Dear Thay, dear friends,

This week, we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings, concentrate on the Second Training, True Happiness and continue our exploration of this week. If you were not with us last Monday, we explored part of Thay’s poem: Please Call me By My True Name

“...I am a frog swimming happily, in the clear water of a pond

And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog…”

As some of you know from previous sharings, I’ve been practicing (and not practicing:) with impermanence as my elderly mother changes in body and in mind. She is visiting us at present, and recently, I came face to face with my expectation that she would get “better” and my reaction to this “not happening”.

Please join us in mindfulness on Monday evening as we sit and breathe together.

On my way to Plum Village, I stay at a hotel in Bordeaux. My room is sparsely furnished and decorated; instead there hang on the walls a few drawings of ordinary objects. This makes me think of Becoming Animal, where David Abrams writes about how most humans tend to conceptualize and represent nature instead of perceiving and experiencing it. I ponder the relationship between we humans and nature, reflecting on how many of us barely speak or think about nature with reverence, or cultivate our possibilities for interbeing. We often forget that verbal communication is just one form of expression among many, and that other organisms detect in us nonverbal manifestations such as our chemical emanations and waves of energy.

Many human cultures teach their children to view nature as something to objectify, own, and master; a stock of resources waiting to be utilized. Children are rarely provided with vital information for the health of our planet, or taught to appreciate that “no one is too small to make a difference,” as suggested in the title of Greta Thunberg’s book. Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that the earth is not just a space we occupy.

My elderly parents have suffered a number of illnesses in the past couple years. Most from falls working in their garden.

I have spent much time going back and forth (they live about eight hours north) to help them as have my many siblings. One of my favorite things to do is to help with the garden; planting, watering, weeding and just digging in the dirt with my hands. Their soil is amazingly smooth and rich, a chocolate brown color, and so easy to work.

I have noticed recently that at times I felt angry at mother nature - as their work in the garden caused them many injuries. However, mostly I feel much happiness and try not to attach to how or where they were injured, and then think about watering my wholesome seeds of happiness and joy…

This Monday will be Memorial Day and Annie will facilitate. We will read the Five Mindfulness Trainings together and the ARISE contemplation on the First training: Reverence for Life (both below).

On Memorial Day, we traditionally honor those who have died fighting for the United States in wars and conflicts. This Monday, we will use the lens of the First Mindfulness Training to honor those who have sacrificed their lives and consider how we ourselves can protect and honor the lives of all beings.

How can the Mindfulness Trainings help us understand how to prevent and heal from this week’s killing of 19 small children while they were at school, or the racist and antisemetic killings at a Buffalo grocery store, a synagogue in Philadelphia in 2018, and the Charleston AME church in 2015?

Inclusion is both a community process and a community outcome.

OHMC is undergoing a process to help us ensure that our three sanghas are as welcoming as possible to all. We are dedicated to offer a safe, brave space for all who attend to feel welcome just as they are across the spectrums of gender, race, class, sexuality, different abilities, etc. You may wish to reflect back on your first experience of attending OHMC sangha. Did you feel welcomed? During this week, after sitting and walking meditation, we will ask sangha attenders to share their experiences and ideas in small break-out groups to identify ways to train our facilitators and improve our ability to welcome all people..

As I reflected on what I wanted to write for this week’s OHMC newsletter, I decided to share my personal experience with inclusivity. And times when I experienced only tolerance or even exclusion. For those of you reading who do not know me, I am a woman who chose another woman from another country, language and culture to be my life partner of 35 years. We, in turn, chose to adopt two infant girls from different countries, languages, and cultures. It all sounds so simple as I write this, yet it masks the deep family hurts and public prejudices we experienced along the way. To be excluded from Christmas dinner one year in France, for example…

Dear Thay, dear friends,

This week we will practice the Five Touchings of the Earth (see full text below). This practice was developed by Thich Nhat Hanh to help us connect with the whole of ourselves, our planet, and everything in between (people, places and animals and more…) When we are connected to our roots, to all that sustains us, we are happy and solid, no longer isolated and lonely. When we touch the Earth, we breathe in all the strength and stability of the Earth and breathe out our suffering... We can practice to celebrate the positive and transform what needs to be transformed." (Thich Nhat Hanh).

