Florida Community of Mindfulness Member Insights

'Fire-building' at FCM OI Retreat

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:16:29 GMT

By LYDIA ANDERSON

It is Saturday morning and I have my nose to the floor and my arms in front of me, prostrating to the Buddha.

Members and aspirants of the FCM Order of Interbeing (OI) are engaged in the Touching the Earth Chant at our recent OI Connection Retreat.

I am recalling the first time I did a prostration with this chant. How odd! But, then as now, I find the place within me.

I can feel a connection in the room to my fellow practitioners. I have arrived. I am home.

I have been a member of FCM since 2017. Most of my involvement has involved working in the kitchen. It’s been a rewarding and fruitful place for me. But, last year when this retreat came around I began to realize that my energies were ready for redirection. I was ready to move forward in my commitment to FCM. I saw the friendship and energy when this group of people came together and I wanted to be a part of it.

The theme for this year's retreat was "Fire-building". How do we tend the fire that is the Dharma within FCM and outward, including the global Order of Interbeing with thousands of members around the world?

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Order of Interbeing, and FCM OI members and aspirants were taking part in a local “fire-building session” to allow

[Continued from Mindfulness Matters]

friends on the path to enjoy community, build harmony and share their hopes and vision for the future of the Order and the global Plum Village community.

Thich Nhat Hanh started the Order of Interbeing in 1966 to provide a spiritual path for practitioners committed to mindfulness, social service and nonviolent activism to address the violence and division engulfing Vietnam and the world.

Fred many times has said our practice and commitment are part of what is making American Buddhism, but that it is still in its infancy in the United States.

With this in mind, we broke into small groups and pondered these questions:

How do we ensure that FCM and our OI group are robust and sustainable for the future?

How do we support our global OI brothers and sisters in their efforts?

We spent a good part of Saturday brainstorming these ideas in small groups through deep sharing and listening and then discussed them together with Fred.

All were in favor of sharing any benefits that FCM might have to offer to assist other OI members with less support or without a teacher to guide them. We expressed gratitude for the programs and strong Dharma teachings offered at FCM to aid in our spiritual development and discussed plans laid by Fred to prepare FCM members to be Dharma leaders and to preserve the future of our community and of OI as a "core" group serving and building our sangha.

We also spent a good deal of time getting to know each other or reconnecting. We were encouraged throughout the retreat to find members who we didn’t really know and connect.

I was able to spend quality time with someone that I have “known” for years. Yes, we know who each other are, but, we had not had an opportunity to share more personally.

What was is about our personal journey that brought us to FCM? The similarities were surprising! Now, I can look at him and feel that he truly is my FCM brother.

This strong sense of ease and connection permeated the entire retreat. Old friendships were renewed and new ones forged.

I think I can confidently say that our sangha is in good hands. We are so fortunate to have very talented and dedicated folks in our OI Order and in our wider community of members.

May any merit generated by our gathering be of benefit to all beings, now and in the future.

Lydia Anderson of Tampa became a member of FCM in 2017. She is a member of OI and the FCM Leadership Council and has served as kitchen manager at the Tampa Center.

A Realization at Retreat About Thoughts Brings Relief

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 18:40:43 GMT

By MARIA WINKLER

It is 6:00 a.m., and the sound of the gong wakes me for a full day of silent meditation. By 6:30, I am expected to be settled in the meditation hall. We begin the day with mindful movement to help loosen our bodies so that we can sit quietly, without fidgeting, for many hours of meditation and receive the valuable teachings.

The day is interspersed with healthy and flavorful meals eaten mindfully, conscious walks, 45 minutes of working meditation and periods of rest.

As we sit still, we are gently guided by Roshi Hogen Bays and Roshi Chozen Bays to become aware of the five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. I tune in to each sense consecutively.

Then we are introduced to the sixth sense: mind consciousness and thinking. This is a sense I was never taught to recognize during 18 years of formal education.

While the workings of the five senses feel familiar, it is the sixth sense that truly deserves attention.

How do I relate to my thoughts? I find that many of them are critical and not helpful.

When I call my thinking “critical,” I am referring to a subtle but persistent habit of judging. I judge others for not meeting my expectations. I judge myself. I judge circumstances for not aligning with my preferences.

Much of it is not dramatic or loud. It is quiet, repetitive and relentless.

Help comes from a guided meditation by Roshi Hogen who simply states, “It is just a thought. We do not have to believe it.”

When this insight lands, I feel it physically. My body relaxes. There is both relief and disbelief. Disbelief that I have unquestioningly believed every thought that crossed my mind for decades. Relief at the possibility of freedom.

Roshi Hogan continues by naming a particularly destructive thought pattern:

“I would be happier if…”

“I will be happier when…”

I could finish these sentences with at least a thousand variations:

I would be happier if my hair were fuller.

I would be happier if my husband did this and not that.

I would be happier if my children called me every single day.

I would be happier if the weather were warmer, colder, or less windy.

I would be happier if the governor did this and not that.

If the president did this and not that.

If the prime minister of another country did not do this.

If the European Union were less regulatory.

If China did this or that.

And on the list goes.

I realized I can easily come up with a thousand reasons to make myself miserable. What a quagmire I have created. I, and only I, have constructed a destructive minefield of thoughts that prevents me from feeling happy, content and equanimous.

Seeing this clearly feels like stepping out of fog. There are relief and a sense of spaciousness where there had been contraction. There is also curiosity: If I do not have to believe every thought, what becomes possible?

This change feels potentially life-altering. I understand that insight alone is not enough. It will take practice, patience, perseverance, and above all, kindness toward myself.

After the retreat, when I notice the old critical voice returning, I practice recognizing it gently: “Ah, there is that thought again.”

Becoming aware of this mental process and actively cultivating healthier mind states through practice is a profound gift I have received once again during this retreat at FCM.

I am immensely grateful to be a member of this community, to have the opportunity to study under the guidance of Fred, the senior Dharma instructors and visiting teachers, and to attend these retreats.

Maria lives with her husband, Gunther, in Naples for six months of the year. The remaining months are divided between Boulder, Colorado, and Boston. She has been a member of FCM since 2015.

Learning to Live Harmoniously with a Story-Making Mind

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 21:30:06 GMT

By JOAN GLACY

“Letting Go of Our Stories: Finding Freedom Outside the Narrative of Self

"The workshop will help participants to:

Identify the stories that consume and bind.
Begin living in real life without the distracting inner voice of the story-making self."

Reading this description, I think, “Perhaps.” After a year in the Intensive “Deconstructing the Myth of Self,” most of my story-making can be seen for what it is—an activity of mind that often has little to do with present reality. There is one story, however, that seems immutable. It torments me, and worse, impedes spiritual growth.

“Perhaps now is the time to take a closer look,” I thought, and decided to register.

We gather in the Meditation Hall and online. Under Teacher’s loving guidance, we become a Workshop Sangha. Grounded in presence, minds calming and bodies settling, we focus on what brings us together: The search for liberation from our tyrannical minds.

The teachings are comfortably familiar, but how seamlessly they land is surprisingly new.

Stories often spring from young minds trying to make sense of a complex, confusing world. These early stories may conflict with reality. With adulthood, the potential for more reality-based perspectives and understandings arises.

Story-making is a mind activity, just like contracting-relaxing is a diaphragm activity, and pumping is a heart activity. The stories created by this habitual mind-activity are unreliable! They tend to mix fact and fiction. Unconditional acceptance of the content of these stories is, therefore, folly.

Discernment is needed to separate the helpful part of a story (fact) from the unhelpful part (fiction).

How do I gain discernment? By learning from the story-making itself. Yep, it’s paradoxical: To let go, look closely.

So that’s what we do. We dive in. Courage grows, and a safe, supportive space for investigative inquiry, creative questioning, and fresh consideration opens up. We hold deeply seated assumptions up to the light, and ask:

1. “Is this true?”

2. “How does believing this story affect me? Does it constrain, constrict and disturb me? Does believing this story support my aspiration?”

3. “What would it be like if I didn’t accept this story at face value? Who would I be without this story defining me?”

For me, Number 3 is the tough one, because the honest answer is, “I don’t know” (which is scary). Yet, I do know. Because of the ground that has been laid these past months, moments -- more and more -- of “dwelling happily in the present” teach me what it is like to live harmoniously with the mind’s stories, to not take them too seriously. This is a new skill that, like any new skill, requires practice and diligence. In time, such moments string together, one after the other, indefinitely.

Hmm, really? Sounds too good to be true.

And there it is again, the story-making mind, fretting about the future. Is there something in this fretting that needs my attention? Perhaps. For now, however, I’ll focus on what is most true in this present moment, which is gratitude.

Grounded in presence, Joan Glacy, who practices with the Naples Sangha, is aware of the suffering caused by living from her unexamined stories. She offers metta to all, and for the teachings, Teacher and sangha, inexpressible gratitude.

One Hour of Sorting Shells from Rocks in the Zen Garden

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 01:06:17 GMT

By DAN TISCH

The year-long intensive, Deconstructing the Myth of Self, came to a close with a retreat that felt, at least conceptually, like the perfect ending. After nearly a year of earnestly looking for the self, thinking I had found it, losing it, refinding it, and then not finding it again, the retreat seemed designed to provide either clarity or exhaustion. Possibly both.

During the retreat, we focused on analytical meditation: a practice that persistently turns the wheel of introspection, again and again asking, Where is the self? For someone like me, someone for whom thinking, analyzing and knowing are deeply entangled with identity, this was both intense and, after a while, brain-numbing. After about a day of learning and practicing this technique, my head hurt. I was very much looking forward to the daily work meditation assignment, imagining it would provide relief from all that thinking.

On that day, I was assigned a very Zen-like task: separating white shells from brown stones in the garden. I greeted this assignment with enthusiasm bordering on gratitude. Finally, something simple. Something concrete. Something that did not involve asking my thoughts where they thought they were coming from.

Of course, as often happens, the work meditation turned out to be just another opportunity to practice exactly what I had been trying to avoid.

Sitting on the ground, looking at a messy mixture of stones and shells, I began to watch my mind engage the task. I noticed how quickly it set about discerning: shells versus rocks, white versus brown. I also noticed something else creeping in—an idea of doing a “good job,” of getting it right. Clearly formed shells went in one place, clearly formed rocks in another. So far, so good.

Then the easy pieces ran out.

What remained were fragments, ambiguous bits that resisted clean categorization. Where did shell become rock, and rock become shell? I began to see not two distinct categories, but a continuum. This, I realized, was interbeing quietly making its point without saying a word.

As I worked with smaller, broken pieces, the shells appeared less shell-like, the rocks less rock-like. What I was picking up were aggregates (parts of shells, parts of rocks) each in different stages of decomposition. The solidity I had initially assumed simply wasn’t there. What I thought were stable, independent objects revealed themselves as impermanent, conditioned and deeply entangled with the ground beneath them.

There I was, sorting shells and stones and inadvertently encountering impermanence, non-solidity, and interbeing, all without my head hurting.

It occurred to me that this hour of work meditation neatly summarized the yearlong intensive and the retreat itself. I had come looking for something solid called “self,” and instead found fragments, processes and continua. Just like the shells and rocks, the self seemed real enough at first glance, but much harder to locate once I looked closely. This lack of solidity and certainty was unnerving at first, but on reflection may be the source of freedom and aliveness.

Apparently, even when I think I’ve escaped thinking, thinking finds its way. Fortunately, the Dharma does too.

Dan Tisch has been a member of FCM and practicing Buddhism since 2018 and is a retired health and science project manager. He lives part-time in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Robbie.

The Self: Something to Be Understood Rather than Defended

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 17:44:24 GMT

By RAJ GOYAL

Last year, I made the uncommon decision to step away from my professional life to study the Self.

It wasn’t because I was burned out or dissatisfied with my work. It came from something quieter and more personal. I wanted to become a better version of myself for the people I love most—my wife and my daughters. I wanted to understand why, in moments that mattered most, I could still get triggered, and why familiar patterns of reactivity and inner drama continued to surface even after years of personal and spiritual work.

In an earlier conversation, Fred said something that stayed with me: much of the drama we experience isn’t imposed on us—it’s something we participate in, often unconsciously. And if we participate in it, we can also learn to relate to it differently. Hearing this was both unsettling and oddly relieving. It suggested that a calmer, even more blissful way of living wasn’t dependent on circumstances changing, but on how clearly I could see my own mind. If I truly wanted to show up differently in my relationships, I realized I needed to slow down and look more deeply.

Throughout the year, one teaching Fred often quoted quietly accompanied me, from Zen Master Dōgen: “To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.” At first, these words lived mostly in my head. Over time—and especially through a recent retreat—they moved from concept into lived experience.

The container for this year was a yearlong Intensive led by Fred called Deconstructing the Myth of Self. The structure itself asked for patience. The work unfolded in three phases, weaving together Western psychology, Buddhist psychology, and sustained meditative inquiry. Rather than offering techniques to fix ourselves, the Intensive asked something simpler and far more challenging: to observe honestly how the sense of self actually operates.

Part One focused on investigation and emotional alchemy. We learned to become detectives of our own experience—turning toward sensations, emotions and reactions with curiosity instead of judgment. Intellectually, I understood the approach right away. Practically, I found it much harder. In real-time interactions, especially with my family, I often noticed my reactions only after they had already taken over. Still, over time, something softened. I began to recognize patterns that had been running quietly in the background for years.

In Part Two, we were invited to choose a specific area of study. I chose to focus on several core schemas—mistrust and abuse, unrelenting standards and hypercriticalness, and entitlement and grandiosity—and to examine how they shaped my communication and relationships. Alongside continued observation of “I,” “me,” and “my,” I worked with these patterns through inquiry and study, including the book Emotional Alchemy.

Then, around the third week, something unexpected happened. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was unmistakable—things began to click. I started to see, in real time, how much of what I said and did was shaped not by the present moment, but by long-standing beliefs and protective strategies. Slowly, those patterns began to loosen. I noticed myself responding differently with my family—pausing where I once reacted, listening where I once defended.

In a previous retreat—Untangling the Knots of Self—which took place midway through Part Two of the Intensive, much of my work had centered on early wounding, especially around mistrust, and on developing a more compassionate relationship with younger parts of myself. That healing loosened knots I had carried for decades and, in subtle ways, weakened my attachment to a fixed sense of self. It created a foundation that allowed this year’s inquiry to go deeper.

Together, Parts One and Two emphasized seeing the self clearly. Using Western psychological frameworks, we explored conditioning, core beliefs and the ways we generate much of our own inner drama. The self began to feel less personal and more patterned—something to be understood rather than defended. My daughters even commented that they noticed how much more calmly I responded to them, something that touched me deeply.

