Near the end of his life, the Buddha spoke about being an island unto ourselves. Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) often refers to this island as a place of refuge inside of ourselves. There’s even a Plum Village practice song called The Island WIthin:

Breathing in, I go back to the island within myself.

There are beautiful trees within the island,

There are clear streams of water, 

There are birds, sunshine, and fresh air.

Breathing out, I feel safe.

I enjoy going back to my island.

This week will welcome folks who are new to us at 6:15 and offer some guidance on the flow of the evening.

Dear Thay, dear friends,

On Monday we will practice together and then read and explore our experience with the Five Remembrances, a verse recited regularly by Buddhists all over the world:

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.

This Monday evening, we will read the Five Mindfulness trainings and focus on True Happiness- the second Mindfulness Training

There is so much I can learn from this training, True Happiness. I read and practice this training over and over and I still find bits of understanding and wisdom that I have missed. 

In Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)’s book Happiness, Thay says, “Happiness is not something to seek out, but instead something to relax into.” 

We can cultivate happiness in each moment. I often find that I can touch happiness when I am resourcing myself in nature. In moments when I am stressed, feeling tense, and not able to concentrate, I can often find happiness in taking a walk, watching and listening to the birds, enjoying all the colors in nature, and gardening. All of these activities help me to center, calm, and find peace. And yet when I go home and back to the challenges in my life, I am often back where I started - stressed, tense, and agitated. 

Dear Friends,

This Monday is a special week as we will be welcoming monastic dharma teachers to our practice period. We will meet in person at the OHMC meditation space at 3812 Northampton Street NW AND we will offer a hybrid option this week for those who aren’t able to attend in person. Link to register for the online practice in full write up here.

On Monday evening we will welcome either one or two monastic dharma teachers:   Sister Hein Nghiem (Sister True Dedication) and possibly Brother Phap Huu. 

Our evening will flow as usual with sitting meditation and walking meditation and then we will open the floor to hear from the monastics. If there is time, we will open to dharma questions and sharings from the sangha. The evening will unfold naturally.

Hearing from monastic dharma teachers is a rare and precious opportunity to be in the company of people who have given their lives to the practice and have studied and practiced for many years with Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay). We can learn from their words and from their whole being. 

This week our subject of focus will be on creativity.

I thought for this evening we would take a slightly different topic for discussion, that of creativity. Creativity is a long time interest area of mine, and one I have returned to in recent months. Some of the more interesting books I have recently read have explored the more esoteric aspects of creativity and touch upon practices aligned to our mindfulness practice. 

Buddhism emphasizes the cultivation of a clear and focused mind through mindfulness and meditation. This can allow for creative insights and expressions to arise spontaneously, without attachment to ego or external validation. In Zen, creative expression is seen as a way to embody the present moment and express one's true nature. Creativity may also require dedication and persistence, as exemplified by authors who set daily word targets and do not leave their desks until they are reached.

On Monday night our sangha will honor Earth Day (April 22). The Chesapeake Earth Holder Community will join our practice. Magda will facilitate and lead us through the Five Earth Touchings, a guided meditation to contemplate what has been transmitted to us by our blood and spiritual ancestors. Participants will be able to practice in their chair if they prefer.  

“All of us have to become buddhas in order for our planet to have a chance”. Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, p. 5

Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) asks us to follow the example of Dharanimdara, a Bodhisattva he describes as “the one who holds the Earth.” Thay declares that Earth holders are needed in these times; that all those who have that source of strength in themselves need to find one another to turn this century into one of spirituality and collective awakening. Earth holders, he says, should meditate together, creating communities of resistance that promote interbeing with the Earth. Today we have invited the Chesapeake Earth Holder Community, of which I have recently become a member, to join our practice.

This Monday evening, we will have the opportunity to read the Five Mindfulness Trainings* together. 

This week we will focus our discussion on the first training, Reverence for Life: 

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.

In this training Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay), reminds us that our anger is not a small thing. Our anger, often born of dualistic and discriminative thinking, can lead to causing harm, even killing if we don’t know how to transform it. Even if we don’t kill anyone, our anger can cause us to suffer quite a bit, cause others to suffer, and cause families and communities to break. Our dualistic thinking can often manifest as thinking we are right/good and the other party is wrong/bad.

In the 12-step program I belong to, we have a practice of writing down the people and institutions we are angry at or have resentment toward.

Please join us as we contemplate the question: Who am I? 

