Monday, June 22, we will meet online.
Dear friends,
This week, we will meet Monday evening, June 22, from 7-8:30PM ET online; Wednesday morning, June 24 from 7-8AM ET in person at our meditation space (3812 Northampton Street NW); and Friday, June 26, 12-1PM ET online.
On Monday, Rachel H. will facilitate. She shares:
In early June, my students took one of their many annual standardized assessments. I am not a fan of these tests, and I do not bring an open heart to my thinking about them. As I was reading over a student’s shoulder, I was alarmed to see a question about triangle classification that had two correct answers. We had done a lesson on the topic the day before, and I felt like a real expert.
I took a picture and contacted the assistant principal, and we were about to contact the central office, when he looked at the question one more time and saw the triangle’s angles differently. I was wrong! My first response was to keep arguing (inside my head), but I finally let go and laughed at my attachment to that imagined mistake.
In reading the First Mindfulness Training, Reverence for Life, this embarrassing episode occurred to me when I got to “I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.”
My attachment to the view that this particular standardized test is bad meant that I lost the ability to really see what was happening. While this is an inconsequential example, this phenomenon of attachment to views is an area where I need a lot of work. What am I grasping at when I am sure about something? What is behind my need to be an expert? What am I missing when I am attached to a view?
Episode 86 of The Way Out Is In explores this question, taken from a well-known calligraphy by Thay. The first time I listened, I was so taken with it that I created the above collage for my altar to help me keep this question in the front of my mind. For me, creating it was a concrete way to cultivate an open space for deep listening and curiosity.
On Monday, we will read the Five Mindfulness trainings and have the chance to share all the ways we all are experts. :-) And all the ways we let go–even briefly–of being sure.
With a bow,
Rachel H.
Reverence For Life
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.