As the Intensive moved into Part Three, the inquiry turned toward Buddhist psychology, particularly Yogācāra, and a more fundamental question: what is the structure of the self itself? Month by month, we explored awareness of self, the development and structure of self, and finally the compositeness of self—looking closely for something solid and enduring, and finding instead a process assembling itself moment by moment.

The retreat in December felt like a natural culmination of this yearlong inquiry. From the first morning, we engaged in self-investigative meditation using the Wheel of Analysis—a way of examining experience through sensation, feeling tone, perception, mental formations, and identity. Before the retreat, I understood the Wheel mostly as a conceptual map. Through sustained practice, it became something lived—a direct way of seeing how the sense of self comes together, again and again.

It was during a Friday morning self-investigative meditation, working explicitly with the Wheel of Analysis, that I experienced a moment of clarity. Without effort or seeking, a clear problem surfaced, followed by an equally clear solution and path forward. What struck me wasn’t the content of the insight, but its quality. It felt received rather than generated—quiet, grounded and aligned with my lived experience and values. I had stepped away from my work with a promise not to begin anything new unless it arose from genuine alignment and a sincere aspiration to benefit others. This insight felt like it honored that promise.

On Saturday evening, between 8:00 and 9:00 pm—the night before the retreat concluded—Fred guided us through a meditation focused on body and mind. What unfolded was one of the most powerful meditative experiences of my life. As attention rested with the body, I directly experienced its non-solidity. The body no longer felt bound by the skin, but open and continuous with what surrounded it. When attention turned toward the mind, a similar recognition arose—the mind felt expansive, without clear edges.

I had touched experiences like this before, but this time felt different. It wasn’t fleeting or overwhelming. It felt stable and accessible. Simply resting attention with the body allowed this openness to return. That evening, the following day, and in the days since, I’ve returned to this meditation and found it surprisingly easy to access. It feels less like a peak experience and more like a capacity that had been quietly cultivated over the year and revealed at the retreat.

As in past retreats, I felt deeply supported by the sangha, whose steadiness and sincerity made this level of inquiry possible. And as always, my family remains my deepest motivation. My wife and daughters continue to be the mirror in which these teachings come alive.

What I’m exploring now is how this practice lives beyond the cushion. The deconstruction of the myth of self doesn’t end in meditation—it shows up most clearly in relationship: in conversation, disagreement, collaboration and care. The Wheel of Analysis now accompanies me into daily life, helping me notice when schemas activate, when identity tightens, and when communication slips into habit.

Dōgen’s words feel closer now—not as a conclusion, but as an ongoing invitation: to study the self, to forget the self, to be enlightened by all things. I’m still amazed by how much my interactions have changed. I’m calmer, more centered, and better able to stay present even when things get heated. I still slip up—but now I can return in minutes rather than stewing for hours or days. The work continues, not as something to finish, but as a way of meeting life more honestly and gently, one moment at a time.

Raj Goyal began his practice in 2017, starting with yoga and moving toward longer meditations. He found FCM about two or three years ago and has embraced its community ever since. He live in Odessa, FL, with his wife and their three daughters (ages 5, 13 and 15). He has dedicated a year of deep self-work for his own growth and for his family.

Who Is Writing? A Year of Deconstructing the Myth of Self

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 04:58:39 GMT

By JOAN GLACY

If someone had told me a year ago that I’m not who I think I am, I wouldn't have believed it. That’s all changed.

Part One: Just The Facts

At first, I’m cautious. “Become a detective. Observe yourself, just the facts.” “List all the things you think of as yours.” “Try not using the words ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘mine'.” These are curious instructions.

Yet, I trust and dive in. Slowly, gradually, unexpectedly, recognizable patterns begin to emerge, familiar feeling tones, and wornout stories that wrap around me like a heavy coat, comfortable but constraining. What is all this?

Holding these mental habits up to the light, it becomes possible to see. My mental habits cloud the viewing of my mental habits, yet with careful attention and reflection…with noticing, reflecting…slowly, gradually…a new view emerges, one that allows judgement-free interest in what “she” does and why “she” does it.

Part Two: This New Existence

Acting teachers say that once you learn what actors do, you’ll never watch TV the same way again. This is like that: The curtain is pulled back. The laboratory that is the meditation cushion now extends to all of life.

There seems to be two of me, the one who squabbles with her husband, and the one who wonders, “Why does she squabble with her husband?”

Expanding my daily meditation practice to an hour seems a natural response to what’s happening, and generous writers extend guiding hands along the way: It’s Up To You by Dongzen Kongtrul Rinpoche offers a new coat to wear, woven with warm, loving encouragement. No Self, No Problem by Chris Niebauer gives scientific grounding for what’s happening. In the company of these writers and others, fellow students, and mentors, with Teacher Fred leading the way, the fruit of this new existence begins to ripen.

Part Three + Retreat: We Are Verbs, Not Nouns

For millenia, deeply wise and spiritual beings have considered the mind. Their great gift to us is a road map for understanding what it is to be a human being. Freedom is here, we just need to know how to find it.

Daring to seek, the answer appears: The self is as impermanent and empty as anything else. Having prepared the mind this past year to receive the truth of its own emptiness, it is possible during the sweet sanctuary of retreat, to experience this at-first jarring, ultimately liberating reality. Exhilaration arises, having possibly glimpsed the insight that leads to the other shore.

Epilogue: This Present Moment

Exhilaration is fleeting. Three days after retreat, we squabble. This is familiar terrain, but also different. Might even this be met with presence, awareness, understanding and gratitude?

Analyzing how this present moment comes to be this present moment doesn’t necessarily illuminate how to be in this present moment, but it points the way. It points to grounded presence and open-hearted awareness, kindness and compassion, familiar yet new.

Who is writing?

A mind, a mystery,

Without a “you” or “me,”

At home in equanimity.

Joan Glacy, a member of FCM's Naples Sangha, lives in Marco Island with her husband. About two years ago, she sought a local meditation group, never imagining the treasures that awaited her just up the road in Naples. Before retirement, Joan was a psychiatrist, a medical researcher, an actor and a pizza tour guide. After retirement, she is (aware that she is) a verb.

I Strode Barefoot in the Steps of the Buddha

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:54:34 GMT

By PEGGY WALLACE

I have a history of walking in others' footsteps, and it tends to be a very meaningful practice for me. It awakens a deeply felt connection to all living beings and brings compassion to life for me. Indeed, I’ve had some of my most meaningful experiences walking in the footsteps of others.

When I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, you could move aside the false bookcase and climb the very stairs that she took to her family’s hiding place. I stood in those rooms, breathed the air, felt the fear, joy, sadness and anxiety that colored Anne’s days. It was a very profound experience of connection and compassion for me.

The beach at Normandy in northern France where the famous World War II invasion took place, remains as it was, with barbed wire on the cliffs and bomb craters scattered in the earth. Not many people visit there. So it has a haunted feel, a place where again I could feel the pain, fear, anxiety and sadness that arose there, connecting me once again with heartfelt compassion to a very human experience.

So when I happened upon the Eleven Directions brochure in FCM’s Friendship Hall last year, the trip “In The Footsteps of The Buddha” jumped out at me, as did the heading “Journeys That Transform.” Was that even possible? Transformation on a tour trip to India? Only one way to find out. Go with four members of the Tampa FCM community (Misti Oxford-Pickeral, Libby Dunn, Tracy Fischer and myself) and Naples FCM member June Hemberger. We joined other practitioners to set out for India a year later as a “traveling Sangha” of 20 pilgrims led by Dharma teacher Shantum Seth.

Most of the sites we visited were in the middle of bustling cities or towns. The congestion, noise and pollution surrounded us as we approached Deer Park in Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teachings. But as we entered the gates, all of that evaporated. A peaceful calm enveloped me with birds chirping, the sky looking bluer, my senses came alive. I stripped off my shoes, and strode barefoot on the same grounds as the Buddha, 2600 years ago. The power of walking in those footsteps was palpable.

This felt deep connection with the Buddha happened again and again—at Jetavana Grove where the Buddha spent many rainy season retreats, at Lumbini where the Buddha was born, at Kushinagar where the Buddha died, atop Vulture Peak at sunset. In all these places and more I sensed the Buddha’s presence. I felt as though I had a deeper understanding of the teachings and was truly hearing the Dharma with new ears.

Then came Bodh Gaya, the place of Siddhartha’s awakening, which felt like an entirely different universe. There’s nothing calm or quiet about Bodh Gaya, even as you approach the Bodhi tree. Bodh Gaya is crowded, the air filled with chanting, incense and an electrified presence. It was difficult even to take in the sheer number of marigolds, candles, robe-clad monks and barefoot pilgrims. Everyone there seemed to be looking for the same thing--the Buddha’s presence within themselves.

Our little Sangha slowly, mindfully made our way to the Bodhi tree outside the monumental Mahabodhi Temple, where we sat under the Bodhi tree as a Sangha meditating on Siddhartha’s awakening. As I sat there breathing, feeling the chanting move through me, meditating on the Buddha’s awakening, I felt as though something in me opened. Suddenly there was a pristine clarity in my thoughts, a knowing more tangible than ever before. “This is it,” I thought. “This is the life I want—to serve others to the greatest extent possible with this gift of a life I’ve been given.”

Tears flowed as any doubt about my path left me, and I felt clear, sure, determined. I started a mantra that day, asking myself, “Who am I helping?” whenever my thoughts strayed, or I found myself wandering into an unskillful mindset. Because if my goal is to be helpful to all living beings, there is no time to waste.

Did I have my own awakening sitting under the Bodhi tree? I’m not sure. But something inside me definitely transformed that day, and I haven’t been the same since. Perhaps, as Fred so often says, I finally have it “in my bones.” Whatever it is, the realization was worth the price of admission a million times over.

Peggy Wallace lives in Seminole Heights with her husband Daniel and two pet dogs. She’s been a member of FCM for nearly five years, serves as treasurer on the FCM Board of Directors, leads Community Care, mentors new members, offers selfless service in the kitchen, leads morning meditation, and is an aspirant in the Order of Interbeing.

What Starts Out Scary Turns Out to be Wonderful

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 20:38:05 GMT

By BRANDY KIDD

Of all the many Dharma-related conversations I have with folks inside and outside the sangha, the conversations about solitary retreats are the ones met with the most curiosity and awe (mostly by those who haven’t gone on a solitary retreat). A lot of questions ensue:

Q: Is it true that you don’t talk at all during the entire retreat??

A: Only with the teacher during the daily interview.

Follow-up Q: How do you DO that??

A: What started out scary turns out to be surprisingly wonderful.

Q: Is it true that you have no phones, no computers, no books, no journals?

A: Only the text that the teacher suggests or that you request to work on.

Follow-up Q: How do you DO that??

A: What started out intimidating turns out to be quite lovely.

These questions highlight the acclimatization most all of us have experienced to constant stimulation and interaction via texts, social media, emails, podcasts and books available instantly and always to us. That going without for a few days actually sparks trepidation in so many people’s minds is quite understandable.

And if I’m being honest, when I began attending solitary retreats a dozen years ago, I felt the same way. Back then I was in the heart of parenting younger kids, working full time, and busy with sangha life. The idea and the practice of letting it all go was disconcerting. I couldn’t fathom what I would do with that much silence, that much space, that much “idle” time. It certainly highlighted how very attached I was to my worldly life. Accordingly, I began with very short solitary retreats: the three-night minimum.

And at first, there were challenges. The places where I still had emotional healing to do would show up on retreat. I would feel anxiety. I would feel lonely. The Inner Critic would show up on retreat with me, absolutely uninvited. Fred’s support was key in helping me move through those experiences, as afflictive habit energies and schemas began to dissipate over time. It wasn’t always peaceful, that’s for sure.

In recent years, I have begun to look forward to these retreats more and more. But the challenge now is to not just “bliss out,” but rather to stay in that state of open, spacious, awake awareness that is our true nature (to be the Host more than a very “chill” Guest). It feels so good to be able to take a break from the discursive mind, but that’s not the path. In fact, it’s just the beginning. As Patrul Rinpoche warns: “stillness, bliss, and clarity: disrupt them again and again.”

The main thing I’ve learned is to show up with zero attachments to how I want the retreat to unfold. My only aim need be to stay open, awake, aware, and compassionate to whatever arises, both within the four two-hour meditation sessions, and during the breaks in between, while enjoying a meal or a walk in the gardens. And also: to be brave; to be diligent, knowing that the more I practice, the more I can help my self and others.

In this way, how to show up on solitary retreat is very much how I aspire to show up everyday in life (and also at death), “with no difference between meditation and post-meditation, no division between sessions and breaks. BUT (caps are mine), until stability is attained, it is vital to meditate, away from all distractions and busyness, (p)racticing in proper meditation sessions” (another bow to Patrul Rinpoche).

In other words: it’s vital to retreat.

Brandy Kidd, who is currently serving as leader of the FCM Naples sangha, is an ordained member of the Order of Interbeing who also works as a psychotherapist in Naples and who loves being mom to two adult kiddos and a sweet, attention-seeking hound dog.

Dharma Talk: Work with Life as it Is

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 20:11:51 GMT

In his Dharma talk on November 16, 2025, our teacher Fred reminded us that our emotional suffering arises in our minds, nowhere else, which leads us to ask ourselves: What is the cause? What's underneath the restlessness, the need for stimulation, the complaints about the job, the distress about the world, the unease about relationships, the emotional afflictions? What's causing all this to arise?

For many of us, our minds are not used to going in this inner direction. We are used to pointing the finger outside ourselves. If you can find the inner cause and eradicate or lessen the cause, ending our suffering becomes easier. Thich Nhat Hanh actually said we don't need any "thing" to be happy. The potential for happiness already is present in our minds. We just have to learn to mine our own treasure.

Fred shared that the cause of our suffering comes from our strong identification with an ego that thinks the world and the people in it should be different than they are. A lot of our emotional suffering in life is self created, yet we believe the cause is "out there". If you think it's out there, then the solution is to work hard to control others and external events. The problem with that is that the world won't cooperate with us. It is operating from its own causes and conditions.

After giving time for reflection, in Q&A with those attending in person and online, Fred summarized: "The collective thought of the sangha is the cause is because I want things (and myself) to be other than they are. At its root is our wrong perceptions about reality. We don’t see how things really are. If we can let go of our distorted thinking about life and work with it as it is, it will be much easier to intelligently respond to it.

"Could it be this simple? Actually, it is that simple. So, why don’t we all do it? Just accept the world, people and myself as they are. I'm not talking about condoning or not condoning the way things are. I'm talking about accepting reality.

Patience With Specks on a FCM Rug Helps with Life's Larger Issues

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 04:47:09 GMT

By JONI MASSE

My first encounter with FCM was to attend a retreat on patience. After searching the web for a Buddhist teacher, I chose to pursue this weekend event, knowing I was deeply in need of guidance on how to develop a keener practice of patience coupled with the practice I already had for over 30 years.