Some may read this, and say ‘yes, I ask myself that question periodically,’ or ‘I know exactly who I am. Next!’

Thich Nhat Hanh writes: 

When you ask the question, “Who am I?”—if you have enough time and concentration—you may find some surprising answers. You may see that you are a continuation of your ancestors. Your parents and your ancestors are fully present in every cell of your body; you are their continuation. You don’t have a separate self. If you remove your ancestors and your parents from you, there’s no “you” left.

In thinking about this week's gathering, I wanted to build on the inspirational and thought-provoking discussions we've had in the last few weeks.

We have been focusing on the concept of "beginning again" and renewal; about intention and awareness, and  about our habit energies. These made me think about something I rarely focus on or prioritize in my life:  allowing and fostering stillness and space.  

This means prioritizing time to give myself stillness, shedding the daily worries, responsibilities and "to do" lists. Creating space to just be or even space to do something that gives me ease and pleasure.

As I reflected on this, I realized that, at least for me, stillness and space are not necessarily the same as sitting on my cushion as I do for a little bit every morning.  I'm not sure I even know how to create stillness and space in my life, though I'm sure I really need it.  

Fear can arise from worry, sadness of losing loved ones, fear that can arise when we hold on to the past and fear of what could happen in the future, fear of not being good enough or not being accepted and feeling excluded, fear of ill health and staying safe, and fear of conflict.  

I have experienced all of these and more. At times I hold on to these fears unskillfully and then the feelings consume my whole being causing me to lose myself in body and mind. I can lose the ability to find ease or peace.  My fears can unintentionally have a ripple effect on those I love, causing them harm. 

This Monday evening, February 27,  Annie will facilitate and we will meet in person at our meditation space at 3812 Northampton Street NW DC. 

We will read together the Five Mindfulness Trainings (full text below.) 

“When someone asks, ‘Do you care? Do you care about me? Do you care about life? Do you care about the Earth?’, the best way to answer is to practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings. This is to teach with your actions and not just with words. If you really care, please practice these mindfulness trainings for your own protection and for the protection of other people and species. If we do our best to practice, a future will be possible for us, our children, and their children.”  — From “For A Future To Be Possible” by Thich Nhat Hanh

This week we will focus our attention on the Fifth Mindfulness Training: Nourishment and Healing which includes this line:

I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins. 

During a recent OHMC conversation, someone asked this question, one I have heard many times on retreats and during dharma sharings: 

Do we really need to give up drinking alcohol if we want to follow this path?

This week we will have the chance to explore this question together.

Dear Thay, dear sangha,

This week, we’ll continue with Ellen’s theme of attention and intention.  Specifically, we invite you to notice those moments when you don’t follow through on an intention, are inattentive and/or are reactive in ways that you later regret. And once you have noticed, what happens next?

In the section on Habit Energy from The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay writes: Our habit energies are often stronger than our volition (intention). We need the energy of mindfulness to be present with our habit energies in order to stop the course of destruction. With mindfulness we have the capacity to recognize the habit energy every time it manifests. "Hello my little habit energy, I know you are there."

Rachel shares:  When I first sat down to write this I was not present. My focus was on everything except writing: Am I comfortable in my seat? Is my phone ringer off? I’m enjoying the sounds of airplanes around me. Let me clean my glasses first… I realized that all these distractions tend to turn up when I'm not in a space of mindfulness.

Over the last few weeks I've been living mostly in a space of non-mindfulness. Being "too busy" for consistent practice perpetuated more impatience and irritation, and eventually I found myself in a rut that became difficult to come out of.  

Buddhist teacher Tara Brach has written, “The Buddha taught that this whole life – including our thoughts, feelings and actions – arise from the tip of intention.”  I have been thinking a lot (perhaps connecting to my “beginning anew” focus in January) about “intention” and how it both differs from and relates to “attention.”

Serendipitously, I listened to a Tara Brach podcast recently (twice!) that spoke to this very issue, and let me share three things Tara said that I found very thought-provoking:

·  Intention creates experience. 

·  When we pay attention to our intentions, then  we bring more above the line into our awareness and presence. How aware are we of our intentions?

·  The path of awakening is focusing on our intentions and our awareness.

These made me think of a training Marie did some years ago in her home on her farm in which she talked about watering our good seeds, and bringing them above the line of awareness.

