Monday, July 21, we will meet online.
Dear friends,
This week, we will meet Monday evening, July 21st, from 7-8:30PM EDT online; Wednesday morning, July 23rd, from 7-8AM EDT in person at our meditation space (3812 Northampton Street NW); and Friday, July 25th, 12-1PM EDT online.
On Monday night, Annie and Marie will co-facilitate, and we will continue to reflect on Thay’s book The Art of Power. This week we will focus on Chapters 6 (Boundless Love) and 7 (Being Present at Home and Work), pages 99-136.
They share: When we met to discuss these chapters, we were both struck by the power of this quote by the Buddha: “We have all that we are looking for within.”
In Chapter 5, Thay elaborates:
This is what the Buddha said at the moment of enlightenment: “How strange – all living beings have the fully awakened nature, but none of them knows it. And because of that they drift and sink from lifetime to lifetime in the great ocean of samsara, in suffering.
When we recognize that in us there is the essence of goodness, beauty and truth, we will stop going in search of something. We will stop wandering around feeling that we lack something… The great awakening occurs when we recognize that what we are looking for is within us.”
Every moment is an opportunity for a great awakening. For me, it can be easy to forget this and start looking outside of myself instead. As I contemplate these truths, I’m increasingly curious about what helps and what hinders my ability to remember.
We may spend a lot of our lives looking for someone who has more solidity or more wisdom than we think we ourselves do. I sometimes ask ChatGPT for advice in addition to asking friends and mentors in real life. I find it helpful to have people and search engines we can reach out to when we have questions.
ChatGPT recently wrote this to me, which I found very interesting and not dissimilar to Thay’s advice: “You often seek input from experts, science, Buddhist teachers, etc.—which is wise. But sometimes it seems you want permission to follow what your body, heart, or soul already knows. You might explore: Where am I still seeking external validation before I trust my own knowing?”
It seems like a tender balance to find–when to trust our own knowing and when to ask for support. When I am most in touch with the present moment, the place where Thay and the sangha exist strongly for me, I am most confident in my own knowing. In those moments, it’s as if I am held by the entire sangha throughout space and time. In less awakened moments (of which there are plenty), I lose my footing and look for a warm hand to help me stabilize. Both are okay. I think Thay is writing that we want to be careful not to get hooked by the need for external stabilization because the Buddha is right here, right now, whenever needed.
On Monday night, we’ll have an opportunity to explore our experiences with remembering and forgetting that we have all we need within.
We look forward to practicing together.
With love and a bow,
Marie & Annie