I sought wisdom so I could also be kinder, more loving, and less attached to an

outcome over which I had no control – the aging process, sickness, and ultimately death.

My husband’s health was clearly declining and since he and I do not always see eye to eye on health-related issues, I believed patience would be an asset to benefit our journey together as we moved through this period of our lives. The retreat gave me far more than I hoped for, and since then, patience has often lent its hand in my quest for equanimity, embodying loving kindness.

Why would I need extra patience, you might ask. After 30 years of being in relationship, I’d come to accept how different our habits could be, and there had been many times I had found patience accompanied by compassion helped ease suffering in my mind. I anticipated diving deeper as I watched my husband continue to battle his smoking addiction while his lungs clearly were saying, “stop.” He also did not trust Western medicine; he had not seen a doctor in over 40 years.

After an acute episode of breathing difficulty and a short stay in the hospital with a diagnosis of high blood pressure and severe COPD, he began to realize the benefits of Western medicine. That was one month following my retreat.

Patience came in handy as his habits are often in conflict with mine. He likes to put things off till later, and I like to get them done asap. A year after his first hospitalization he found his body in extreme pain along with some acute bleeding. This was about eight months ago, when I was in the middle of the Intensive “Deconstructing the Myth of Self.” We sat up together one entire night while he was passing large clots when he peed and was in such pain he could not walk, but he chose not to go to the emergency room. We were both scared.

Practicing mindfulness, loving kindness, and extreme patience got me through that hellish night. In the morning, he agreed to go to the ER and two months later he was going through surgery for bladder cancer.

Now we are four months out since his surgery. He has not smoked since, and he is committed to better health. I am committed to supporting him through the journey, as he experienced setbacks and had another hospitalization. We are growing as a couple while we find solace in our spiritual commitments and our commitment toward a healthier relationship.

A practice as simple as experiencing my own imperfection at cleaning a rug at FCM has helped me during this time. I am experiencing equanimity from my continued practice of meditation and studying the Dharma, in addition to the recent choice of my giving time to selfless service on Tuesdays with the cleaning crew.

The Dharma and patience led me to the Tuesday mornings. I make it to the center to meditate and offer my service. I feel joyful and grateful. I feel love. I feel at home. When I mindfully clean, I am given moments of insight into my practice: dropping the story, the attachments, the ego, the desires, and simply feeling the lessons, giving me peace.

I remember at the patience retreat Fred speaking about the traffic. Since I live an hour away from the center, traffic has been a deterrent for me. Now on Tuesday mornings, driving an hour each way with traffic I also encounter numerous moments to practice patience. I now look forward to pausing at red lights, traffic jams and delays.

I move more slowly. Cleaning gives me moments of non-self and patience as I deliberately attempt to get each speck of dirt off the rug, witnessing my attachment to such a desire, and the state of grace I feel when I let it all go. The sense of fellowship I receive from the sisters at the center is very heartwarming and comforting, as well, and feeds my spirit.

Offering to serve in whatever capacity I am needed sheds a bit attachment of ego as well. And I practice patience…as I know my Ego and Self have always leaned a bit toward being an overachiever and loves efficiency and “getting a lot done in a short period of time”, but this is not what selfless service is about. So, I get to LET GO of the Self who has a habit of doing things fast and furious while ignoring other insights.

What began in a retreat for developing patience, wanting to be recognized by the community for my years of “accomplished” spiritual lifestyle, seeking like-minded beings to support me in my journey, has evolved to cleaning specks of dirt off a rug, and feeling grateful for the experience to serve others.

So when you enter the hall, know that I have cleaned with loving kindness in my heart and if you see a speck of dirt, realize that too was a gift for my spiritual development.

Joni Masse of Tarpon Springs began her conscious spiritual practice about 35 years ago, when she became a yoga teacher and lived in an intentional Yoga community. That led her to study Buddhism at a Buddhist inspired college, Naropa University in Boulder CO and to follow Pema Chodron and her many books and online courses. Finding a center like FCM in the spring of 2024 has given her a sangha and a live teacher, and she is deeply grateful.

Re-energized and Inspired by Heart Sutra and Fred

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 17:31:36 GMT

By BILL Mac MILLEN

I recently attended Fred’s in-person offering of four “pop-up” teachings on the Heart Sutra, one of the most widely read andbeloved of the Buddhist sutras, and one we regularly chant at FCM during Sunday Sangha. As one of Fred’s senior students, and an FCM Dharma Instructor, the series was especially meaningful for me in a variety of ways.

First, I deeply appreciated the opportunity to be physically present in the Meditation Hall with a realized teacher who is also my teacher, to hear Fred’s insights and wisdom firsthand just like Shariputra got to listen to Avolokita in the sutra.

Aware of all the consistent effort and sacrifices Fred has made over his life to come to realization—not just to study these deep teachings intellectually, but also to embody them in daily life and tirelessly transmit them to anyone with an interest—I found all four pop-ups tremendously inspiring. Simply listening to Fred transmit the Heart Sutra encourages me to keep deepening my own realization.

And I’m not new to the Heart Sutra. I’ve been chanting it for 12 years, have heard many teachings on emptiness (the primary focus of this sutra), read many books and commentaries on the sutra and emptiness, and done my own reflections and meditations on the subject. But Fred’s teaching is so personal, so down-to-earth, filled with clarifying examples (like asking if “wetness” is separate from water) and clear, that I was able to hear his transmission with a degree of freshness that allowed new insights and understandings to arise.

For example, I already knew the history of the sutra and was aware of ongoing academic interest in debating its origin. But listening to Fred, my own preoccupation with the source of the sutra’s words disappeared behind the thought, “What does it matter?” If a proven cure for a disease afflicting me were found, would I decline to take the medicine until I knew the source of that cure, and all the details around how and when the cure had been developed?

This thought inspired me to recognize the opportunity before me to let go of distractions and simply “take the cure” for suffering that the Heart Sutra offers. It also energized a renewed sense of urgency within me to do so, to wake up to the cure now. This urgency arose in connection with my ongoing appreciation of the truth of impermanence—specifically in relationship to this aging body and its daily reminders that my journey here is time limited, that there’s literally “no time to lose.”

I’ve long found the application of Buddhist teachings on emptiness both invigorating and challenging. Still the question remained, “How can I apply the teachings in practical ways to end my own suffering and benefit others?” Hearing Fred’s explanations and insights over the four weeks of pop-up teachings on the Heart Sutra deepened my understanding of both the truth of emptiness and the implications of that truth for my own practice. It re-energized my ongoing aspiration to wake up.

Finally, I found listening to the chanting of the gatha at the end of the sutra profoundly moving. Many voices joined the solo leader in chanting with increasing energy: “Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha” (“Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone to the other shore, awake, rejoice”). I saw Fred’s smile as we listened to the chanting, and heard again his tireless encouragement that awakening to the nature of my mind (reaching ‘the other shore’) is entirely possible for all humans, including me.

I left the final pop-up with a renewed sense of faith in the teachings, my teacher, and my own ability to realize the teachings. The seeming conundrum of how to both live a worldly life and enhance the experience by realizing the truth of emptiness now seems much more “doable.”

Walking away after the final night’s talk, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the teachings, my teacher Fred, and our FCM community.

Bill Mac Millen has been a student of Fred and a member of FCM since 2013. Currently, he is the Center Care Leader shepherding maintenance and beautification of our grounds and facilities and a regular contributor in leading workshops and retreats.

How Does FCM Do It All?

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 02:03:42 GMT

By CAROL MEYER

Ever wonder how FCM does all? How we offer such rich Dharma programs, maintain our beautiful facilities and campus, nurture and sustain loving community, keep everyone informed, and continue to grow? How we do it all as a sangha of over 350 members relying almost entirely on selfless service, with only three paid staff (Dharma Teacher Fred, Caretaker David Braasch, and Office Manager Liz Stepp)?

The short answer? Hundreds of members and friends willingly offer selfless service, and we have a quiet non-hierarchical organizational structure consisting of two governing bodies: the Board of Directors and the Leadership Council.

The Board of Directors was established in the FCM Bylaws when FCM was incorporated in 1986 as a Florida not-for-profit and tax-exempt 501(c)(3) religious organization for the purpose of furthering the practice of Buddhism. The Board currently consists of four officers and four directors serving staggered terms. The Dharma Teacher serves as an ex-officio member of the Board. Follow this link if you want to see who is currently serving on our FCM Board.

The Board meets at least five times per calendar year, uses consensus decision-making and assumes all of the traditional fiduciary roles of the boards of non- profit organizations, including the following.

1. Elects new directors and directors who serve as officers of the corporation: Board chair, Board chair-elect, secretary and treasurer

2. Ensures that FCM remains true to its stated vision, mission and core values

3. Engages in strategic (“big picture”) planning to set broad policy and objectives, and ensures FCM remains focused on realizing stated short and longer-term goals and priorities

4. Oversees FCM finances, including: preparation and approval of the annual budget, prudent collection and expenditure of operating funds and initiation of capital campaigns

5. Establishes committees, effective management structures, and priorities to help FCM realize its mission, vision and strategic plans

6. Participates in key staffing decisions, including recruitment and engagement of members to offer selfless service as directors, officers, and program leaders

Want to know what our FCM Board is focusing on now? Here are the current 2025 priorities adopted by our FCM Board at its 2024 annual Board retreat last December.

1. Continue building a community that nourishes personal connections and relationships in all FCM activities and through the implementation of “family groups.” (3-year priority)

2. Elevate and strengthen FCM’s culture of selfless service as a path of practice and by supporting the development and appointment of a Selfless Service Coordinator.

3. Continue to develop the infrastructure to create a permanent digital marketing group.

4. Increase FCM's partnerships and interactions with local non-profit organizations having missions and values similar to FCM’s.

5. Encourage the leadership to promote a wider awareness and utilization of the FCM Sangha Harmony Guide within FCM and proactively encourage leadership training to address situations of disharmony or conflict.

While the Board focuses on “big picture,” the Leadership Council and its area leaders focus on daily operations and doing all that we want and need to do together. The Leadership Council, which includes Fred at the center of it all, meets weekly to ensure communication flows among all areas, challenges are met, and the sangha flows like a river with all areas working together in harmony. Here are our current area leaders and members of the Leadership Council.

Our teacher Fred serves as our spiritual guide, providing leadership and support, and ensuring that we remain focused on realizing FCM's mission, values and goals.
Dharma Programs Leader Angie Parrish oversees all Dharma programs, including Sunday sangha, meditation, workshops and classes, Intensives, Days of Mindfulness, retreats, online courses and recordings and more.
Communications Leader Carol Green oversees communications (including Mindfulness Matters).
Community Care Leader Peggy Wallace oversees programs that support and nurture our community and membership, such as Sangha Building/Membership, Sangha Care and Support, Social Activities, Death & Dying, and Spiritual Friends groups.
Facilities Leader Bill Mac Millen and Caretaker David Braasch are in charge of the safety and maintenance of FCM’s Tampa Practice Center, including grounds and gardens, buildings and facilities, kitchen, housekeeping, selfless service and our residential caretaking program.
Operations Leader Lydia Anderson, along with our Office Manager Liz Stepp, are responsible for financial reporting, risk management and compliance.

Want to know even more about how FCM works? Follow this link to the Organization page in the About section of our website, and check out the role of the Order of Interbeing and Council of Elders in our amazingly wonderful sangha!

Carol Meyer of Asheville, NC, has been a member of FCM for 13 years and currently is leader of FCM's Order of Interbeing.

A Retreat Experience with Music Led to Untelling Stories That Had Walled Me Off

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 03:53:37 GMT

By PEGGY WALLACE

My brother was 13 years my senior. I didn’t really grow up with him around. He was off to college before I could even make sense of his existence.

But for him, I was like his first child. He had memories of our early years together, he as a teenager and me as a toddler, that simply don’t exist for me in any real way. He loved me fiercely, always.

When I was myself a teenager, we developed a bond so strong, other members of our family couldn’t fathom it. He was present in my life in a way that no other adult was. He mattered to me in a way that simply didn't apply to other people. When he suddenly died in 2009, it left a gaping hole in my world. The pain of losing him is something that remains with me, just under the surface.

One of the many things we bonded over was music. He was a musician in his spare time, playing guitar and piano, writing and recording songs, playing on the street corners in his downtown Boston neighborhood just for fun. I loved music, and because I adored him, this was our bonding place.

We could spend hours listening to music, each taking a turn at picking out songs from his vast music library. Back when music was made on vinyl and there were stores that sold things called "records", we could spend an entire afternoon combing through the options, making our selections, and then going home to have a listening party. He taught me about rhythm, tone, pitch, harmony, and cadence. I learned to identify the different musical instruments simply by sound. There literally are not many songs (particularly the classics) that aren’t tied to my memory of him in some way.

And so, in 2009, music stopped for me, or rather, I stopped the music. It was painful, especially in the early days following his death, to listen to songs we enjoyed together.

And so, very soon after his passing, I started telling myself stories about music: You can’t enjoy music anymore. If you listen to that, it will bring back painful memories. Music isn’t special anymore. It’s not going to sound as good, now that he’s gone. And on and on, the stories went. Until I decided that music would no longer be a part of my life. I tuned into talk radio and called it a day. I had decided that I was no longer a music fan. Too painful. Too hard.

Fast forward 15 years and I’m at the FCM Widsom Retreat. It’s a few days into the retreat when, close to the end of the evening, Fred instructs us all to lay down in the Meditation Hall. Get comfortable, he says, because we’re going to listen to music.

Panic. Stories. I don’t listen to music, and certainly not in public, because I’m likely to cry. I was stiff, and tense, and worried. And I heard the stories start to play in my head.

And then Fred said, seemingly directly to me, “Just relax”. So this time, I decided to try something different. This time I thought, What might happen if I don’t tell those stories and just listen? Could I let music just be music? Could it be joyful again? Could I enjoy the beauty of it again? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that was possible?

Because I had long ago made the decision to invent and tell myself my stories about music, I also had to make the decision to put the stories down, if only for a moment, just to see what would happen.

As I lay there in the Meditation Hall, staring out the window at the dark night, heat lightning lit up the sky, and the music began to play. Oh, God, acoustic guitar. My brother's first, most loved instrument. For a moment, my heart ached and I started to entertain an old story, but I was able to let it go, telling myself, “I don’t have to tell a story about this, I can just listen”.

And then, the magic happened. The music was stunning, clear, melodic. As I let go of my stories, gorgeous tempos and melodies flowed over me like old friends coming home again. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I was stuck by the serene peace the music brought to me. It was one of the more powerful moments of my life.

I did a lot of thinking in the wake of that experience. I realized very acutely that the stories I had invented, perpetuated, and told over and over again had walled me off. I was missing out on the joy of music and it was all my own doing. What else was I holding myself back from? In what other ways was I limiting my life experience because of these stories? And why did I invent them in the first place? Well, that’s another discussion entirely but if I had to sum it up, I could: Fear.