I have been thinking much lately about love and fear, its opposite. I have been pondering how fear can be converted into love and courage or their antitheses, anger and hatred. In these months of January and February, months in which we celebrate love and Black history, and commemorate both Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing and Martin Luther King’s birthday, I would like to honor the brave hearts who have overcome fear and walked through fire as they sought to bring love to our world.

I (Mary) am particularly drawn to this training as it seems to be the most challenging for me on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute basis. When attempting to be mindful of what I say, I realize I have to first be mindful of what I am thinking– all the stories that run in my mind. And this takes a lot more discipline and slowing down than my habit energies may allow. It’s hard enough when there is only one other person in the conversation. In conventional group discussions, pausing to reflect before speaking or deciding not to speak are additional steps that can help me slow down the rhythm. In my experience, I know that words can slip out so quickly that they may be poorly chosen. Then I can spend an outsized amount of effort trying to explain what I really meant/wanted to say. As a daily practice, I train “to speak truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope”. Not always successful, yet it remains my aspiration.

Please join us on Monday evening as we approach the one-year anniversary of the transition continuation of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)  to celebrate the mindfulness teachings that he spent his life sharing with the world. We can explore together the ways that these teachings and practices live on in our own lives.

This Monday evening, we will practice Beginning Anew Touching of the Earth to reconnect with ourselves and our practice.

I adapted this version of Touching the Earth from the book Plum Village Chanting from the Heart: Buddhist Ceremonies and Daily Practices and is especially suitable for the new year. 

Thich Nhat Hanh often teaches about the many seeds we carry in our store consciousness - the wholesome ones lead to more understanding and love and the unwholesome ones lead to harming ourselves and others. You might recognize our unwholesome seeds as the habits we develop to protect ourselves but that end up causing us (and everyone else) more suffering. 

In this version of Touching the Earth, we reflect on how our unwholesome seeds have caused us to be unskillful and we commit ourselves to cultivating and nourishing our wholesome seeds going forward….

As we begin this new year, I've been thinking about the popular annual ritual of creating new year's resolutions. The newspapers are filled with some resolutions collected from various folks, some quite lofty and some smaller goals. Many reflect the typical orientation of improving oneself, or improving the world. To my surprise, a few broke that mold and focused on the here & now, the importance of gratitude, etc. I used to write myself a few resolutions at the start of each new year that were aspirations for how I could do and be better. Yet they always felt ephemeral, not something that guided me in my days and weeks. 

So I've been pondering about what the mindful approach to new year's resolutions would be. I asked myself how I could balance letting go of specific goals with my need to continue to work on being more mindful, compassionate, and kind. And I'm always pushing myself to improve my listening skills.

Dear Friends,

This Monday Annie will facilitate and we will meet in person. If you’re new and want a quick refresher on the logistics of the evening, you can arrive at 6:30PM. Otherwise we will begin meditation right at 7:00PM, so please arrive a few minutes early to set up.

After our meditation period, we will consider the topic of Hope in and for the new year. 

Starting a new year feels to me like a moment of hope. Things can be different! Even if we have struggled and suffered, felt alone, depressed, or like we have messed things up, we can remember that a new year is right around the corner. 

As mindfulness practitioners, we do try to live in the moment as it is, but we don’t need to get stuck in thinking that things will always be this difficult.   

The Buddhist teacher Roshi Joan Halifax writes that “Wise hope requires that we open ourselves to what we do not know, what we cannot know; that we open ourselves to being surprised, perpetually surprised.” …

Dear Thay, dear friends,

Following our tradition for the last Monday of the month, we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings, which were created by Thich Nhat Hanh to help us cultivate and deepen our mindfulness practice.   We will concentrate on the Third Mindfulness Training, True Love (please see the text below) and explore the practice of “Cherishment as an act of healing”, which comes from the ARISE Sangha’s (Awakening through Race, Intersectionality, and Social Equity) Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings.

In their contemplation on the Third Mindfulness Training, the ARISE Sangha writes “...I cherish myself and my suffering without discrimination. I cherish this body and mind as an act of healing for myself and for others. I cherish this breath. I cherish this moment. I cherish the liberation of all beings guided by the wisdom and solidity of the Sangha. This is my path of true love.”

Last month, my elderly mother came to visit, fell gravely ill and spent the last four weeks in hospital. What strikes me, as I reflect on this time and on this moment in time, is the impact of cherishing and being cherished.