lotusinthemud

a conversation with david brazier (dharmavidya)

: link

I receive an email from Tamuly Jung in France telling me that a neighbour of hers, David Brazier, is in Edinburgh for events organised by the Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace.  This is an events-led Scottish charity organising programmes to promote the understanding of spirituality, and of interspirituality and intraspirituality, and its diversity.  She tells me that he agrees to let me use excerpts from his latest book, Not Everything is Impermanent.

Dr David Brazier is the President of the International Zen Therapy Institute, Dharmavidya of the Amida Order of Pureland Buddhism, Zen master, psychotherapist and author of nine books.  David resides a couple of villages distant from Tamuly who is living in a commune, The Oasis of Long Life.  [See previous article, Many Roads, October]

He is staying at the Panda Villa guest house in Kilmaurs Road.  Everybody in my Buddhist Thinkers’ Group has heard of David except me.

Gardening with M.E.: Getting Comfortable

Since moving to this lovely house, I have inherited a beautiful garden - terraced, full of shrubs and flowers and soft fruit. And it has a pond. So far all I've had to do is feed the birds but soon the snows will go, the ground will warm up and nature will get itself into gear. Which I'll need to do, too, if I'm not to be overwhelmed. I'm glad to have discovered this post:

With illnesses like ME, fatigue and pain as well as brain fog and concentration lapses are common. So, it's important to make sure that when you garden, you are as comfortable as possible to help keep symptoms at bay. With trial and error, you should be able to find an approach that allows you to focus on your hobby - even if just for a few minutes - instead of worsening your symptoms.

teaching mindfulness to teenagers

School and university terms will be starting soon. There are many challenges for people of all ages throughout life. For some young people, the end of the year will mean crucial exams. Maybe some of the stress for students - and parents - could be mitigated by mindfulness skills:

:: link

Sarah Rudell Beach 

Writer, mother, teacher, and blogger at LeftBrainBuddha.com

Teaching Mindfulness to Teenagers: 5 Ways to Get Started

 

 

When we think of mindfulness, we may not think of teenagers.

But a growing body of evidence suggests that mindfulness practice could be beneficial to teens, helping them cultivate empathy, as well as skills for concentration and impulse control. In short, mindfulness can help adolescents navigate the challenges of adolescence.

As parents or teachers, we can introduce young people to the practice of mindfulness, or purposeful, nonjudgmental awareness. It might take some work, however, to convince teenagers of the value of slowing down, disconnecting from their digital devices and simply breathing.

So let's start with square one: getting "buy-in" when teaching mindfulness to teens.

the heart of zen therapy

Here's Dharmavidya on the course he has been teaching in Korea:

Day One: Qwan Shi Yin practises deeply

Introductory remarks about Buddhist psychology, Zen Therapy and about the sutra.
Introductions by individuals. Three particular themes emerged

• the challenge of living the Dharma life, whether as a person in the robe or as a layperson
• the question of all acceptance
• the matter of space and emptiness

Input:

• Do not criticise, but accept everything
• Do not be proud of oneself and devalue others
• Do not seek personal advantage
• Do not advertise one's own virtue, nor the faults and failings of others
• When one finds that one has done these things (as all of us do) tery to avoid becoming defensive or self-punishing and, instead, learn how it is to be a human being.

After lunch
Talk:

• Two main characters: Quan Shi Yin and Shariputra
• Two main concepts Prajna and Paramita

Quan Shi Yin and Shariputra as two different kinds of intelligence that need to be in communication with one another, the heart and the head. In helping others, the heart leads the head, but must not try to do without the head. Quan means to look deeply. Yin means tears, crying. Shi refers to generations of people. Quan Shi Yin looks deeply into the tears that have come down through the generations. The therapist attends carefully to the distress that has come to the client, knowing it as an instance of the suffering of all beings.

Prajna is cognate with “diagnosis”. There is a surface presentation and a deeper meaning. There is an immediate manifestation and a longer term process. Paramita refers to the other shore, beyond the rushing torrent of emotion and karma. The therapist has confidence that together they will reach the other shore, and that the way to get there will actually be revealed within the torrent itself.