And so I began examining my own mind, and looking for the stories in my everyday life (they are not hard to find). I began deconstructing these stories that I once thought kept me safe. Each time one began to play, I stopped and examined it. Was it true? Did I need to keep telling it? Was it really helping me, or was it depriving me from being fully open and engaged with my life? What is this story keeping me from?

And that process continues today. And slowly, in the untelling of my once-cherished stories, I am reclaiming my life and giving it back to myself, uncovering joy along the way.

Peggy Wallace of Tampa has been a member of FCM since 2021. She is a member of the Board of Directors, leader of Community Care on the Leadership Council and a member of the Order of Interbeing.

Confronting Schemas and Old Stories to Untangle the Knots of Self

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 03:42:16 GMT

By RAJ GOYAL

Arriving at the Florida Community of Mindfulness always feels like returning to a sanctuary. The stillness of the Zen garden, the gentle trickle of water and the nourishing silence of the sangha have a way of loosening knots I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying. In this space, the mind softens, and the heart quietly opens.

For the past six months, I had been working through Part One and into Part Two of the Deconstructing the Myth of Self Intensive, taking deliberate steps to observe the structure of self. I came eager to go deeper in the August retreat, but a week before the retreat, my mother had a TIA. In an instant, I was swept back into the identity of “responsible son.” The sense of “me” became sharper, heavier.

Through reflection—and my parents’ loving encouragement—I realized they had the resources to manage without me. That recognition allowed me to arrive fully.

The drive to the center became my first practice. With each mile, my thoughts slowed, my breath deepened. By the time I stepped onto the grounds, gratitude filled me—gratitude for my wife and family, who had given me the space to be here, and for the chance to turn inward without distraction.

Early in the retreat, I noticed subtle triggers from daily life. My aspiration was to look beyond the content of these triggers and examine the architecture of self. Turning toward my “mistrust” schema in inner child work brought waves of sadness, suspicion and insecurity.

Betsy Arizu, the retreat leader, with her steady presence and compassionate guidance, created a path for exploring these wounds safely. Her process was so clear and impactful. In the embrace of the sangha, I could question long-held stories, gently offering my inner child new evidence that these old truths were not absolute. New, healthier beliefs began to take root.

There were moments of resistance, especially when memories cut close to the bone. At times, missing my family pulled me away from the present moment. When that happened, I walked slowly through the Zen garden, letting breath and step become one. Guided meditations with Misti Oxford-Pickeral and Bill Mac Millen brought me back to the work at hand. Misti’s almost angelic voice in the morning chanting set the tone for each day with clarity and intention.

One of the most powerful moments came during deep sharing after the inner child sessions. I felt raw yet held. The community’s presence gave strength to the tender perspectives I was forming. It was as if we were not only loosening the knots within ourselves but gently untangling each other’s as well.

In those moments, I felt what it means to take true refuge—in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—rather than in the delusive, conditioned self.

Since returning home, I’ve deepened my daily meditation, aspirations and intentions. My journey with the book Emotional Alchemy continues, now with a sharper focus on the schemas that construct the self. As Zen Master Dōgen wrote, “To study Buddhism is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self.”

Raj Goyal began his practice in 2017, starting with yoga and moving toward longer meditations. He found FCM about two or three years ago and has embraced its community ever since. He live in Odessa, FL, with his wife and their three daughters (ages 5, 13 and 15). This year is dedicated to deep self-work for his own growth and for his family.

A Happy Family Retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:00:38 GMT

By KARUNA REIFF

Since becoming a mother, I had hoped to take my family one day to a family retreat at a Plum Village monastery. As a child myself, I had wholeheartedly enjoyed attending several Plum Village family retreats in the U.S., as well as a few summer family retreats in Plum Village, France. Those experiences were always bright, happy spots in my childhood where my connection with Buddhism and Buddhist communities started to grow.

My dream came true this summer when I went with my husband and our two children (ages 10 and 13) to the Family Retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery. The monastery sits on 80 peaceful acres of woodland in the rural Catskill region of Pine Bush, NY-- a lovely change from busy Tampa Bay! Blue Cliff is home to a thriving community of monks, nuns, and lay practitioners who share the art of mindful living with thousands of adults and children every year.

Karuna and Newton Reiff relax among the Buddha statues at Blue Cliff Monastery.

In the photo above, Karuna hugs her daughter, Metta, in front of the Blue Cliff meditation hall.

We attended a four-day retreat primarily led by the monks and nuns. It seemed part mindfulness retreat (not much silence, though!) and part summer camp. The adults' program included some meditation, a Dharma sharing group, work meditation, and talks/panels on topics such as the Five Mindfulness Trainings, transforming suffering, and Beginning Anew.

Meanwhile, the children were immersed in their own activities, which often included games like soccer, tag and volleyball.

Miraculously, our 13- year-old son, who typically likes to do his own thing, happily spent almost all day every day with the Teen Program without any complaints. Our 10-year-old daughter joined the children’s program for her age group where she enjoyed playing outside almost all day and learning about things like the Two Promises and Beginning Anew.

The accommodations were varied and a surprise (at least for us) until we arrived. We were very comfortable in an RV while other families stayed in dorms or camped. Delicious vegan meals were served buffet-style three times daily with enough variety for everyone to be satisfied.

What stood out the most for me was how quickly all members of my family felt comfortable and happy.

The children instantly sensed Blue Cliff was a safe place where they could wander about and feel free. As parents, my husband and I quickly relaxed our guard as we felt the kindness of the community and knew our children were engaged in wholesome, nurturing activities.

The retreat watered and planted seeds in the four of us around kindness and living more harmoniously with others. Being with so many other families (250 total people) engaging in this wholesome way of being encouraged us in our practice. And, of course, it was nice to have someone other than me sharing this wonderful path with our family.

While most of the families that we met live in other parts of the country, connections were made and hopes of meeting again during future summer retreats were expressed. We also had the good fortune of attending with another FCM family, the Sedhains, which made the experience even more special.

We hope to return for another family retreat at Blue Cliff and hope this article will encourage other FCM families to consider a family retreat at one of the Plum Village monasteries here in the United States. Blue Cliff (NY), Magnolia Grove (in MS) and Deer Park (CA) monasteries all hold annual family retreats. It’s a great way to vacation together!

Karuna Reiff lives in St Petersburg where she works as a hospice social worker. She helps to facilitate the Family Program at FCM.

Coming Home to Myself and the 3 Jewels at Plum Village

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 03:01:06 GMT

By KATE TALANO

When I arrived at Plum Village for what became my year of residency, I carried a quiet but persistent belief that something was wrong with me. That I had somehow fallen out of alignment with life and had to fix myself to return to the light that I had recently touched while sitting with my grandfather as he transitioned.

But during my year at Plum Village, slowly and with great tenderness, that belief began to unravel as my practice with the Three Jewels—the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—deepened. I didn’t just study the Three Jewels at Plum Village, I touched their living, embodied nature as truths I could rest in: that I am already whole; that the path is available in each moment; and that I am never alone.

"If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha," the monk said as we shared over cups of warm tea.

"What? Kill the Buddha?" I asked, dismayed and puzzled by this koan.

He nodded, smiling. "There is no Buddha. You are the Buddha."

In their own artful way, each of the monastics reminded me that there was no need to look outside myself for the Buddha. The very concept of the Buddha being a thing outside myself was, in fact, clouding my vision. It kept me from seeing the Buddha everywhere, as a living energy and true jewel within me and all life.

Gradually I came to apprehend the Buddha as a presence rather than an idol—as a state of being, a way of seeing clearly right here and now. My practice focused on noticing when I am and am not dwelling in that Buddha within, and on learning how to support myself in coming back to that place of wholeness when self-identification feels strong. In this way, the Buddha became a true jewel for me.

Similarly, a monastic sparked my deepening apprehension of the jewel-like nature of the Dharma. One day while perusing the quiet aisles of the hamlet library, I discovered a small book by Sister Jina—one of the elders, a radiant Irish nun whose energy could light up a stone. A few days later, I passed her near the dining hall, bowed, and said, "Sister Jina, your poetry was so beautiful."

She blinked, then laughed. "Poetry? What poetry? Oh! You must mean my little book. That’s just my diary from a five-month retreat. The Sangha wanted me to write an autobiography, but I had no interest. So I gave them my journal entries. Every morning, I’d wake up and write three lines about what I directly experienced that day. That’s what became my little book."

From that day on, inspired by her practice, I did the exactly same. I kept a small notebook in my pocket and wrote down three lines each day—based exactly on what I saw, tasted, touched, heard, smelled, or noticed arising in my mind. For example, I wrote the following at 5:46 am on October 27 while walking from the bunkhouse to the meditation hall.

blanketed night sky,

littered with lights

so visibly empty

The silent meals, daily walking meditations, and mindful work periods all soon became part of this practice. Dharma permeated all my waking hours, and began to sink into my bones. Insights arose without my seeking out understanding. Instead of reading about emptiness, I began listening to the visible emptiness, hearing the silence which is eternally all-encompassing, and seeing emptiness as the nature of everything.

Deepening apprehension of the jewel of Sangha happened, in part, in relationship with other laywomen living at Plum Village. We were five who called ourselves the "Cosmic Sisters" and were responsible for co-creating the Plum Village farm with all the other co-creators—the sun, wind, plants, bees, birds, boars, and other critters. We worked and celebrated joyfully, sinking our bare feet and hands into the Earth, lighting bonfires and dancing to welcome the solstice sun and full moons—sometimes too exuberantly.

One day the monastic sisters kindly asked us to be a bit more contained with our excitement because some practicing noble silence found our laughter echoing up the hill distracting. But they also thanked us for our little honey-nectar bubble of joy, for they felt it, too.

It was in the hum of this great joy, the felt sense of connection with both lay and monastic practitioners, that my appreciation of the jewel-like nature of Sangha deepened. There’s something sacred about being deeply seen and heard. It allows what is most vulnerable to surface and be safely held. For me, the embrace of Sangha allowed a deep sorrow within me to arise. I sank myself into the land and into the arms of my cosmic sangha, knowing grief needed to move through, and love needed to come home.

Immersed in Sangha, I came to appreciate the Buddha’s teaching, “Sangha is not part of the path; it is the path.” I discovered this jewel extends in concentric circles to encompass all beings—my four cosmic sisters, the 300-person Plum Village community, the global Sangha of practitioners, the countless non-human beings buzzing and growing beside us, the ancestors behind and the descendants ahead, mother Gaia, sister moon, father Sun. Sangha became for me a living refuge. We are never alone.

In essence, the year at Plum Village was for me a return to wholeness. I became more present, more fully myself. I learned to cultivate rootedness, which became the solid ground from which I could slowly dissolve the small, separate self and step into the vastness of interbeing. I began to see that my humanness and my Buddhanature are not two. That both nirvana and samsara are here. The Three Jewels carried me through transformation, and my gratitude deepened as the world itself became a monastery—everywhere a place of practice, of return home.

I offer this reflection with deep gratitude—for the opportunity to live this experience, and for the honor of sharing it. May these words be of benefit.

Surrendering to Not Knowing and Finding My Path to Plum Village

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 03:42:35 GMT

By KATE TALANO

Two years ago, I was gifted the honor of shepherding my grandfather through the thin yet boundless veil of this human experience and what lies beyond.

I had never experienced death in that form of intimacy before. I was not taught what to say, or what to do, yet I was following the intuitive acts rooted in breath. The years of caring for him with Alzheimer's had given us a deep bond. He had been declining for a few days prior--resisting, grasping. Slowly, his body was returning to the land. I watched, listened, and wrote.

Early one morning, while everyone else in the home was sleeping, I went over and placed my forehead to his and said, “If there is one more thing to teach us, it’s that strength does not lie in persevering itself, but in the wisdom of knowing when to persevere and when to let go. Now I can imagine what you are going to do takes a lot of energy. So I am going to breathe with you, but it’s up to you if you’d like to stay or go.”

Then I took two deep breaths, harmonizing with his.

We entered what I describe as ”the space between”—that liminal space beyond time, beyond words, beyond anything I had previously concretized in my mind. All was silence, light and love. Complete oneness. Peace showered my body and his as together we bore witness to his continuation. It was breathtaking. I saw us as our light bodies, not our human bodies. Never had I seen ultimate reality so clearly.

There was so much space and knowing found in the emptiness of that light and silence. I remember staring at myself in a mirror afterwards and smiling. I was not the self I had thought I was. It was in that moment with my grandfather when my purpose, my path in life became clear—to share the light, to heal, to support others on their paths to awakening to the beauty of our true nature. Destiny was not a destination, but a way of being.

In the weeks after his passing, everything I thought I understood felt upside down. What was happening? I had believed that awakening to the true mind meant finding a steady place to rest. But instead, I found myself lost in the very unknowing that awakening invites. There seemed to be a fine line between awakening and insanity, and I kept tripping over it. Yet deep within there was a quiet voice asking me to pause with kindness, gently let go, and surrender to not knowing without fear.

From that tender place, I made a series of spontaneous decisions that felt more like surrender than choice. I resigned from my job, packed up most of my belongings, tapered off the antidepressants I’d been on and off for ten years, and ended a relationship with a loving French man that had gently reached its natural end. I asked him to drop me off at the gates of a monastery in the south of France called Plum Village—a monastery I had serendipitously discovered a year earlier through a simple Google search for “Buddhist centers near me.”

I had discovered that Plum Village offered a long-term program in which lay practitioners could join the monastic community for the traditional three-month Rains Retreat and, if the fit felt right, stay on for nine months or more, living in service and deep practice alongside the monastics. I applied for the program late summer, and had received a notification that a spot had opened up, which I was able to accept.

There, I dedicated my time to both my ancestors and my future descendants. This body, this breath, this Earth-made flesh is not mine alone. It is borrowed bone and water, soil and sun shaped by generations before me, and destined to nourish life beyond me. I practiced not only for my own transformation, but for all who once moved through this matter, including my grandfather, and all who may one day be shaped from it.

What felt like falling apart was, in truth, falling together into the path, the practice, the community. I was entering “not knowing,” an awareness without solidity. In a future article, I will share how immersing myself in this community offered me steady ground beneath my feet, helping me unlearn what no longer served me and remember the way back to our true home.

Kate Talano first joined FCM in 2022 shortly after discovering Plum Village and attending a Wake Up retreat, but the seeds of mindfulness were planted in her much earlier by her elementary school counselor, Brandy Kidd, a longtime student of Fred and member of FCM who taught her how to tend to her “worry garden.” She spent a year from October 2023 to October 2024 living long-term in Lower Hamlet Monastery in Plum Village, France. After returning from Plum Village, she began teaching in the public schools in Maine, but soon moved back to Naples to be closer to her family. She teaches Deep Ecology to children and is writing a creative non-fiction memoir that offers a heartfelt invitation to meet life with curiosity, courage, and presence.

