Monday, April 1, we will meet online.
Monday (April 1) is a newcomers night
learn more and sign up here
Dear friends,
This week: we will meet Monday from 7-8:30PM EDT online at our meditation space (3812 Northampton Street NW), Wednesday morning from 7-8AM EDT in person, and Friday 12-1PM EDT online.
Ellen will facilitate Monday night.
I've had the privilege of facilitating a few times this year already. In reviewing my topics and comments, I realized they were all focused on challenges and on difficult emotions. Yet I've been thinking a lot lately about joy and about how mindfulness can encourage my joy. My sense is I rarely experience joy, but reading and listening to Thay’s teachings on joy, I wonder if the joy is there and I'm not seeing it or allowing myself to experience it.
Simple joys abound: the blossoming flowers in my garden now, listening to a wonderful song when I"m sitting at my kitchen table working late in the evening and pausing to really hear it, having dinner or coffee with good friends, or appreciating that I'm two blocks away from Rock Creek Park with all its wonderful paths and beauty.
So why don't I feel as though I experience joy much? Thay teaches us that joy is to be found in the present moment, in our daily meditation, and other mindful things.
For me, joy is connected to the concept of letting go... letting go of my constant worries and anxieties, letting go of my constantly unfinished "to do" list. and letting go of all the "shoulds" I tell myself about what I should be doing or accomplishing.
I found this wonderful short excerpt from one of Thay's talks called "Nourishing our Joy and Happiness." We'll watch this excerpt when we meet in person on Monday.
I look forward to seeing the sangha on Monday in person.
Ellen
Dr. Gomez is one of the organizers of Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR), whose mission is to cocreate a cooperative community in East Baltimore owned by Black and Brown people. VOLAR seeks to build this cooperative community through the reclamation of land, healing, reconnecting, and building a base of community power.
Dr. Gomez has also written Race, Class, Power,and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America. Other relevant publications include: Urban Redevelopment and Neighborhood Health in East Baltimore, Maryland:The Role of Communitarian and Institutional Social Capital, Policing, Community Fragmentation, and Public Health: Observations from Baltimore, and Neoliberalization’s Propagation of Health Inequity in Urban Rebuilding Processes: The Dependence on Context and Path.
Dr. Gomez blogs at mariselabgomez.com.
All of Monday’s financial donations will be dedicated to VOLAR unless otherwise indicated by donors.