Then the group divided into small groups to discuss the material presented.

Then we did an exercise: each person made a list of who they would choose from the group to represent different members of their family or other significant people in their life. After the break there were a series of pairings exploring the relationship between projection and reality.

:: continue reading here

enrich your prayer life in the new year - ananda

Ananda, gankonin with the Order of Amida Buddha, writes:

Christmas has passed. Christ, as baby Jesus is among us. The New Year approaches. It is a special moment in time when we reflect upon the past and the future. We remember friends and family who have departed. We consider what we have done and what has been left undone? Looking forward, we contemplate our hopes and aspirations for the new year.

For people of faith, the new year marks an opportunity to renew vows or refocus on the interior life of prayer and contemplation. Life is both precious and uncertain. We do not know when we will depart this world. More importantly, we do not know the good that might arise if we cultivate an interior life and turn our minds to that which is beyond self.

The new year is a time to take stock of our lives and make a small commitment to deepening our spiritual practice. Nothing grand or heroic is required. The life of spiritual transformation is lived one day at a time. It is lived in the day to day interactions with the people in our lives. It is lived in how we handle the many small challenges and sufferings of daily life.

Here are three simple things you can do to enrich and and deepen your interior life.

1. Prayer / Meditation: Make a commitment to daily prayer, meditation, or contemplation. Again, nothing heroic, like committing to four hours or two hours or even one hour of prayer every day. While laudable, this level of commitment is totally unrealistic for most and bound to failure.

More realistic is a commitment of 10 to 15 minutes of prayer or meditation a day. The best time for prayer is first thing in the morning. Ten minutes does not seem long, but I assure you that on some days it will feel interminable. The first few days or weeks will go smoothly but before long temptations and hurdles will arise. You will be tired or bored or both. Other things will try to crowd into even those few minutes you have set aside. Resist and remain steadfast. If you persevere, you will be amazed that these precious ten minutes were not always a part of your life.

2. Scripture: Make a commitment to the daily reading of scripture from you religious tradition. Again, nothing grand and heroic is required. Don’t make it complicated. Just take a few minutes everyday and read a short passage. There are many wonderful books and Apps available that can provide you with daily readings throughout the year. There are also books on how to read and contemplate scripture, while valuable, do not let these become barriers to actually reading the texts. The texts themselves, if encountered on a daily basis, will be enough.

3. Community: Consider regular attendance and membership in a church from your religious tradition. I know that this is a big barrier for a lot of spiritual people. I am definitely sympathetic to people who have been turned off by their local Christian Church or Buddhist temple. Dealing with people, church structures, uninspired sermons, mumbled hymns, and bad or offensive theology can be a real challenge. I get that. However, none of us can live a religious life in isolation. We need both the support and challenges that are found in a religious community.

Whatever your path, make a commitment to enrich your interior life in the New Year. If you know what that will look like, try it out in the few days leading up to the New Year. Is it realistic? Is it doable? If yes, then start today. If not, make some adjustments and try again.

Finally, have some compassion and forgiveness for yourself. Even ten minutes of prayer or meditation a day is a big commitment. You are bound to fail occasionally. That is fine. It is not the end of the world. Just start again the next day.

Peace, Ananda

:: link

this is life

"The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living."

~ R. H. Blyth

with thanks to Satya of Writing Our Way Home

let grace in ~ dharmavidya

Grace provides the framework within which a meaningful life is lived. Love is the substance of it day to day. To live a spiritual life, then, is essentially to do things “for the love of it”—to do things without attachment to a result or reward. It is a matter of living in a simple way and having a practice that enables you to return again and again to the consciousness of life’s all-enfolding blessing.