All I Could Find at the Wisdom Retreat Were Processes, Fluidity and Verbs -- No Nouns

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 18:51:32 GMT

By BEN FAGAN

Arising
Looking
Is/Are
Be

It’s fair to say I had some trepidation about participating in this year’s Wisdom Retreat. While I had done two solo retreats with Fred, neither had been seven days long, and this would be my first group retreat. But, since I live a seven-hour drive away, I am not often able to get to the center in Tampa. And this was the first time that I was going to be in the country during the Wisdom Retreat. So I let go of my concerns and made the drive down.

One of the first things that struck me about the retreat was the deep sense of community. There’s something profound about getting to know someone without speaking. And our shared commitment to practice definitely lifted me up when my energy lagged. I felt many things on the retreat, but I never felt lonely. I truly experienced what it means to take refuge in the Sangha.

About midway through the retreat, Fred offered a teaching on how our thinking minds have a strong habitof reifying everything we encounter. It would even try to turn our experiences on retreat into something called “the retreat". I have noticed this occurring since returning home.

Fred gave us a day to reflect on this teaching, and I began to think about it in terms of nouns and verbs. I’ve been teaching writing of one sort or another for about 20 years, so my mind tends to go in this kind of direction. I realized that my thinking mind tries to make everything into a noun, into a thing that my self can then define itself against.

But, when looking directly at my thoughts, my mind, and my self, I could find no such thing, no such noun. All I could find were processes, fluidity, verbs. I recognize that nouns and verbs are themselves concepts that I need to be careful not to attach to, but they are concepts that help point me towards the greater truth that Fred helped us experience on retreat.

As I write this, it’s been exactly one week since “the retreat” (see, there’s the noun) ended. Thoughts of the impact of the retreat, and of whether or not I can maintain it, have arisen. But using the tools Fred taught us, I can look at those thoughts, understand their emptiness, wish them well, and let them go. And even though I don’t know when I’ll be back in Tampa, I can take refuge in the Sangha every day. It’s a refuge I need, and for which I am so grateful.

Ben Fagan lives in Opelika, AL, with his wife Juliane. He first encountered the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh over 25 years ago, but practiced only sporadically until joining FCM in 2020.

'Just This:' A Wisdom Retreatant's Experience of Her Natural Mind

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 20:10:39 GMT

By TAMY SKYE FAIERMAN

Each time I pull up to Nebraska Avenue after a four-hour drive north, it feels like returning home. Home to myself. This was to be the fifth, and longest, silent retreat I had attended at FCM during the past two-and-a- half years.

On the first evening, Fred began the Wisdom Retreat by asking us to state our intentions for our seven days of silence. "I want to meet my attachments and free myself of them," I spoke into the mic. Fred smiled and nodded, reassuring me I was in the right place.

The seven days of silence cultivated a haven for the teachings to land more deeply within us. A daily schedule including sitting meditation, walking meditation, and work meditation were intermixed with mindful eating of three scrumptious meals. Every single moment of retreat included an opportunity to practice the Dharma.

On opening night Fred assured us that together we would co-create this retreat and meet our original unborn mind. He certainly delivered on his promises.

On the first day, he reminded us to begin our meditations by grounding in the body, bringing us into the present moment. Then he shared Shantideva’s wisdom of keeping vigilant mindfulness by putting a Guard at the Gate of our mind. This set the tone for the entire retreat as my mind kept returning to wake up the Guard whenever he became sleepy or negligent.

Fred’s Dharma talks guided us to investigate the emptiness of mind, thoughts and self. These were followed by Angie’s guided meditations which pointed us to look directly as mind, thoughts, and self arise and disappear, denoting their impermanent and empty nature.

Fred took us through contemplations to distinguish between thoughts and awareness. By using mindful labeling of each thought we noticed when we were in "thinking mind" and when we rested in "awareness mind". After days of these practices I became quickly aware when my mind wandered off. Looking directly at my attachments, especially to my children, showed me clearly that when examined more deeply, these attachments were simply empty thoughts.

On day four, we were offered a private interview with Fred. I sat facing him with tears in my eyes, feeling I had uncovered a treasure.

"So what you’re saying is that this life is always just this?" I asked.

He returned a knowing smile and gently said "Yes, and you’re just getting a taste of it. You’re seeing just this in lower case. And there is Just This in upper case. There is so, so much more."

My eyes opened wide as I heard myself ask, "So I need to trust?"

"Yes," Fred said. "Trust in the teachings. Trust in the teacher."

I received my instructions and walked out feeling a full body YES.

Something in me knew what he meant and at the same time, I couldn't verbalize it. I had experienced the very nature of just this-ness and felt deeply committed to the path.

On my four-hour drive home, the silence of the road beneath me and the horizon ahead bathed me in wonder. I felt the mind calmer and more spacious. Just Awareness. Just this. During my drive, I solidified my aspirations:

--Commit to a daily sitting practice starting with the Four Thoughts

--Set the Plum Village ap Bell of Mindfulness on my phone every 20 minutes, reminding me to bring my attention to my breath and take three conscious deep intentional breaths each time it rings

--Attend more in-person and online sangha-based activities throughout the year so as to have the support I need to light up my bodhicitta.

I left the retreat having experienced the empty nature of mind, thoughts, and self. Now I just needed to stay committed. Patrul Rinpoche’s words accompanied us throughout the entire retreat in a poster that stood near the altar. I copied his words into my journal and carried them home in my heart as inspiration to remember my commitment to the Dharma path :

"Each instant, put your heart into it again.

"Each moment, remind yourself again.

"Each second, check yourself again.

"Night and day, make your resolve again.

"In the morning, commit yourself again.

"Each meditation practice, examine mind minutely.

"Never be apart from the Dharma, not even accidentally.

"Continually, do not forget."

Tamy Skye Faierman, of Cooper City, has lived in Florida since 2001 and came to FCM two- and-a-half years ago to find sangha to support and deepen her practice. She has been practicing for eight years and began the journey of self-discovery 16 years ago. She has five kids aged 17-27 and a snuggly ginger cat. Several years ago, after 25 years of working as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, she retired her scalpel and transformed into a Soul Surgeon, supporting others to dive deeply into themselves.

Naples and Tampa: We Are All the Leaves of One Tree

Mon, 05 May 2025 05:02:41 GMT

By BRANDY KIDD

One month ago, FCM enjoyed its Mahasangha event. In Buddhism, the term “maha” signifies “great.” This descriptor certainly held true on multiple levels! It was a deeply meaningful weekend celebrating both our teacher’s 80th continuation day, and FCM’s 30th anniversary. Old friendships were rekindled and new ones were forged. To me, it felt deeply and joyfully connected (shared conversations over meals, dancing, beautiful music, chats in the garden), all united by a love for The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

And for me, as someone who practices primarily with FCM’s Naples Sangha, our “maha” gathering was also great in its powerful demonstration that indeed, we are all the leaves of one tree (to quote the lovely Plum Village song).

There are not two FCM sanghas, Tampa and Naples. There is one sangha with different branches on the same tree of refuge. We share the same history, the same teacher, the same lineage, the same dedication to the cultivation of understanding and love.

And to cultivate that sense of unity, it is vitally important that we spend time

From left, Alex Lerner, Angie Parrish and Brandy Kidd

give an oral history of FCM's 30 years.

together! What a joy to see new and longstanding Naples sangha members immersed in the warmth, the conviviality, the selflessness of the buddha field that is the Tampa branch of our sangha. Likewise, when our Tampa-based brothers and sisters visit the Naples branch, the comments are often appreciative of the atmosphere, the close-knit energy of this smaller, bonded group of practitioners.

As I shared during the Friday morning panel during our celebration weekend, I had the amazing privilege of being part of FCM’s origin story 30 years ago. In the fall of 1995, having been told that Fred was a student of Thich Nhat Hanh, and then reading Thay’s book, A Joyful Path, about sangha-building, I called him to ask if he knew of a sangha in our area. He said, “People keep asking me that. Let’s have a Day of Mindfulness!” And so it began.

When Fred felt the call to reach a larger audience and moved to the Tampa/St. Pete area, the Naples branch continued to meet weekly and has done so without cease ever since. Many brothers and sisters have rotated as leaders of the Naples branch of our sangha, stoking the fires of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha energy with love and dedication. Many more brothers and sisters offer selfless service consistently and joyfully.

Often in Naples I’m heard to encourage: “Please visit the center in Tampa! Attend a selfless service workday. Attend a Day of Mindfulness! Attend a retreat!” and when in Tampa: “Please come practice with us in Naples!” That cross-pollination is key. We inter-are. Yet truly: we are one sangha, united in a culture of interbeing, of love for this beautiful path.

Brandy Kidd is leader of the Naples Sangha and is a licensed clinical social worker in Naples.

My Mahasangha Experience: Feeling Cared for By New Friends

Mon, 05 May 2025 04:40:35 GMT

By JUNE HEMBERGER

The sun was just rising as I left Naples to drive north, making my way to the FCM’s Mahasangha. Having missed the first day, I was determined to take full advantage of Day Two. The closer I got, the more excited I became, and maybe even a little bit nervous since I haven’t spent much time at our center.

Dion Hall and John McHarris welcomed me with big smiles and hugs. Then Pryanka Handa and I hugged as she was leaving to return to Naples. Their familiar faces certainly made me feel more comfortable.

My experience at a silent retreat last year was quite a contrast to the celebratory atmosphere at the Tampa Center that morning. Everyone wore big smiles and overflowed with joy! I greeted a few people I’d met at last year’s retreat, and they immediately made me feel welcome.

That morning a panel of early members, Angie Parrish, Brandy Kidd and Alex Lerner, described the amazingly fortuitous creation of FCM. From meetings in Fred‘s living room when he lived in Naples to the discovery of the Tampa site, the story was both entertaining and miraculous. I was moved by the thought of so many people working together to literally construct their vision once the site was found. Our center would not be here today without the hours and hours and hours of selfless service people gave to our sangha. I was inspired just imaging it!

Later that morning Fred interviewed three panels of FCM members about how their practice has impacted their lives. One panel of Marilyn Warlick, Karuna Reiff and Bryan Hindert focused on relationships, another of Misti Oxford-Pickeral, Max McHarris and Carl Newman focused on work, and the third of Libby Dunn, Peggy Wallace and Kevin Conlin focused on illness and death. I was moved by peoples' openness and deep, heartfelt descriptions. Kevin's experiences with end-of-life issues reaffirmed for me the value of just sitting with someone, whether they’re ill, in physical or emotional pain, or nearing death. I learned much from others’ practices.

That afternoon I met and learned from Peggy Wallace about community care and Raven Dreifus-Kofron about spiritual friends groups. Dinner was predictably delicious, and a chance to meet yet more people. The evening was topped off with an amazing cello and piano concert by FCM members Diana Fish and Bob Boguslaw, who are professional musicians.

All in all, it was definitely worth the trip! I strengthened friendships and made lots of new friends. Best of all was feeling so welcomed and cared about by my sangha sisters and brothers, even those I’m just getting to know. How grateful I am to have discovered FCM many years ago. I am learning how to be happy and how to bring more love into this precious world.

June Hemberger joined FCM in 2019. She is a retired medical practice manager, management consultant and retail business owner.

'The Brown Jacket Means I'm Here to Help'

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 20:36:57 GMT

By DION HALL

My aspiration to join the Order of Interbeing (OI) developed once I realized that the bodhisattva path was my ticket to happiness and fulfillment. This was an easy conclusion to draw, as the happiness I get from dedicating myself to practice and being of benefit has been unmatched, especially when compared to worldly grasping.

One day, after spending some time researching the Order of Interbeing, I decided to become an aspirant. I was initially inspired by Chris Witrak, who had already been ordained, and Max McHarris, who had just become an aspirant. I felt that I was in a similar place in my practice and understanding of the Dharma as they were, which made taking the leap easier. I remember separate conversations with both of them, where we shared the sense that we are the future of FCM. We talked about how important it is for us to do the work now, so that when the time comes to step into more significant roles, we will be ready.

My next step was to ask Fred about joining OI. At first, he said, I think reluctantly, “We’ll talk.” So, being my typical go-getter self, I emailed Fred “to talk”.

Our meeting went well. I expressed my aspiration to carry on the legacy of Thay and the legacy of Fred. None of us would be here without either. I really love the Dharma, and nothing gives me greater joy than to see others transformed by their practice. This is all I want to do in this lifetime.

My aspirancy began right away, and I joined the newly formed aspirant group. It was our great fortune to be able to work so closely with Fred for two years and deeply look into the Order and the 14 mindfulness trainings. We took a good look at our views and practice week after week, and I think we’ve all grown in our practice tremendously.

Reflecting back on my experience ordaining at Magnolia Grove Monastery, my practice has had an injection of energy. I am moved by the support of the community—John McHarris, Rita Cathey, and Misti Oxford-Pickeral—who took the time to travel to support David Braasch, Libby Dunn, and me. I am moved by the nuns and monks at the monastery, who truly embody the spirit of Thay and are certainly carrying on his legacy.

I heard a recurring criticism that OI members come off as prideful when wearing the brown jacket. I am proud to wear the brown jacket, not to show off or think I’m better than anyone. I am proud to join the ranks alongside our teacher Fred and all the great students of our dear community. I am proud to be of service and do what needs to be done. I am proud to join this great stream. The brown jacket means I'm here to help.

Dion Hall, of Temple Terrace, has been a member of FCM since 2022 and is a member of Wake Up Tampa Bay and the FCM Board of Directors. He was given the FCM Dharma name Source of Great Aspiration and the Plum Village Dharma name True Action of Non-Self (Chân Hạnh Vô Ngã).

Like the Wheels of a Cart Following the Foot of the Ox

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 04:14:34 GMT

By STEPHEN MAYPER

Everything was different. Not when I received transmission, but

when I found the Sangha. Receiving transmission, for me, felt like a foregone conclusion. The wheels of a cart following the foot of the ox.

I can look back at my life and see a variety of conditions that subtly steered me in this direction, such as learning from my parents that people are fundamentally good and worthy of love; my karate teacher, Mrs. Kaplan, teaching me "square breathing" when I was 5; my pathology professor, Dr. Wheeler, leading fortnightly meditation sessions in my first year of medical school. Through that, though, I never really saw the path.

2020 was the year I woke up. The scales fell from my eyes, and I realized I had fallen asleep behind the steering wheel of my life. I had let my personal and professional lives run on autopilot without much thought to what I aspired to in life. Jolted back awake during the pandemic, I set to work trying to course-correct.

