lotusinthemud

the sun is always shining

[T]his enlightenment of the Buddha's was profound and brilliant, accurate and powerful, and also warm and compassionate. It was like the sun behind the clouds. Anyone who has taken off in an airplane on a grim and gloomy day knows that beyond the cloud cover the sun is always shining. Even at night the sun is shining, but then we can't see it because the earth is in the way, and probably our pillow also. The Buddha explained that behind the cloud cover of thoughts - including very heavy clouds of emotionally charged thoughts backed up by entrenched habitual patterns - there is continual warm, bright, loving intelligence constantly shining. And even though in the midst of thoughts, emotions, and habitual patterns, intelligence may become dulled and confused, it is still this intelligence in the midst of thoughts and emotions and habits that makes them so very captivating, so resourceful and various, so inexhaustible.

~ Samuel Bercholz, Entering the Stream

not always there

In traditional Buddhist texts the five energies of Lust, Aversion, Torpor, Restlessness, and Doubt are called "Mind Hindrances" ...because they obscure clear seeing, just as sandstorms in the desert or fog on a highway can cause travelers to get lost. They hinder the possibility of us reconnecting with the peaceful self that is our essential nature. They confuse us. We think they are real. We forget that our actual nature is not the passing storm. The passing storm is the passing storm. Our essence remains our essence all the time.

Five different energies seem like a limited menu, but they present themselves in an infinite variety of disguises. Ice cream sundaes are different from pizzas are different from sex, but fundamentally they are all objects of the lustful desire....Grumbly mind is grumbly mind; sleepy mind is sleepy mind; restless mind is restless mind; doubtful mind is doubtful mind.

The fact that it's in the nature of minds for storms to arise and pass away is not a problem. . . .[It] helps in keeping the spirits up to remember that the weather is going to change. Our difficult mind states become a problem only if we believe they are going to go on forever.

~ Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think

dharmavidya on 'love and its disappointment' seminar

Dharmavidya writes:

It has been an intense day. We are holding a weekend seminar on themes from the new book. There are about fifteen visitors plus members of the household: a lively group that has engaged in a lot of intelligent discussion, sharing personal experiences, and exploring relevance of the theory for ordinary life, for therapy practice and also for wider application to social questions. Although we have changed the format periodically to assist the process, discussion has flowed fairly continuously all day with occasional inputs from me. This is pretty impressive given that with the book not arriving until Thursday nobody had had the opportunity to read it in advance. I realise in retrospect that I was somewhat nervous how the day would go since this late publication meant that this was the first public airing on the work. It was both a relief and a satisfaction that many people found the day inspiring and spontaneously came to tell me so.

Some themes: # contrasts between 'ideal' and actual love # critique/appreciation of 'mindfulness' methods # the question whether avoidance of disappointment means not loving # the risks of love # the ubiquity of the dilemma: can one love again # the proper attitude toward emotion in spiritual practice # since love involves holding one other more dear than others does it generate conflict and # does it contradict 'democratic' or 'justice' ideals? # loving people one does not like # the dilemma of therapy as a requirement to love on demand for a fee # appreciation/critique of the theories of Carl Rogers

::link

don't fall prey

The essence of practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.

~ Pema Chodron The Places that Scare You : A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

'unconditional love': an evening with dharmavidya, 20th may 2009

'Living in the Light of Unconditional Love'

Rev Dharmavidya David Brazier is the Spiritual Teacher and Head of the Amida Order, a Socially Engaged Pureland Buddhist School. He is the acclaimed author of a number of books including The Feeling Buddha, Zen Therapy, Who Loves Dies Well and The New Buddhism.

Donations  welcome  suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Date: Wednesday 20th May, 2009

Time: 7 - 9 pm

Venue: Northumbria University Chaplaincy

Room 116, Wynne Jones Building (1st floor - there is disabled access)

Northumbria University

Ellison Place

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 8ST

no 17 on the Campus map

Donations welcome: Suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Contact: Reverend Sujatin Johnson, Buddhist Chaplain - sujatin[at]gmail[dot]com

Hosted by the Buddhist Chaplaincy at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities

This is an open meeting - All Welcome!

'Living in the Light of Unconditional Love'

Rev Dharmavidya David Brazier is the Spiritual Teacher and Head of the Amida Order, a Socially Engaged Pureland Buddhist School. He is the acclaimed author of a number of books including The Feeling Buddha, Zen Therapy, Who Loves Dies Well and The New Buddhism.

