Author Archives: dharmadancer

Longing to Belong – a special daylong on April 14, 2012

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Longing to Belong:

A Daylong Meditation Retreat 
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Transgender People and their Friends

Saturday, April 14, 2012, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

College Avenue Congregational Church
1341 College Ave at W. Orangeburg Ave.
Modesto, CA

We all long to belong.  At different times in our lives, we each have thought, “You do not fit in.  You are not worthy.”  Many communities, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer and Transgender people are familiar with these messages.  Social and cultural norms greatly impact all of us.  For those of us who are overlooked or misrepresented for any reason, these messages often result in isolation and discrimination.  The Buddha declared that regardless, freedom is available to each of us without exception.  His message was and remains simple. “Everyone can be free.”  That means you too.

LGBQT people and friends are invited to come together for this daylong retreat to develop belonging. Spiritual community has the power to deeply transform our lives.  Our day will include sitting and walking meditation.  We will investigate what keeps us isolated from others and what builds connection and well-being.  There will also be time for journaling and sharing in small groups.  This day of practice will further develop tools to increase mindfulness and loving kindness in our lives.  By combining our efforts in spiritual community, our effort will bring greater freedom.  We’ll start with ourselves but we’ll do it together.

Joan Doyle founded the East Bay LGBT Vipassana group that has grown into East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC)’s Alphabet Sangha for LGBTQI and same-gender loving practitioners. In addition to co-teaching the Wednesday group at EBMC, she is active with the family programs at both EBMC and Spirit Rock, where she teaches meditation classes for young people. Joan has been meditating and practicing Dharma for over a decade, has sat many retreats and has completed Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioner Program and is in the Community Dharma Leaders Training Program at Spirit Rock.

John Mifsud is in the Community Dharma Leaders Training Program at Spirit Rock. Larry Yang is his mentor teacher. John is a leader of EBMC’s Deep Refuge Group for Alphabet Brothers of Color. He also studied with Rodney Smith at Seattle Insight Meditation, coordinated the Seattle Multicultural Sangha and Seattle Dharma Buddies. His current practicum includes teaching at the San Francisco Gay Buddhist Sangha, the SF Gay Buddhist Fellowship, San Francisco Insight and EBMC.

This day is freely offered to all.  Donations are gladly accepted to support the teachers.

Please bring a vegetarian potluck dish to share for lunch, if you would like.  Dress in loose and comfortable clothing.  For the sake of those who may have sensitivities or allergies, please do not wear scented or perfumed products.  If you have a meditation cushion, please bring it. A very limited number of mats and cushions will be available.  Chairs will be available.  All levels of practitioners are welcome.

For additional information, please contact Lori Wong at 209-343-2748

Daylong on Feb. 11th with Lori Wong on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness

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Insight Meditation Modesto will be offering a daylong with Lori Wong on Saturday, February 11th, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at at Doctors Medical Center, 1441 Florida Ave., Conference Center, room 1, Modesto, CA (the Conference Center is the building between the parking structure and the emergency department) on:

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

We will spend this day in silent practice to explore the teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.  The day will include instructions for working with teachings on the four foundations, guided meditations, mindful movement and discussion.  Most of the day will be held in silence in order to cultivate the awareness in support of our exploration of the four foundations.  Lunch will be in silence.

Lori Wong has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 2003 and is a Community Dharma Leader in training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA.  Her mentor teachers in the program are Gil Fronsdal of Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City and Eugene Cash of SF Insight in San Francisco. She has been a student of tai chi and qigong with Sifu Neil Thomas of the Kung Fu Institute in Modesto.  She is a former board member of the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City and is currently on the board of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and is a founding director of the Buddhist Insight Network.  She leads Insight Meditation sitting groups that meet regularly in Modesto.

This day is freely offered to all.  Donations are welcome to support future offerings.  Please bring a vegetarian potluck dish to share for lunch, if you would like.  Dress in loose and comfortable clothing.  For the sake of those who may have sensitivities or allergies, please do not wear scented or perfumed products.  If you have a meditation cushion, please bring it.  A very limited number of mats and cushions will be available.  Chairs will be available.  All-levels of practitioners are welcome.

Living Ishfully

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I wanted to share a lovely sermon that was given by William Levwood at the UUFSC on Jan. 15th.  It’s a great dharma talk. I highly recommend reading the preface first.  If you want to hear “Ish” read, there’s a YouTube video you can watch that shows the pages from the book.  Or this is a great version read by a first grade class. The kids made their own artworks, selected their own props, posed themselves based on the artwork in the book, took the pictures with a digital camera, and read the text themselves!

Enjoy!

On teachers and teachings…

Quote

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Whatever questions you have, whatever you do not understand about yourself, you have to pursue. If you have any dissatisfaction, any discontentment, you need to pursue it. Teachings and teachers provide help, guidance, and orientation so that you don’t spend too much time dealing with the wrong issues. The teacher saves you time, energy and effort. But the teacher can’t do it for you. The teacher gives you guidelines to help you do the practice and to help you deal with yourself. –A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), “Inexhaustible Mystery”

On Giving

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You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that your truly give.

There are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall someday be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving
May be yours and not your inheritors’.

In truth it is life that gives unto life
While you, who deem yourself a giver,
Are but a witness.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights
Is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life
deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

– Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, excerpt on Giving

On Refuge

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“Even if you cannot gain concentration, at least you can be mindful. If you are always mindful you may gain concentration. But whether you do or not, perpetual mindfulness is the remedy against depression. If you are always mindful, even when tired or disinclined, you will have no regrets. This is your final refuge; and it cannot fail; but it is not achieved without perpetual effort, and perpetual effort is not easy. Unless you determine on this effort you are lost. This is written in fair weather: read it in foul.”

– Ven. Nanavira Thera

The American Heritage® Dictionary defines refuge as:

  1. Protection or shelter, as from danger or hardship.
  2. A place providing protection or shelter.
  3. A source of help, relief, or comfort in times of trouble.

From the Dhammapada 188-192 [translated by Gil Fronsdal]:

People threatened by fear

    Go to many refuges:

To mountains, forests,

    Parks, trees, and shrines.

None of these is a secure refuge;

    None is a supreme refuge.

Not by going to such a refuge

    Is one released from all suffering.

But when someone going for refuge

    To the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha

Sees, with right insight,

    The Four Noble Truths:

        Suffering,

        The arising of suffering,

        The overcoming of suffering,

        And the Eightfold Path

        Leading to the ending of suffering,

Then this is the secure refuge;

    This is the supreme refuge.

By going to such a refuge

    One is released from all suffering.

Joseph Goldstein says in his book One Dharma, “…in their deeper meaning, the refuges always point back to our own actions and mind states. Although there may be many false starts and dead ends as we begin our journey, if our interest is sincere, we soon make a life-changing discovery: what we are seeking is within us.”

“In Buddhism, refuge is a metaphor for wakefulness or presence. It is reminder of the basic orientation in Buddhist practice, namely, that suffering comes to end only through being awake and present. … Another way to think about refuge is that you become a refugee. A refugee is someone who leaves a country or homeland because life is no longer tenable there. When you take refuge, you are acknowledging that a life based on habituated patterns is no longer tenable for you. You are prepared to set out into the mystery and rely on awareness, wherever it may lead you.”

                                                                            — Ken McLeod

More gratitude

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A little more on gratitude this Thanksgiving Day…

Here is a wonderful video worth watching from TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_nature_beauty_gratitude.html

And here is a lovely poem by Rev. Max Coots:

Garden Meditations

by Rev. Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends…with hearts…and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

Source: “Garden Meditations” by Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, as quoted on Patchwork Reflections.