that the tasks we are confronted with are often not finished forever; just for now.
The second stage addresses those times when we are confronted with many tasks but cannot figure out what is most important, or perhaps we feel unmotivated to do any of them. I see this as a signal that what we need at those times is rest, and so: when in doubt, do nothing.
Oh, how my inner critic hates that. Do nothing, indeed. He warns that if I spend long enough in that stage, I’ll never do anything. After all, I don’t want to just perform subsistence tasks of cooking and cleaning and exercise and work: I want to create books and drawings and other objects to show and share with others.
And so I find myself in a different kind of doubt; self-doubt. After all, what difference will those creative products make to the world? My doubting self says “none.” Perhaps. Do I just want to show off and receive praise from the few people who see my work? Perhaps. Would my time be better spent meditating, or volunteering, or making a more direct contribution to those less fortunate than I?
Who knows?
I think I may have hit upon a third stage that falls from the second: when in self-doubt, eliminate the self. After all, if I am as Buddhist as I claim to be, there is no difference between “me” and anyone else. There is no “me.” I was noticing today that even after years of Buddhist study, if I look around my office and other areas of the house, I still see photos and posters and books and videos and all kinds of objects that help reinforce this idea of “me.” Would it be better if I sat in an empty house all day, with nothing to signify who “I” am?
No; it’s the attachment that matters, not the objects. And just as my office is littered with the books and posters and relics that I hold on to for one reason or another, my mind is littered with the scraps of self-concept that I used to hold dear. I take them out and look at them sometimes like old souvenirs, remembering how I used to draw comics all the time, or how I seduced this woman or that, or how I collected all of the books by a given author. Even though I am not that person anymore, I remember how I boosted my own ego with these and other “accomplishments” and I feel the urge to experience that again. We relive our past glories in our middle age, in old age, through our children, by any means we can, walking around that illusory sense of self like a donkey tethered to a post.
And that is why I meditate, and why I sometimes insist to myself that I do nothing.
January 4th, 2009 - Posted in Musings | | 2 Comments
Zazen-kai One Day Meditation Retreat
Happy new year! My resolution is to be more diligent with updating this blog. So, here is a message from Tesshin James Smith of the Atlantic Soto Zen Centre:
Interest has been expressed by some of our members in holding an all day zazen-kai (meditation practice) on January 24th. This would take place the day before our regular monthly “Sunrise Zazen” extended practice session. The day will include instruction and practice in sitting and walking meditation (newcomers are welcome to attend), a formal Oryoki lunch (instructions and utensils will be provided), and a dharma discussio based on several of Dogen’s informal lectures (Shobogenzo Zuimonki translated by Reiho Masunaga) and Eckhart Tolle’s view of spiritual practice as expressed in “The Power of Now”. Sections will be read together prior to the discussion for those who do not have access to these two texts.
Those wishing to register for all (suggested) or part of the zazen-kai are asked to let us know either through email or in person at the meditation room.
Also please note that the Sunrise Zazen sessions which have been taking place from 6:00-8:00 a.m. will now start at 7:00 a.m. until the winter parking ban ends in the spring.
January 2nd, 2009 - Posted in Announcements | | 0 Comments
Community Retreat at DDL
My apologies for the lack of updates lately. I recently received this from the Shambhala folks:
Community Mindfulness Retreat at
DORJE DENMA LING
November 8 – December 6, 2008
Join us for a peaceful and potent month of mindfulness meditation, healthy oryoki meals, daily walks and yoga, and mostly just sitting quietly. There will be group and individual instruction in mindfulness meditation and teachings to accompany you throughout the month.
*You are welcome for all of part of this month of simply sitting.
Cost is $25/day, or $700 for the whole month. (These prices include food and accommodations.)*
Completion of the entire month meets the dathun requirement. Everyone is welcome.
Phone (902) 657-9085 or email info@dorjedenmaling.com to register.
(Note: This program is replacing the Shambhala Art Dathun previously scheduled.)
October 27th, 2008 - Posted in Announcements | | 0 Comments