Donations  welcome  suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Date: Wednesday 20th May, 2009

Time: 7 - 9 pm

Venue: Northumbria University Chaplaincy

Room 116, Wynne Jones Building (1st floor - there is disabled access)

Northumbria University

Ellison Place

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 8ST

no 17 on the Campus map

Donations welcome: Suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Contact: Reverend Sujatin Johnson, Buddhist Chaplain - sujatin[at]gmail[dot]com

Hosted by the Buddhist Chaplaincy at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities

This is an open meeting - All Welcome!

beyond guilt - an evening with caroline brazier, 19th may 2009

Spend an evening with psychotherapy trainer and author, Caroline Brazier, on her return visit to the N.E., where she lived for over 20 years. Her talk will be based on the subject matter of her latest book ‘Guilt, an Exploration’: ‘a journey into areas of life which both fascinate and repel us. Weaving together an account of a group of young people, fine grained analysis of the emotional and ethical basis of guilt, and illustrations draw from a variety of life circumstances, she examines the complexity of a subject which troubles many people in the modern world. She deals sensitively with some of the most challenging areas of human experience, while retaining a joy in life. At times both humorous and emotive, her book reveals the beauty of the everyday and the pathos of the ordinary.’

Book review ::here and ::here

Date: Tuesday 19th May 2009

Time: 7 - 9 pm

Venue: Northumbria University Chaplaincy

Room 116, Wynne Jones Building (1st floor - there is disabled access)

Northumbria University

Ellison Place

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 8ST

no 17 on the Campus map

Donations welcome: Suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Contact: Reverend Sujatin Johnson, Buddhist Chaplain - sujatin[at]gmail[dot]com

Hosted by the Buddhist Chaplaincy at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities

All Welcome!

Spend an evening with psychotherapy trainer and author, Caroline Brazier, on her return visit to the N.E., where she lived for over 20 years. Her talk will be based on the subject matter of her latest book ‘Guilt, an Exploration’: ‘a journey into areas of life which both fascinate and repel us. Weaving together an account of a group of young people, fine grained analysis of the emotional and ethical basis of guilt, and illustrations draw from a variety of life circumstances, she examines the complexity of a subject which troubles many people in the modern world. She deals sensitively with some of the most challenging areas of human experience, while retaining a joy in life. At times both humorous and emotive, her book reveals the beauty of the everyday and the pathos of the ordinary.’

Book review ::here and ::here

Date: Tuesday 19th May 2009

Time: 7 - 9 pm

Venue: Northumbria University Chaplaincy

Room 116, Wynne Jones Building (1st floor - there is disabled access)

Northumbria University

Ellison Place

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 8ST

no 17 on the Campus map

Donations welcome: Suggested amount £5/£3 students, unwaged, retired

Contact: Reverend Sujatin Johnson, Buddhist Chaplain - sujatin[at]gmail[dot]com

Hosted by the Buddhist Chaplaincy at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities

All Welcome!

the reason we don't let go of our thoughts

Sometimes we find that we like our thoughts so much that we don’t want to let them go.

~ Pema Chodron The Places that Scare You : A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

how are we ever going to change anything?

How is there going to be less aggression in the universe rather than more? We can then bring it down to a more personal level: how do I learn to communicate with somebody who is hurting me or someone who is hurting a lot of people? How do I speak to someone so that some change actually occurs? How do I communicate so that the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some kind of basic intelligence that we all share? In a potentially violent encounter, how do I communicate so that neither of us becomes increasingly furious and aggressive? How do I communicate to the heart so that a stuck situation can ventilate? How do I communicate so that things that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften up, and some kind of compassionate exchange begins to happen?

Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.

~ Pema Chodron When Things Fall Apart : Heart Advice for Difficult Times

nothing is static or fixed

That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything - every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment.

~ Pema Chodron The Places that Scare You : A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

taming what was wild

As I left my daytime resting place on Vulture Peak,
I saw an elephant
come up on the riverbank after its bath.

A man took a hook and said to the elephant,
Give me your foot.
The elephant stretched out its foot; the man mounted.

Seeing what was wild before
gone tame under human hands,
I went into the forest
and concentrated my mind.

~ Dantika, in Susan Murcotts The First Buddhist Women from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book