On Monday, Adriana and Marie will facilitate together. They share:
Last week, Annie led us in a wonderfully rich evening on the second mindfulness training: Generosity. As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote: “The Second Precept is a deep practice. We speak of time, energy, and material resources, but time is not only for energy and material resources. Time is for being with others -- being with a dying person or with someone who is suffering.” When we give our full attention to a person, a community, a cause, we are practicing generosity. And that generosity can effect change on several dimensions at the same time - one of the many fruits of interbeing.
For the month of May, we will explore the theme, practicing generosity, from several different perspectives. This is part of OHMC’s response to the global pandemic. Our hope is that by practicing generosity as individuals and as a community, and by learning about how our practice affects us, we can nourish ourselves, each other and the larger society of which we’re a part.
This week, we are focusing on generosity as it relates to interbeing and community. It is easy, when one thinks about generosity, to jump to the “I”. We would like to move to the “we” - the we of our community here at OHMC.
To help us move from the “I” to the “we”, Adriana will share her story:
As many of you know already, I started practicing immediately after being diagnosed with breast cancer. I needed something to help me find peace during those very frightening moments of my life.
I practiced for some time (maybe three years) with the focus on my persona, my feelings, my fears, my weakness and strengths. I started noticing that the practice was helping me feel more centered and calm, and when I understood the fact that the best way to accept the uncertainty of my own personal future was accepting the present moment, then I was ready to “move on”.
I was ready to look further than myself, and I started noticing that I was a part of a community and that this sangha was also my home.
Then, I started noticing what was going on in the larger community that I was living in. I started paying more attention to the suffering present in that community. I especially started paying attention to the incredibly vulnerable situation that the latino immigrants were living in.
I decided to speak up, to ask questions, to try to make others notice what I was noticing, and, most importantly, I acknowledged that I play a part in the injustice. Even though I wasn’t acting directly to harm this vulnerable community, I also was not doing enough to ease their suffering.
Then, I found an organization in the area that helped Latino women (mainly undocumented) to prevent, navigate, and treat cancer and to give emotional support to them and their families. It was painful to think how they, being in such a vulnerable situation, could go through the nightmare of cancer in this country. My English is not perfect, but I have the basics to understand what a doctor is telling me. The health system in this country requires an incredible level of skills and resources just to start understanding it. Fortunately, I have an education that helped me to navigate it, and thankfully, I also have insurance. These women usually have a second grade level of studies. I can't even imagine how frustrated and desperate they are feeling as they try to get treated without insurance, without economic resources, without the language. But, most of all, going through all of that being labelled as dangerous, as criminals, and as invaders.
So, I decided to become part of this incredible organization, Nueva Vida (New Life), that works to help them.
My role there is not very large, but the fact that I am able to give something and help the community I live in, gives me great joy and a sense of purpose that has helped me greatly. I need them to be well for me to be able to be well. We are all in this together ALWAYS not just during this COVID 19 emergency
We often reflect on the importance of the three jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Thich Nhat Hanh has said and written, numerous times, that the sangha is the most important part for a myriad of reasons - some of which relate to generosity.
In The Art of Communicating Thay writes about communities:“As powerful as compassionate communication can be when we use it in our individual relationships, its power is magnified when we bring it to our communities. Both communication and community have the same Latin root, communicare, meaning to impart, share, or make common. We need to go in the direction of reconciliation and understanding, not just with our friends and family, but in our neighborhoods and workplaces. We can create an inclusive, compassionate foundation as the basis from which we interact with everyone.
A community that is committed to mindful speech and deep listening can be very effective in making society better.”
If we reflect on our society from the perspective of interbeing, we see that each community inter-is with other communities. Our community, OHMC, inter-is with all communities - including those that seek to help the vulnerable during this pandemic. This perspective creates an opportunity, one we’ve chosen to take as part of our Emergency Response to the pandemic.
As you know from Friday’s email, OHMC has decided, as part of this response, to support Nueva Vida, a local organization that is working with one of the most vulnerable communities in the area. Alongside exploring generosity on Monday nights, we invite you to practice generosity with Nueva Vida through your awareness and/or your actions, and to reflect on how this feels as the month progresses.
Information about Nueva Vida was sent on Friday, which you can also find HERE, and you can learn more about Nueva Vida HERE. In addition, we will be sharing additional information in future emails. For our gathering on Monday, we invite you to reflect on some questions:
How are generosity and community connected?
To what extent does your practice help you to connect with a community/communities outside yourself and outside of your sangha?
To what extent do you feel like your practice of generosity with your larger community/communities also supports our sangha?
How can you help your larger community to be a better place to be?
We hope you will join us, and to “prime the pump”, we have shared more wisdom from Thay below.
In The Art of Communication, Thich Nhat Hanh writes
Community Strengthens Compassion
“Scientists have studied the behavior of social animals, such as birds and fish, and have found that in every community there is an element of altruism; some members of the community are ready to die and sacrifice their lives for the sake of the community. There is a kind of fish called a stickleback. They swim in bands, thousands of them. Whenever they notice the shadow of a predator, a large fish that might threaten the band of fish, a few dozen will detach themselves and go explore. They know there's a risk, but they want to go in that direction to see if the threat is real. If they find there's no risk, they go back and rejoin the band of fish. If there is a real danger, a few of them will stay to be swallowed by the big fish while the rest go back and tell the band of fish to go in another direction. Ants also behave like that, as do bees and some kinds of birds. We humans also hear news reports of heroes sacrificing themselves in this way. This behavior on the part of some members of your community nourishes your own generosity and altruism.
Scientists in this fish study found that if a school stays together, the generosity will grow. The descendants will profit and become more and more generous. But if they are dispersed, the generosity dies down very quickly. According to scientists who have conducted studies, when you’re exposed to such behavior from some members of your community, the seed of altruism in you is watered. And when your turn comes, you will do the same you will know how to sacrifice for the sake of the community.
Living in the world, we have strong habits. We walk without any awareness or enjoyment of our steps. We walk as if we must run. We speak but don't know what we are saying; we create a lot of suffering while speaking. Communities that commit themselves to mindfulness can help members of the community learn how to speak, breathe, and walk mindfully. The community helps train you, and you train yourself. When we practice in a community, there are more people to support us but also more opportunities for frustration and anger. Loving speech and deep listening are key to community building. You learn to speak in a way that will not cause suffering in yourself and your community. If your community doesn't practice this, it's not an authentic community. Even if you have suffered in anger, you can train yourself to speak in a way that helps the other person or group understand what is going on in you, and that makes real communication possible.
Our World Can Be a Mindful, Compassionate Community
We need to find better ways to communicate. If we can do this in our relationships, we can do it in our work environments, and even in our political environments. We must transform our governments into mindful, compassionate places of deep listening and loving speech. We each can do our part to contribute as a citizen, as a member of the human family. In the process of community building we get the transformation and healing we need to further the transformation and healing of the world.
This is a process of training and · learning. When you speak, allow the insight of our collective humanity to speak through you. When you walk, don’t walk for yourself alone; walk for your ancestors and your community. When you breathe, allow the larger world to breathe for you. When you’re angry, allow your anger to be released and to be embraced by the larger community. If you know how to do this for one <lay, you are already transformed. Be your community and let your community be you. This is true practice. Be like the river when it arrives at the ocean; be like the bees and birds that fly together. See yourself in the community and see the community in you. This is a process of transforming your way of seeing, and it will transform how, and how effectively, you communicate.”