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Archive for the ‘community’ Category Meditation Practice:10 Red Flags
Some “Red Flags” that might mean it’s time to look deeper into your discipline of meditation:
1. Sitting on your meditation cushion, you give yourself only one option: feeling good. As for the other stuff—more or less your life—you take the attitude that it’s somehow all behind you.
2. In any given session, the number of times your mind meets the now corresponds with the number of times your smart phone vibrates.
3. Your meditation is anxious. After all, it’s about time you were a better person.
4. Having decided that you are fine just as you were, you meditate ... continue reading
 A Secret Shared
Tonight I have to be at the meditation center. Our little study group, all long-time practitioners of Buddhist meditation, will meet at 5:30. With our teacher’s blessing, 8-10 of us are reading and discussing sacred “terma,” or “hidden treasure” texts from the Shambhala tradition.
The road to this study group was long. Many years of dedicated meditation practice, contemplation, retreats, and funds were required. Perhaps this is why we are so few.
Students of meditation, we are also school teachers, engineers, bookkeepers, artists, Internet geeks, business executives, nurses, parents, and grandparents. The ... continue reading
 The True Refuge
According to my meditation teacher, to practice meditation is to be vulnerable, requiring the discipline of simplifying and slowing down. This journey takes intelligence and a willingness to acknowledge our connection to others. Sitting on our meditation cushion, we are exposed. Our willingness to be exposed is an expression of strength.
Of course security is important and meditation requires relaxation. But if we are left alone for a minute, and we give our discursiveness a rest, inevitably we begin to feel. To feel what we are feeling is to be human. ... continue reading
 Letter to Seniors: 7 Ways You Can Help
Editor’s Note: In this blog post, Michael Greenleaf imagines a letter from a member of the younger generation to those of us who are older. The tone suggests that age brings more responsibility not less, that to grow old is to grow up, and that these times carry with them some urgency. The qualities demanded in the blog are consistent with practice on the meditation cushion. In meditation we allow ourselves to slow down. Willing to expose our true nature to ourselves, genuineness, intelligence and caring for others are naturally ... continue reading
 Me Who Loathes Me: The Interview
On cold and rainy afternoon in West Barnet recently, I caught up with the Me Who Loathes Me. We shared a cup of tea and watched the clouds moving across the sky.
Me: So, when was it we last got together?
MLM: Yeah, not so long ago—at the funeral service for Paul, a fellow practitioner of mindfulness.
Me: Yes, Paul, what a wonderful man!
MLM: Yeah, if anyone ever put your schtick in stark contrast, it was Paul. He understood goodness, something that still eludes you. What do you actually do on your meditation cushion ... continue reading
 The Contentment Test
This year, the Christian tradition of Lent falls during the weeks before and after the first day of spring. Lent is a time associated with purification and renunciation. While Buddhism is no stranger to these practices, one of the words for renunciation in Tibetan can also be translated as “contentment”. (The word is chok-she, which literally means “to know enough, to know what is enough”.) Rather than self-sacrifice or a lowering of expectation, contentment refers to waking up from the confusion of continuous want; appreciating the richness of experience in each ... continue reading
 Cliff Dwellers
I promise, this blog is not about the fiscal cliff, slope or whatever it was. Not really. But I have to wonder, how it is we are all going to find reason in our relations with each other. By all accounts, the President made offers that should have enticed Republicans long before the deadline. “Why,” some wondered, couldn’t the holdouts in the House of Representatives just “listen to reason.”
In a book reviewed by the Times last spring, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers an answer. In “The Righteous Mind,” Haidt ... continue reading
 Buddhist Global Relief Announces Annual Walk to Feed the Hungry
Sparta, NJ, August 29, 2012 — Buddhist Global Relief announced today the cities and venues for its 2012 “Walk to Feed the Hungry” fundraising events. This is the third year in which Buddhist Global Relief will be holding a walk to raise funds for its programs that provide relief to communities around the world afflicted by chronic hunger and malnutrition. The Walk to Feed the Hungry began in 2010 in South Orange, New Jersey, and expanded to three cities in 2011. In the first two years, over $120,000 were raised ... continue reading
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