Grace is the key to happiness. When bad things happen, if we have confidence in grace, then we can remain grounded in that and not be overwhelmed by the soap opera of life. And grace is a circular blessing. The more grace enters your life, the more grateful you are. The more grateful you are, the more easily grace seems to enter. You can do the following things in order to let grace enter your life:

• Remember grace as the epitome of love.
• Don’t claim the credit.
• Appreciate whatever comes and make the absolute most of it.
• If you meet with troublesome or adverse circumstances, remember to establish yourself in the realm of grace and unhook from the world of transient things — disappointments are part and parcel of life.
• Live fully with no “no-go” areas: sometimes we are joyful, sometimes sad, sometimes we rejoice, and sometimes we grieve.
• Have a regular practice of remembering and celebrating grace.
• Love.
• Count yourself as of no importance and return to childlike simplicity.
• Allow feelings to come and go, yet know a deep contentment that fills your days.

Adapted from the blog of Dharmavidya David Brazier (amidatrust.typepad.com).

:: link to article in Tricycle

porridge for breakfast (and thoughts on micro-productivity) - from michael

I've been reading Michael's blog, listening to his podcasts and reading his charming books for a number of years. Michael, who has M.E., as do I, is so good at maintaining a life of creativity around his limited energy. Today he writes:

Last week was a busy week.

As well as running the Get The One Thing a Day Habit course for the first time I was working hard on getting some sample pages ready for the book I’m working on for Perigee Books.

I thought I’d planned things well, leaving myself plenty of time for rest and recuperation, but problems with my home Internet connection meant that I had to go to town everyday to upload material for the course and the book and do all the other things that I rely on having a connection to the web for (most of what I do!).

Being forced to focus

At the beginning of the week I really enjoyed my trips to town. I was forced to focus, carefully planning and fitting everything I needed to do into the couple of hours I was in town for. Making (I thought) the very best use of my time.

transforming our terror

Here's Vishvapani's interview with Christopher Titmuss:

As the Iraq war waged meditation teacher Christopher Titmuss wrote Transforming our Terror, exploring the response to 9/11 and the drive to war: ‘They decided that the way to combat their fear was to hit out.’ Vishvapani met him in Totnes to discuss the book and Buddhist responses in a time of war

Christopher greeted me at his house in Totnes, southwest England, in a large black hat, long black raincoat, and trailing black scarf. A senior teacher in the Insight Meditation movement, Christopher is without the cool reserve of some of his contemporaries. In Buddhist circles he has dispensed with his surname and now prefers to be known simply as Christopher. He has large, friendly eyes and an immediately engaging manner. Engagement is one of his themes. ‘I recently told one Dharma group, ‘I think I prefer Moslems to Buddhists. At least they have some fire, some passion …’. It was a provocative way of saying that I think Buddhists can be so ‘nice’, and so passive.’

We met to discuss a book Christopher had published in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, called Transforming Our Terror: a spiritual approach to making sense of senseless tragedy. ‘I have been visiting the US for 25 years, but mainly just to lead retreats. So the America I encounter is the American mind. And I noticed that after 9/11 there was a great deal more fear and anxiety among the people I was teaching. I started to ask myself, what can Buddhist practice say to this experience?’

The result is an enquiry into the nature of fear, grief, loss, and how the human mind processes and makes sense of them.

:: continue reading here

some thoughts about a quiet week and the 'pratimoksha'

11th Jan 2012: News from Jnanamati in Delhi

'It’s been just over a week since I have posted anything on this blog. This is not by way of saying that I have been too busy to write; in fact there has been ample time. Rather it seems as though my world for the moment has become somewhat routine and I have lacked inspiration to put anything into words. In actual fact what tends to visit me during such times is a spirit of critical self questioning. This seems to constellate around the bigger questions: ‘what is it that I am doing here’ as much as it does the smaller everyday ones that face me: ‘shall I visit this person, and how will that help what Amida is doing here’. Of course both ends are connected and influenced by my thinking about what constitutes living a Buddhist life. Encountering a culture that for the large part doesn’t understand me linguistically, culturally or spiritually – by which I mean where I fit into the religious jigsaw puzzle – is a daily challenge. If I can get a handle on at least one of these three dimensions then it immediately provides the satisfaction that comes from the sense of being engaged. Yet I find that such moments are just that, fragments that nourish me for sure but not in a way that stops me from, first feeling hungry and then, sometimes empty....' ::continue reading

via jnanamati.typepad.com