While I know, intellectually, that I am connected with the earth and all that it holds, I don’t always feel that connection (serious understatement!) It’s easy for me, especially during times of stress, to start spinning and lose touch with the roots that are always there to support me, if only I could feel them.

This week Annie will facilitate. She will complete her series on the Three Marks/Seals of Existence (see end of this write up for the full list) with a conversation on Nirvana.

The three marks of existence are the three concepts that are true for everything. In many Buddhist lineages, the three marks of existence are Impermanence, Non-self, and Dukkha (suffering). In fact, I used this model when writing about the three marks in my book (Things I did When I Was Hangry): every thing is impermanent, nothing has a separate self, and every thing is marked with suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) disagrees. He says that the three marks are impermanence, non-self, and nirvana. In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (p 20), he says:

It is not difficult to see that a table is impermanent and does not have a self separate from all non-table elements, like wood, sun, furniture maker, and so on. But is it suffering? A table will only make us suffer if we attribute permanence or separateness to it. When we are attached to a certain table, it is not the table that causes us to suffer. It is our attachment…:In several sutras the Buddha taught that nirvana, the joy of completely extinguishing our ideas and concepts, rather than suffering, is one of the Three Dharma Seals.

On Monday, Engaged Mindfulness working group members Allyne, Magda, and Phyllis will guide our sangha. We will explore how we react during global crises such as the war in Ukraine.

We will discuss how we can transform our emotions to reduce the suffering we see around the world and how we can cultivate and dwell in peace so that we may be proactive with our love and compassion. We will also share information on Engaged Mindfulness resources and on organizations we know of who are dedicated to helping those impacted by the Ukrainian crisis.

Dear Thay, dear friends,

Please join us on Monday evening, when we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings and turn towards the Fifth Training, Nourishment and Healing. I invite you to reflect on this passage: “I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition and consciousness.” In particular, I’m curious about how we “consume volition” and what impact does this have on our lives?

I hadn’t really thought about consuming volition until recently. During our recent OHMC retreat, Valerie asked us, during her second Dharma talk: what does it mean to live life with intention? She created space for us to explore this in small groups, and that was powerful. A little later, I was and continue to be, struck by quote she shared from Howard Thurman, a great theologian of the 20th century:

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Our teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) has said:

“Mindfulness is a kind of energy that we generate when we bring our mind back to our body and get in touch with what is going on in the present moment, within us and around us. We become aware of our breathing and come home to our body, fully present for ourselves and whatever we are doing.”

This is really not hard work - we don’t need to study hard to enjoy simple mindfulness practices - we merely need to notice throughout our day that whatever we are doing we can do it with awareness and concentration. With that concentration we can find clarity in whatever we are doing to help relieve our own suffering and that of others. Thay calls this “insight”.

In the book Happiness, Thay writes, “The insight we gain from mindfulness meditation can liberate us from fear, anxiety, and anger, allowing us to be truly happy.”

The mindfulness practices that I most regularly enjoy are conscious breathing (particularly as a yoga instructor,) sitting meditation, and walking meditation. I am pretty good at following my breath during yoga, noticing how the breath enters and leaves the body, conscious of how it brings my body and mind together, and noticing the peace and calm that ensue.

When something bad happens, it seems second nature to look for someone or something to blame. There’s a lot going on right now and there’s plenty of blame in the air. I don’t always see right away how I may be connected and contributing, directly or indirectly, to the cause and the solution. What is it that I could do or stop doing to help make things better? The slogan ‘Think globally, Act locally’ comes to mind.

Pema Chōdrön, a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition, teaches how to use blame to help us awaken and become more compassionate:

“When I first read the lojong, or mind training, teachings in The Great Path of Awakening by the nineteenth-century Tibetan teacher Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, I was struck by their unusual message that we can use our difficulties and problems to awaken our hearts. Rather than seeing the unwanted aspects of life as obstacles, Jamgön Kongtrül presented them as the raw material necessary for awakening genuine uncontrived compassion. It is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others. The lojong teachings are organized around seven points that contain fifty-nine pithy slogans that remind us how to awaken our hearts. Here are two of those slogans.