I gobbled up self-help books, sought out a psychologist, and set to work on establishing healthy physical habits, and, under the guidance of a few smartphone apps, I began to take up a meditation practice. For years, I sat semi-regularly, and began to listen to Dharma talks online. Most of that time, I couldn’t tell if anything was happening. I understood the goal was to stay mindful during daily life, so I set reminders. I put up sticky notes around my office; I taped index cards around my apartment; I set morning intentions. Yet still I struggled to find mindfulness off the cushion.

A breakthrough started to happen when I stumbled upon Wake Up and the Florida Community of Mindfulness. Practicing in community and basing my practice in spiritual values and aspirations for the first time, I suddenly found myself having mindful moments throughout my day-to-day. The support of a community and a moral framework made my practice come to life. Still now I spend most moments lost in thought and carried away by emotions, but ever so slowly I am finding moments of “remembering” creeping into my day.

Before coming to FCM, I had already found solace in the Buddha's example and many of his teachings; however, in finding the community, I truly found refuge in the Buddhist path and the community. Everything was different once I found the sangha.

The decision to take part in the transmission ceremony did not even feel like a choice. It felt like a natural expression of what I already knew deeply in my body: that the Buddha, the Dharma, and the sangha are my refuges in this life and that I will work for the rest of my life to follow the five precepts to the best of my abilities.

Stephen lives in Tampa with his wife, Nicole, and their dachshund, Weasley. Not unlike his path with the Dharma, when he met Nicole at FCM, he "knew” he had found his soulmate and they married not long after. He enjoys gardening, hiking, and almost anything nerdy or science-y.

Discovering How My Heart and Mind Could Open

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:29:34 GMT

By MARY DAY

Little did I know, when joining FCM's Naples Sangha a year and a half ago, the capacity of one’s heart and mind to open. Practicing the principles of loving kindness, generosity, and selflessness with others in this retreat revealed what a moving and memorable discovery this can be.

Driving from Naples, and looking forward to the retreat, it felt good to arrive at the Tampa Center. The poster of His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the front of the room, with his quote “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible,” set a feeling tone of loving kindness for the entire weekend. Imagining His Holiness present in the room became an anchor. It was a reminder how choosing kindness is an option, anytime and anywhere.

Our retreat sangha had approximately 30 participants, with about a third of the group doing a three-day silent retreat for the first time. The first practice session presented the tools for cultivating true love which included turning on the light of mindfulness, gently digging deeper to understand, and watering seeds through practice. This orientation guided us toward bedtime as we slipped into noble silence for the weekend.

Angie Parrish and David Braasch alternated their presentations, balancing positive energy with a palpable sense of well being.

The gentle flowing movements and deep breathing of David’s qigong instruction were joyful and uplifting. The continuity and tradition of the "flowing as a river" walking meditation brought us all together. In a unified motion of going forward, David’s recitation of Thich Nhat Hahn’s quote, encouraged us to lead with the left foot and say to ourselves “I have arrived”, then follow with the right foot “I am home”. I could feel in the cadence of this walking meditation a continual and gentle reminder of our interconnectedness.

Angie’s presentations were skillfully balanced and gently held my attention. Practicing deep sharing and deep listening with a person I had just met was comforting and profoundly touching. Sharing causes and conditions, each of our hearts opened. I felt acknowledged and truly seen. Though our experiences were quite different, the recognition of her suffering gave larger context for mine, transforming into "our" suffering. The practice of tonglen helped me in support of this realization. I breathed in the communal suffering. I breathed out healing and love for communal relief.

Practicing work meditation in the garden was restful for my mind and invigorating for my body. It was a joyful experience to be outside with others, enjoying the exquisite beauty of a Bodhi tree’s leaf! The person I was sharing this with pointed out the leaf’s heart shape, which opened my heart even wider.

The closing circle gave us each an opportunity to share one or two insights from the retreat. Mine included: 1) A way to turn on the light of mindfulness can be adhering to a daily meditation practice every morning and 2) A way to gently dig deeper for understanding can be putting oneself in other people’s shoes.

Mary Day was introduced to meditation in the 1980s using Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness. She and her husband retired to Naples nine years ago. Both are artists and maintain a "smallwalls" studio in the Naples Art District.

Trauma and Resilience Workshop: Ghosting Was a Pattern in My Family

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:33:47 GMT

By DEBORAH BLAIR

In January I attended the workshop Fred offered on trauma and resilience. Rather than understanding trauma and how it relates to me, I had initially considered registering for the workshop primarily because I was interested in understanding intellectually how the word “trauma” is being used today in popular culture, and how to use the historical Buddhist perspective related to resilience. But that’s not what happened for me.

Instead, I found myself signing up for the workshop because of the experience I had growing up in my family. We didn’t call it, “Going No Contact” or “Ghosting” in those days, but that’s what it was. There would be a colorful fight between two parties. Then months or years might pass before the parties spoke again. Or the Ghosting might only last for a weekend. After the alcohol was out of the way, there would be a handshake, pat on the back, or a bro hug.

The Ghosting was always about one person feeling victimized by another and the victimizer defending their actions. On the periphery, other family members chose sides, whispered, and gossiped. I found this entire cycle of family behavior to be traumatic in the sense that the fights were never really resolved, and family members never really trusted one another.

This cycle of Ghosting has been going on for multiple generations in my family, and was continuing with me and my daughter repeatedly “Going No Contact.”

To be honest, I ended up registering for the workshop simply because I wanted to learn how to fix this situation with my daughter. A huge expectation, right? But my daughter had contacted me shortly before the workshop, and we had begun to communicate once again, albeit very cautiously on my part. So I wanted our communicating to continue without “Going No Contact” again, but didn’t really know how to do that in a way that would build a foundation for resolving any future conflicts without resorting to repeated Ghosting.

Trying to be openminded and willing as I entered the Meditation Hall for the workshop, I soon found a cushion where two people made space for me to sit. The group was large, and I was nearly late, which always rattles me. But soon everyone settled down, and the talk began. As Fred began to speak, I quickly realized that this workshop was not going to be like anything I had prepared myself for. Instead, Fred was sharing the kind of gentle understanding that I had come to expect from FCM workshops and retreats I’ve attended in the past. His perspective on trauma and resilience was also unexpected.

Fred spoke of how the culture that we live in conditions our world view and beliefs, along with how we understand and experience trauma. He noted how the internet spreads ideas and news in ways that humans had never experienced before such technological advances.

He reminded us that life is full of unpleasant experiences, and that suffering is a basic tenet of Buddhism. He taught us how we can reframe trauma and become resilient by practicing Right View and understanding the causes of suffering—including how open communication helps us to understand ways in which others may experience our actions as causes of their own suffering.

Overall, I left the workshop appreciating how we can reframe trauma and become resilient by practicing Right View, and committed to understanding better through opening myself to conversation with others about how my actions may be experienced as causes of suffering for them—suffering I’m unaware of unless it’s brought to my attention.

Deborah Blair of Placida, FL, has been an FCM member for two years.

Dharma Buddies Program Helped Me Strengthen My Connection to Others

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:01:52 GMT

By JUDY CLEMENTS

As a relative newcomer, I approached my first FCM intensive with mixed emotions. Desperate to close out 2024 with some real sense of accomplishment, I knew the timing was perfect. The topics and teachers aligned with my preferences. Yet anxiety and resistance dampened my enthusiasm as I contemplated the requirement of being a “Dharma Buddy,” especially the “Buddy” part.

Bonding with others has always been a struggle for me. In my early years I withdrew from my family to find comfort and solace in the book universe. While I excelled in an academic setting, doing so did not help me learn how to make and maintain friendships. Growing up, I didn’t have a suburban neighborhood to promote social skills during after-school free time.

As an adult, I enjoyed success In my professional life, but my personal relationships continued to be problematic and frustrating. Although my compulsive intellectual pursuit of understanding eventually built a base of relevant knowledge, I remained unable to implement the changes that I felt were necessary for me to be happy or find any modicum of peace.

Stumbling through the doors of FCM and into the loving arms of the sangha was a profound experience I was not expecting. So much of what had been missing from my life seemed readily available in my new community. I arrived as a loner, self-absorbed and isolated, but soon began to explore the many opportunities FCM offered to explore new relationships. I wanted to know how and where I fit in, what I could offer, and what I needed to learn. I participated actively, often, and in many different ways.

Given my track record with relationships, however, when it came time to register for my first Intensive, I worried and resisted in advance what I perceived as the “accountability/responsibility” factor of participating in the Dharma Buddy program, which was a requirement. Yet once enrolled, my beliefs around my own worthiness soon proved to be inaccurate.

I was paired with the perfect Dharma Buddy who was “just right” for me. Trust and confidence in myself and buddy soon developed as we shared aspirations and intentions, successes and frustrations without judgment or giving advice. The daily support of a Dharma Buddy helped us both to remember the teachings and our commitment to follow through on specific intentions. There was flexibility, creativity, and endless potential for enriching our relationship. I grew to appreciate the endless storehouse of wisdom in another’s perspective. I experienced great comfort, peace, and reassurance in our sharing and communicating in ways steeped in the Dharma.

By the end of the Intensive, I clearly saw how my worries about being an inadequate Dharma Buddy were yet another example of wasted energy keeping me unhappy. My Dharma Buddy relationship unfolded as a microcosm of the sangha -- individuals paired and connected to add energy and vision to the collective, strengthening and enlivening our work and the teachings. For me, this program and other opportunities to practice deep sharing/listening have been one of the most rewarding aspects of being part of FCM. I would not want to miss out on any opportunity to participate in the Dharma Buddy Program again!

Judy Clements of Seffner is a retired educator. She experienced a homecoming when finding FCM, where the Dharma Buddies Program helped her to connect with like-minded people.

Walking Among Thay's Spiritual Descendants in Vietnam

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 22:11:15 GMT

By VAN TUYET ANH LE

My main intention was to visit my family in Vietnam. I had not planned to attend the third memorial retreat and ceremony marking the passing of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) on January 18 at Tu Hieu Pagoda, his root temple in Hue Province. But my roommate's mom, who is a sangha member there, encouraged me to participate.

My approach was to relax and embrace the spiritual atmosphere. I believe the best way to cultivate deep awareness of the miracles around me is through relaxation and mindfulness. With this intention, I was able to open my heart, practice kindness, and connect with sangha members from different backgrounds.Above, Le visits Thay's "Breathing Room" at his root temple, Tu Hieu, in Hue, Vietnam.

The ceremony was held over three days. Centered around the retreat’s theme, “Sangha Gathering,” I experienced a timeless and spaceless environment filled with love. I felt as though I were one of Thay’s students, walking peacefully among a community of his spiritual descendants toward my true home and the roots of awakening.

This retreat marked my first experience practicing Buddhism in Vietnam, having begun my practice in America. Initially,I felt like a fish in a new pond. However, my ability to learn Buddhism in both Vietnamese and English enabled me to connect deeply with sanghas from around the world. The retreat hosted approximately 200 monks and nuns from the Plum Village tradition, alongside 500 practitioners. Due to limited accommodations, most participants stayed in nearby Airbnbs.

Above, Thay's calligraphy desk is set up at Tu Hieu Temple.

At the retreat, I was touched by the connection among sangha groups across Vietnam, such as HCMC’s Moonlight Sangha (Tăng Thân Trăng Rằm), Hanoi’s Morning Star Sangha (Tăng Thân Sao Mai), and Hue Sangha. Thay’s teaching of Tình Huynh Đệ (brotherhood) resonated deeply, as the care and compassion shared among participants turned every step in Thay’s home into a practice of mindfulness.

The retreat provided an opportunity to learn about the Vietnam War and the challenges Thay and his students faced during that time. I also gained insight into the efforts of the first and younger sangha generations to bridge the gap created during Thay’s years in exile, reflecting their dedication to practicing mindfulness in education, business, family and relationships.

Thay's living room at Tu Hieu Temple.

Practitioners shared their aspirations to incorporate mindfulness into workplaces and to reform Vietnam’s education system by fostering kindness and compassion. Mrs. Hang, a representative of Plum Village’s Wake-Up School, emphasized that true transformation begins with cultivating love and inclusiveness within ourselves. She stressed that such changes, starting with teachers, are essential for inspiring broader societal shifts.

Additionally, I cherished hearing personal stories from Thay’s students about his teachings, daily routines, and hobbies. Brother Pháp Niệm shared that while Thay was often seen as gentle and soft, he could also be firm when needed.

This retreat deepened my respect for Thay and his vision of collective awakening for all beings. His teachings of brotherhood and compassion continue to inspire, transcending generational divides and nurturing a path of mindfulness for the future.

What I feel most strongly after the retreat is a deeper faith in the path. As Thay said, "Happiness is the way," and I am now even more convinced of my understanding of true happiness. The path is already within me; I just need to remain calm, relax, walk peacefully with each step, and bring love both to myself and those around me.

Van Tuyet Anh Le of Tampa, who is Vietnamese, began studying abroad at the University of South Florida in 2022. She discovered FCM through its website and has been practicing as an FCM member for the past seven months. She is a vegetarian, and her hobbies include cooking, reading, and spending time with friends. One thing that often stands out about her is her smile and her dedication to the spiritual path.

Housekeeping at FCM Offers Needed 'Spiritual Punctuation'

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:46:55 GMT

By PAT LUKACS

Pulling into my usual parking spot, the one farthest from the Swan Motel and closest to the familiar wooden gate, I awkwardly dislodge my arthritic right hip to get out of the car, limp through the side gate, and clamber up the steps to the back door of the Meditation Building. By now, my right leg is stretched out, my hip is behaving a little better, and I’m feeling more physically

grounded. At the door, my inner equilibrium begins to catch up with my physical stability.

I pause, remembering to breathe, soothe and center myself with the gatha, “I am home. I have arrived.”

Each morning of housekeeping selfless service at FCM is made meaningful and

Pat Lukacs, left, with

co-leader Eleanor Cecil

enjoyable for me because of these pauses, these transitional moments that I’ve come to identify as a type of spiritual punctuation. As a retired English teacher, I’m weirdly aware of punctuation--not just the visual type that we use to signal pauses and inflection in writing--but also the many “figurative” or spiritual forms that can serve the same purpose in the rhythms of everyday thought and action.

The pause that seems so accessible while I’m “home” at FCM, easily eludes me elsewhere. Despite my efforts to remain focused and deliberate off the FCM campus, the day’s thoughts and events often rush by with no space or transitional moments between them. In contrast, while housekeeping at FCM, I move effortlessly in a peaceful rhythm from one task to the next marked by pauses that seem to elevate me beyond an aging body, disintegrating joints, and a distracted mind. The habitual tension and hurriedness, the jerky awkwardness that are frequent companions when I clean my own house are missing at FCM when my housekeeping is punctuated by transitional moments.

I usually begin by collecting trash and recycling, first from the Meditation Hall, then from the Education Building, and finally from Great Cloud Refuge. As I leave each building, I offer a surreptitious bow in recognition of the sacred purpose of the physical space and also in gratitude for the role this building has played over the years in nurturing my own practice.

As I move to another task, whether vacuuming entrances and foyers or scrubbing toilets and sinks, I punctuate. The breaks between tasks provide full stops. In these pauses, I'm able to gently release my conditioned response, the habitual drive to complete tasks as thoroughly and efficiently as possible.

I can replace the race with "good enough," with relaxed appreciation and gratitude. There are serene gaps, brief pauses often repeated at even intervals, not only between tasks, but also within tasks. Wiping up the window, “I love to clean and scrub;” wiping down tday my heart and mind grow clearer.”

Cleaning completed, I return to my self-assigned parking spot, curious to see if maybe I actually can—by silencing the chatter of self-imposed limits--find and savor these marks of spiritual punctuation, these pauses at transitional moments throughout the rest of the day.

Pat Lukacs has been a member of FCM for about 10 years. She is an ordained member of the Order of Interbeing, is co-leader with Eleanor Cecil of the Housekeeping Team, and lives in Seminole Heights, where she cohabitates with two geriatric dogs.

Fearfulness Is Learned; We Can Transform It

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 00:00:55 GMT

By ANGIE PARRISH

“Isn’t some anxiety normal?” Fred was asked on Day One of our recent retreat on Composting Fear into Fearlessness. Doesn’t everyone sometimes get worried or anxious about potentially unpleasant encounters, not being liked, getting sick or injured, approaching hurricanes, climate change, election outcomes, and so forth?

Fred’s resounding “No!” surprised many of us.

Anxiety and worry may be widespread, he taught, but this kind of fear is neither innate nor helpful. Yes, fear is helpful when we’re faced with imminent physical danger that triggers a fight or flight response, such as a bear poised to attack. But fear and anxiety arising in response to thoughts about what could happen in the future do nothing to protect us. Such imaginings only cause us to suffer and rob us of ease, joy and intimacy with life and other beings.

Amid engaging teacher/student interaction that included much laughter, Fred’s teachings and Bill MacMillen’s guided meditations during the retreat helped us to see how we could begin to understand and transform our fear into fearlessness.

We learned how:

We’re not born fearful and anxious. Fear arises and grows in our mind as a consequence of how we perceive and respond to life experiences.
Fear causes us to contract, constrict, and live from a place of protecting “self” instead of responding to life with confidence and ease.
Worry, anxiety, and fear arise in the mind as a response to worrisome thoughts. External triggers are not the root of our fear. If they were, everyone would be afraid of spiders.
We humans tend to overestimate danger and undervalue our capacity to respond effectively. Fred used two hands (picture a scale of justice with two pans) to represent how fear arises in the imbalance between the perceived danger on one hand and our capacity to respond on the other.
We cannot accurately predict the future. All we can do is prepare for reasonable possibilities and then deal with whatever happens when it does, remembering always to investigate our fear by asking, “Is it true?”
Mindfulness is absolutely essential to transforming our fear into fearlessness. IF we notice fear arising in the mind or body, AND we stop to name and welcome it, we can calm it by coming back to the present moment, placing attention on the breath, and letting go of those fearful thoughts about what might happen in the future.

At our closing circle early Sunday morning, everyone shared their insights from the retreat and plans for bringing the teachings into their daily lives. Later during Sunday Sangha, Fred asked three retreatants to share their experiences.

Monica shared how much stress she was experiencing from the accumulation of many small fears around her work as a teacher. She realized that her fear of imperfection was creating stress for herself and possibly for her students, and that she could choose to see the beauty of each child and where they weere in the learning process instead of worrying about imperfection. As Monica said, “I think this insight is going to transform who I am as a teacher.”
Patrick, a hedge fund analyst, shared learning that our fears are actually imaginary – made up in our minds – which was a transformational wake-up for him. In the past he had identified as a worrier or anxious person. Now he saw how none of us is an anxious or fearful person by nature because no one is born fearful or anxious. So he can transform his fear instead of continuing to be a worrier.
Joan, a retired psychiatrist attending her first retreat with FCM, shared coming into the retreat with some anxiety but telling herself that her kind of anxiety was normal, and so not a problem. She was surprised to discover there’s no such thing as “normal anxiety.” She described her retreat experience as “beginning a process of unraveling all the tentacles of fear in my life…just sort of peeling the blinders off. And, Step Two, acquiring some tools, which I’m just learning how to use.”

Like all FCM retreats, this one supported us in healing and transforming our suffering. I know first-hand this is why our teacher Fred founded FCM and it remains our shared purpose for existing. I am deeply grateful to Fred and to the many volunteers at the Florida Community of Mindfulness who find our shared purpose so meaningful and give so much support to our mission and vision.

Angie Parrish is Dharma Programs Leader for the Florida Community of Mindfulness. She has been a student of Fred since 1999.

Elegy for the Master of Ceremonies

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 03:16:05 GMT

By ANDREW ROCK

Dear Jacqulyn, you've become our ancestor,

Showing us the way, quietly departing

Into the ultimate, preparing

To release the ego, as we practice

To follow your lead, in this final ceremony.

Gently you show us to our places, allowing

Each to discover our part in harmony,

Opening our heart, while seeming to do

Nothing. Dragon Sister, we fly with you

in boundless emptiness, not far behind,

Until we too ripen and settle in

To join the cosmic ceremony. Gate, gate,

Paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha!

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha!

Go well, dear sister.

Andrew Rock of Tampa is a long-time member of FCM. He and his wife, Nancy Natilson, were close friends of Jacqulyn Schuett.

Dharma Buddies Support Training Your Mind

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 19:48:32 GMT

By EVELYN HASEMAN

Intentions are not merely thoughts; they are conscious decisions that shape how we interact with the world, transforming our life experience. While aspirations provide the overarching vision—how you wish to manifest your presence in the world—daily intentions are the actionable steps that bring those aspirations to fruition.

Think of aspirations as the big picture, your core values and guiding principles. In contrast, intentions are the focused actions you take each day to embody those values. For example, if your aspiration is to cultivate compassion, a daily intention might be to listen deeply and respond with kindness in your interactions with family at dinner today.

When you set a clear intention, you're doing more than making a mental note—you’re engaging a complex neurochemical process in your brain that supports lasting change. Here’s how it works:

Adrenaline for alertness and energy: Focusing on an intention triggers the release of adrenaline, the hormone that boosts your energy and keeps you alert. This heightened awareness helps you stay engaged with your intention, making it easier to act.

The focus neurotransmitter: Along with adrenaline, your brain releases neuro-transmitters that sharpen your focus and attention. This enables you to concentrate on your intention without distraction, increasing your likelihood of following through.

Together, these neurochemicals create a powerful support system, optimizing your ability to bring your intentions to life. By setting clear intentions, you prime your brain to keep you motivated, focused, and energized, paving the way for real, lasting change.

The Dharma Buddies Program is an ideal way to nurture the practice of setting daily intentions. Each morning, set your intention for the day and text or email it to your Dharma Buddy. Your buddy will respond with their daily intention, creating a space of mutual support and accountability.

The FCM program runs October 7 through December 16, and registration ends September 29. If you’re requesting a specific buddy, both buddies must contact evelynhaseman@gmail.com after completing registration. All FCM members are eligible for a Dharma Buddy, and Fred encourages everyone to participate to help bring change into your life.

If you register for the Mindful Living Path (MLP) Intensive, "Emotional Healing," you will automatically be paired with a buddy for the Intensive unless you request a specific person who is also in the same Intensive. If requesting a specific buddy, contact Evie at evelynhaseman@gmail.com. You do not need to register separately for the Dharma Buddies program if you are in this Intensive.

There is no charge for a Dharma Buddy. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your practice with the power of intentions that can change your life.

Evelyn Haseman of Temple Terrace has been a member of FCM since 2012 and has been involved in several leadership positions, including the Dharma Buddies program for five years. She attends the Tampa Sangha and is a member of the Order of Interbeing.

Compassionate Awakening: One Bird at a Time

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 18:43:27 GMT

By DON SIZEMORE

For the past year, I have been a part of “The Path of the Enlightened Being” intensive at FCM. With Fred’s guidance through the Shantideva text, The Way of the Bodhisattva, along with the sharing of other members in my group, my practice has strengthened and grown in ways I never realized possible.

This summer I had ankle surgery and was immobilized for six weeks. Being a very active person I was concerned about becoming restless. As a teacher with summers off, my time is usually spent gardening, working on home renovations or making pottery. I decided to use my new idle time as a sort of morning retreat. Each morning I sat on my screened

porch overlooking my garden and pond to meditate, read and reflect on the teachings of Shantideva.

Click on grackle image to view video

The summer part of the intensive was geared towards creating a personal plan of how to integrate the teachings of the first two sessions into our daily lives. I concentrated on acknowledging and clearing the “tinder” in my mind that gets ignited all too easily and provides fuel to minor annoyances throughout the day -- like bad drivers and difficult people I encounter. Rather than reacting quickly I would learn to train my mind to look deeper into the situations that frustrate me and try to better understand the situations and not be so quick to judge.

As the weeks went by I was making noticeable progress. Perhaps my inner gatekeeper was becoming more diligent at clearing the tinder and better dealing with these situations. Or, perhaps being removed from my day to day routine made it easier to pause and reflect.

Knowing how much I love to watch the birds in the garden, my family bought me a bird feeder camera for Father’s Day in hopes that it would help occupy some of my time. I spent many hours post surgery immersed in the up-close videos that were sent to my phone throughout the day, entertained by the adult and fledgling birds making their way to the feeder. The cardinals, wrens, titmouse, brown thrashers, house sparrows and blue jays brought me peace and soothed my restlessness. Until, one day a new bird arrived at the feeder: a grackle.

It quickly became apparent that grackles aren’t the most peaceful birds to watch. They’re noisy, abrupt, and throw seed everywhere! And this particular female spent the day lying directly in the bird seed making it impossible for the others to feed. The video feeder has a speaker on it that I can talk into from my phone.

So after a few days of this grackle interrupting my perfect summer feeder experience I started roaring into my phone in hopes of maybe scaring it away. “ROAR! GET OUT! AHHH!" It wouldn’t budge.

After a few days of this, one morning while meditating my inner gatekeeper turned to me and very bluntly said, “What are you doing? This grackle is the tinder you so quickly ignite. Look closer and try to better understand her.”

So I went back to the feeder videos, sorted through all the clips of her and finally noticed a key element in the story: She was missing a foot. She was lying in the seed because she couldn’t stand on the perch. My frustration had pushed my compassion aside. I immediately felt terrible because of it. She was the driver speeding recklessly past me whom I quickly judged. She was me, hobbling around on crutches unable to carry my own food to the table. She was all of us, unable to articulate a proper cry for help and simply needing a little understanding from the world.

I’m happy to say that after a few more days the grackle was able to begin balancing on the feeder perch and other birds would come feed beside her. I’m also happy to say that through the teachings of Shantideva and the guidance of Fred and the FCM sangha I am able to take lessons like these and use them to strengthen my bodhicitta, hopefully making the world a better place…..one bird at a time.

Don Sizemore has been teaching ceramics and pottery in Hillsborough County Public Schools for 26 years. He has been married to his amazing wife, Erin, for 27 years and together they have two sons, 16 and 20. He wandered into FCM two years ago to learn qigong with David Braasch which led to Sunday morning meditation and then on to numerous intensives along with the formation of a daily practice.

Retreat Brings Gradual Clarity

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 20:36:44 GMT

By MARIA CLAUDIA ESCOBAR

I signed up for the retreat “Cultivating the Courageous Heart” without much thought about the topic or focus as I have found all retreats to be a delicious time away from the pushing and pulling of the world and a welcome silent pause to the chaos. This retreat focused on loving kindness and compassion.

With the first bit of quieting, I saw that my focus in life is what I am doing to others on the outside of me and how everyone else is affecting me. ALL ABOUT ME. And indeed, my life of late has been consumed with tasks, responsibilities, classes which in the end are all focused on me. Yet, I am a person who thrives in the company of o

thers and loves to bring people together and host wonderful gatherings. I noticed I had veered off a path of building community.

Throughout the weekend, we embarked on a series of exercises and meditations that helped to stir the heart of compassion for ourselves and others. What became clearly apparent was how easily I feel for others’ suffering and share a kind word or gesture and yet how harshly I speak to and reprimand myself for things great and small. I heard the many judgments I make about myself, constantly trying to push and prod “me” into shape, so that everything will be okay. What those wonderful exercises and meditations revealed is that everything is okay …. I have to be willing to rest my mind and ease into the quiet. There is peace there.

My meditation experience is often muddled and frustrating. I go through sessions where I have no idea why I am sitting there wasting all this time as my mind races endlessly with just morsels of quiet here and there. I wonder if ever I will bear the fruits of mindfulness if I cannot manage a mere 30 minutes of calm. And so the judgments about me, mediation, Buddhism, Fred --- all of it — carries me away to a land of frustration and futility.

During this retreat, we had wonderful guided meditations that helped me revive kindness and tenderness for myself. With plenty of time for rest and relaxation, I did find and touch glimpses of peace and quiet that feel wonderfully nourishing. Angie Parrish had mentioned that meditation and mindfulness helps to bring clarity which had never sunk in with me, nor had that been my experience.

However, after the retreat I actually saw a difference in my actual vision. I wear glasses all the time and kept wondering if I was wearing a different prescription. More of the beautiful wide world was gazing back at me through the same glasses. I was just seeing more of what was already there. It was amazing and I finally got it.

There were no huge revelations, yet I did get a clearness to my heart and being that is tough to describe. There was a steadiness, a solidity without so much noise coming from my mind. I noticed I was much softer and easier with myself.

For me the takeaways were:

The outside affects the inside -- Having no cell phone, not reading anything nor listening to anything absolutely helps to quiet the inside. I noticed the pull my cell phone has on me with a constant desire to read or overcome boredom by scrolling. I also struggle with sleep and usually read something before bedtime to reach sleep. During the retreat, I used nothing and slept wonderfully.
We all want the same thing -- We did a powerful exercise where you look into the eyes of another person without saying a word. The power of connection was overwhelming and it easily brought me to tears. I spend so much of my life judging others that I miss the opportunity to see and feel that they are just like me --- seeking, hoping, loving, suffering, living and dying. This helped me to see our common humanity in mundane interactions and increased my desire to wish others well, even if I have no relationship with them.
Clarity -- I often struggle to sit on my cushion, given my unsatisfactory experiences. I realized that a constellation of factors will help to bring the clarity that can come with mindfulness and meditation as it did on this retreat:

-- not cluttering my mind with unnecessary information, noise, visual input

-- even though I enjoy reading, being selective can reduce the space that such things take up in my mind

-- it’s okay not to be DOING all the time, give the “to do” list a break, and relax, go to bed early, daydream, walk without a destination

Spend more time loving myself -- Bring sunshine, flowers and soft puffy white clouds to my inner world, which can be harsh and cold and unrelenting. Express gratitude, appreciation and love to my inner child. Softening the inside is more relaxing, inviting, and energizing.