Annie will facilitate and continue with the series on the Three Marks of Existence (more on the three marks at the bottom).

This week we will focus on and practice the second mark: non-self.

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Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) often teaches the concepts of non-self using the example of a flower. He says:

“The flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower.

A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest herself, The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity.

The flower cannot be by herself alone. The flower has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud and everything in the cosmos. If we understand being in terms of inter-being, then we are much closer to the truth. Inter-being is not being and it is not non-being. Inter-being means being empty of a separate identity, empty of a separate self.”

What does this mean for you and me? And, how does this insight help me live a more conscious, caring life? Here are a few thoughts for us to ponder together…

Please join us in mindfulness on Monday evening as we sit and breathe together.

This week Annie will facilitate. She will start a three-part series on the Three Marks of Existence.

The Three Marks of Existence (sometimes called the Three Dharma Seals) are the basic characteristics of our world. Understanding them helps us see the truth about life and transform suffering.

The three marks are:
(1) annica — impermanence
(2) anatta — non-self
(3) nirvana — the joy of letting go of concepts.*

*Thich Nhat Hanh teaches nirvana as this third mark, though other teachers often refer to the third mark as dukkha, or suffering. Because nirvana and suffering are two sides of the same coin, “No mud, no lotus”, we can see that nirvana is as much of a mark of existence as suffering.

This week we will focus on and practice the first mark: impermanence. I’ll share about the other two marks the next two times I lead sangha.

When it comes to my body, I have a habit energy of attending to the “squeaky wheel” - the part that is not working as I want it to and/or is causing me pain. Over the years, I’ve tried to inhabit my body more fully, but somehow a gravitational force (aka - something in me) keeps pulling me back to my “equilibrium”. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with a radically different approach: bringing compassion and gratitude to different areas of my body that were not troubling me. As Thay might say about practicing with a “non-toothache”: “When we’re having a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. Yet when we don’t have a toothache, we’re still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant.”

This shift was prompted by my husband having been diagnosed with bladder cancer and the emotional and intellectual roller coaster that ensued. One night, I was lying in bed in the wee hours, awake and reflecting on how lucky we were that his asymptomatic cancer was discovered early enough to be treated. I was struck by the contrast between how much my body does relative to how little I’m aware of. So, I decided to try an experiment.

In her book Lost in Translation, Ellen Frances Sanders discusses the Nguni Bantu term ubuntu. Sanders describes ubuntu as the notion that “I find my worth in you, and you find your worth in me” and adds that it “can be (very) roughly translated as human kindness.” Human kindness is a virtue that is described in every language I can think of. For example, the Buddhist terms metta in Pali and maitri in Sanskrit are defined as loving kindness. I interpret metta and maitri as versions of the well-known Golden Rule, treating others the way we want to be treated. In my view this is done by being mindful of the worth in all of us, especially in our most vulnerable states, such as when we need refuge. Terms related to universal virtues, easily found in a variety of languages, are the ones I most aspire to identify with.

Dear friends,

At sangha on Monday night, we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings together, with a focus on the Third Mindfulness Training – True Love.

In December, I spent two weeks in the hospital in a lot of pain. One of the first things I reminded myself was that pain and difficulty is the nature of human life, and that I have a spiritual practice strong enough to support me and I had sangha siblings who are there to support me.

While I was still in the hospital, Valerie Brown and Mitchell Ratner, two of my dharma siblings, together with Opening Heart Mindfulness Community, offered a Monday evening healing ceremony which was very nourishing for me. Having the sangha hold me within the container of the practice supported me quite a bit and reminded me that I had all the conditions for happiness even during a very difficult period.

Andy will facilitate and share his Dharma topic with us on Monday Feb 14. Please join us in mindfulness as we sit and breathe together.