Angie and David Braasch are wonderful human beings who shared all of who they are to guide us on a path of love and kindness to ourselves and others. Their gifts are immeasurable and their humility is inviting. I am immensely grateful to FCM and Fred’s determination and vision of what is possible. Without such a visionary among us, where would our wandering minds and lives be? The beauty, calm and commitment demonstrated at FCM in every detail is a wonderful inspiration and comfort to me.

Maria Claudia Escobar lives in downtown Tampa. It took a few years before she signed up for a retreat because she was afraid that the sitting would be unbearably long and strict. “How foolish I was -- losing out on precious time to feel peace and calm and joy within. Now, I jump at the chance,” she says. She has been coming to FCM over the past four years. Her joys include people, arranging flowers, hospitality, the beach, and travel.

An Inspiring Wisdom Retreat with Fred

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 03:54:26 GMT

By MISTI OXFORD-PICKERAL

I had the great fortune to attend the seven-day Dzog-chen Wisdom Retreat led by our beloved teacher, Fred, the first week of June.

A number of experiences were impactful, but a particularly touching aspect of this retreat was “storytime” with Fred. He shared his personal

record of teachings received from his time in northern India studying directly with Dzongnang Rinpoche and others, including an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These sharings were so precious, so direct and deep.

I cannot adequately describe how powerful it was to watch and listen as Fred opened his notebook and stepped back in time almost 50 years. I think it is safe to say we were all riveted.

I have not had the opportunity to experience transmission of the Dharma directly from the great teachers of our generation, such as Thich Nhat Hanh or the Dalai Lama. I have relied upon recordings, books and learning from those who were able to receive their direct transmission.

During this retreat, I realized that our beloved teacher is also one of our generation who has studied at the feet of great teachers and not only received the transmission of their pith teachings, but also their directive to teach the Dharma. We are so fortunate!

Now, as part of my sitting practice every day, I include gratitude for the lineages and past teachers going back to the Buddha, channeling their wisdom through Fred, shining the light of Dharma, lighting the way for us all along the direct path to awakening that is inherent in each of us and possible in this lifetime.

I am filled with gratitude to have the personal circumstances that allow me to take a week off from work and familial obligations to be on a retreat at FCM’s beautiful practice center, in silence, with fellow brothers and sisters on the path, learning from our teacher and practicing the Dharma. I deeply appreciate the space, time and setting all conducive to focus on my practice.

I never want to squander these precious opportunities. Retreat provides a huge recharge and reenergizing of my vows and aspiration.

For me, this retreat was particularly unique and powerful. First was the focus on the preliminaries and adding in bodhicitta. The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind Towards Dharma are foundational in my seated practice.

Adding the cultivation of bodhicitta, the mind of wisdom and compassion that is aimed at liberation for the benefit of all beings, as a preliminary takes the Four Thoughts to another level entirely.

Imagining all the beings who are not able to practice, who are not touched by the Dharma, who are struggling to simply live, or who live in hell realms of suffering, war, violence and drugs, touched my heart, opened my mind and truly brought my aspiration to life.

I feel interbeing-ness. Practicing for me is practicing for you; practicing for you is practicing for me. No separation. So beautiful.

My practice has deepened and softened as a result of this retreat.

This world and the countless suffering beings are with me. I continue to be diligent and relaxed and to open my heart-mind as wide as I can every day. And for those of you waiting to go on retreat, please take the courageous leap. It is so worthwhile.

Misti Oxford-Pickeral lives in Gainesville with her husband, her son, her mom and their two dogs. She is an acupuncturist and a teacher of East Asian medicine, about which she is very passionate. She loves hiking in the woods and spotting wildlife. She is president-elect of the FCM Board of Directors.

Learn More about Prison Dharma Program

Sun, 05 May 2024 15:02:11 GMT

By NED BELLAMY

As a principle of Mahayana Buddhism we commit to an aspiration to be of benefit to others.

The 4th Mindfulness Training of the Order of Interbeing recited by FCM members reminds us that this aspiration is not a passive one: “Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes

before suffering. Practice mindfulness to look deeply into the roots of suffering within yourself, others and the world. Recognize, accept, and transform your own suffering. Find ways to be with and help alleviate the suffering of others. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.”

In FCM’s Prison Dharma Program, all of us--inmates and volunteers alike--find this commitment and our time together to be mutually fruitful and sacred.

The program began more than a decade ago and has ebbed and flowed with circumstances. During the pandemic, FCM’s team of volunteers was reduced from 10 to five intrepid souls who kept it alive, visiting four prisons twice during most months despite the high rate of infection among inmates and restrictions on visitors. Now, post-COVID, our team has nine members and needs three more.

Why participate in the Prison Dharma Program? It offers the profound experience of bringing compassion, peace and joy to men serving time in state prisons near the Tampa Bay area. Three more members, bringing us to a complement of 12, would allow us to serve another one or two institutions and more easily fill vacancies when members leave for the summer or take out-of-town trips.

Volunteers for the program must have been FCM members for at least two years, have a daily meditation practice and have participated in FCM retreats or Intensives.

Each volunteer travels once or twice a month, alone or in pairs, to visit one of four state prisons within an hour’s or so drive from Tampa. The prisons are in Zephyrhills, Bushnell, Polk City and Bowling Green in Hardee County. Two-hour sangha meetings are attended by between six and 12 men. They include guided sitting and walking meditations, recitations or chanting, a Dharma talk, and extra time to listen deeply to men who need to be seen and heard.

One inmate said it this way: “We’re never alone. I have 69 roommates, many with mental health challenges. Coming together in our small group of like-minded guys is literally a refuge where I feel safe and supported. I’m encouraged by the teachings that remind us again and again of what is possible for us, even during our stay.”

Following approval by the Florida Department of Corrections, each new FCM volunteer shadows several different, more experienced volunteers during scheduled visits to several prisons. This student/mentor arrangement continues as his or her self-confidence grows with experience in co-chairing discussions, guiding meditations, and presenting abbreviated Dharma talks, all at the recruit’s own pace.

Most people are a little apprehensive when entering a men’s prison for the first time. Gratefully, visitors’ personal safety has never been an issue for us. We gather in the prison chapel, segregated from the general population, and are welcomed by the chaplain and his staff.

Since this program began, eight women have volunteered to serve in men’s prisons. Recently, sangha attendance has increased in two prisons after women became regular visitors. Women’s presence in these small, sacred, sangha circles often seems to encourage greater vulnerability and deeper sharing. Susan Ghosh, who volunteered in the program for several years, writes, “No way to tell any difference between us. Who’s teaching? Who’s learning? I always leave with some treasure.” We are reaching out to the only state women’s prison near Tampa and to local county jails to see if we might serve either their men or women inmates.

Why do FCM’s volunteers commit to the prison program? Here are some comments from prisoners that may provide an answer:

On Easter Sunday after a heavy, cooling downpour, the sun shone over a flock of sandhill cranes, the prison gardens, the koi pond and the green courtyard. A long-time inmate practitioner walking beside us said, “Yeah. It is beautiful. And you know what? For the last 20 years, every single morning, it has been beautiful.”

“Sixty days of solitary confinement is especially tough in this prison, because writing and reading material in the cell is forbidden. Finally, the Christian chaplain agreed to bring me two Buddhist books. I re-read them over and over and began meditating. I think they saved my life.”

“I’ve been in foster homes, jails and prisons for 45 years. I was hopeless when two Buddhist volunteers began to visit us regularly. They are the very first people who had ever noticed, much less believed, in me. Inspired by their practice and teachings, I turned my life around and have been a committed practitioner ever since.”

FCM volunteers are equally moved:

Chris: “What could possibly be better than sitting in a small circle sharing the Dharma?”

Brian: “Their deep and rich practice in very difficult circumstances is moving and inspiring.”

Kevin: “The guys inspire me to practice. And their gratitude to FCM members who come to share the Dharma with them is palpable.”

To learn more about FCM’s Prison Dharma Program, please contact Ned Bellamy at nedbellamy46@gmail.com, or call or text him at 727-642-5900.

Buddhist View Provides Resilience

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 19:17:06 GMT

By BETSY ARIZU

You’ve probably heard our teacher Fred tell this extraordinary story before. Here it is as written in the Ph.D. dissertation of medical anthropologist, Sara Lewis, Spacious Minds, Empty Selves: Coping and Resilience in the Tibetan Exile Community (p.2).

In 1959, a Tibetan monk named Palden Gyatso was imprisoned

at the outset of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Upon his release 33 years later, Gyatso said that his greatest fear during his captivity was not torture or death, but that he might lose compassion for his torturers. Gyatso’s story and others like it are often recounted by Tibetan refugees as examples of how this community has remained resilient in the face of collective trauma. These sentiments raise important questions about suffering, resilience, and the role of cultural beliefs and practices in the study of political violence.

In her dissertation Lewis describes the extensive interviews she conducted with Tibetan refugees in Dharmsala, India. Most intriguing was that she found none of the symptomatology of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) that one might expect given the events of displacement, incarceration, and torture. She noticed that her interviewees downplayed their personal experiences. They often spoke about impermanence and were well accepting of the fact that suffering is part of living life. Encountering such resilience, open mindedness and compassion in the Tibetan refugees Lewis concluded that the Buddhist "view" was influencing the way people responded to traumatic events.

In a recent talk Fred shared with us how his observations when he visited and lived in Tibetan refugee camps decades ago were confirmed by what Lewis found in her field work. He did not see the bitter, raging refugees that he had seen in other parts of the world. He saw among the Tibetans compassionate, equanimous, healthy minded people making efforts to rebuild their communities and way of life. They did not see themselves as victims: they were seeing the "big picture in life."

So what is the big picture? What is the big picture view taught by the Buddha that allows for great resiliency even under adverse conditions? Fred emphasized four aspects of the Buddhist View:

Impermanence - Things change. When we really get this, we are not shocked or thrown off base when things happen that we don't like or expect.
Suffering – Accepting that there is suffering in life. That is reality, even though within our American culture, we might feel entitled to a perfect life, free of suffering.
Cause and Effect (karma) – Whatever happens isn’t personal. It’s due to complex causes and conditions.
Emptiness - We are not solid, separate entities. We don’t necessarily need to have a profound meditative experience of emptiness to understand and live with the freedom that this understanding implies.

For more on the big picture from Fred and Sara Lewis’ work:

Fred’s talk: Trauma, Resilience and the Buddha's Path of Understanding and Compassion

Sara Lewis’ book (available on Amazon and other places), Spacious Minds: Trauma and Resilience in Tibetan Buddhism (2019).

Betsy Arizu has been practicing the Dharma since becoming a student of Fred and a member of FCM in 2011. She is an artist and former high school teacher and counselor.

'Waking Up" in the Kitchen Sangha Was Delightful!

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 15:00:27 GMT

By JUDY CLEMENTS

In my youth I was called to serve.

I listened to loners who, like me, had no "pack" for protection, connection, affection. As a very young pup, I retreated, hiding out in my den where it felt safe, even if it was dark, damp and cold.

Fortunately, my innate curiosity lured me into the light where schooling brought satisfaction and competence.

That became my preferred, predictable, environment. Books became best friends. Fifty years in educational settings allowed me to explore ideas and practice the life skills the family could not model. I was drawn to the underserved who were in the most need of life skills, like communication, creativity, and problem solving within a group.

The faintest trail of breadcrumbs has sustained me on my quest for understanding. Compulsive overthinking, reading and many teachers suggested positive alternative explanations to my old stories, outdated language, and habit energies. Understanding accumulated, but I lacked a community to support the implementation and practice of these insights.

Arriving at FCM in October of ’23, I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

As I merged with the generous, yet gentle flow of the Sangha River, I floated with ease, feeling buoyed by an infinitely supportive community. I missed out on that idyllic neighborhood of the 1950s. My choice to retreat from my family caused more disconnection. Mostly I've navigated through life’s rough waters alone without the perspective of friends. Sharing a variety of rafting adventures with likeminded travelers through a range of FCM rapids has been exciting, joyful and rewarding.

A recent trip took me through the “Retreat Kitchen” to help provide a wholesome beautiful lunch. In my professional life, I rarely gave our essential food service workers much thought. Responsibilities of a domestic nature, especially the kitchen ones, were among the tasks I most resisted. I had embraced selfless service on the grounds, or even housekeeping chores, at FCM as a retreat from my usual self-absorbed agenda.

“Waking up” in the kitchen sangha prepping for lunch was delightful! There was great comfort in its clear structure, simple motor skills and tools. The inspired leadership aligned with my intentions to nourish others. In view of my recent long, slow fall off my nutritional wagon, this was the ideal place to recommit to wholesome sustainable eating.

Having worked alone most of my life with little guidance or encouragement, I discovered a real fulfillment being part of the kitchen team. The infinite patience and respect expressed allowed me to take refuge in the mindful movement my body craves.

Letting go of a need to rehearse my words to ensure the other understands means deep sharing comes more easily for me. Knowing others are open to hearing what is unsaid, to deeply listen, means I feel safe expressing myself. The more we interact from this place, the deeper we seem to go. From the depths of our being, this togetherness transforms us and we glimpse our true Buddha nature.

Judy Clements of Seffner is a retired educator who joined FCM in 2023 and has assisted on the kitchen team in support of retreats.

The Guard at the Gate

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 17:51:53 GMT

By JUNE HEMBERGER

“GONG!” went the bell that woke me the first morning. Outside my window at Great Cloud Refuge in Tampa, birds were chirping their morning songs, and the fountain watering the beautiful garden was gurgling a melody.

Thus began a day of sitting meditation, walking medi

tation, talks by Fred, along with a bit of working meditation, and qigong. We moved through the day silently, with no need to be sociable, or to say please and thank you. For me the silence was very calming and peaceful, supporting my inward focus, and helping me to remember Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching, “The way out is in”. Silent meals encouraged me to chew my food slowly, taking pleasure in the taste and texture of the delicious meals prepared lovingly by FCM's kitchen volunteers.

Fred began our study of vexations at the four-day retreat, “The Perfection of Patience: Transforming Vexation into Understanding and Equanimity,” by encouraging us to identify those vexations, or irritations, we personally experience most frequently. My list was long -- annoyance, defensiveness, hurt and self righteousness, to name just a few.

Annoyance and hurt are the feelings which arise most often for me. Recognizing these feelings as unwholesome emotions that arise uninvited in my mind was particularly helpful. If we welcome them in, they’ll take over and cause obsessive thinking and mounting irritation and suffering. Therefore,

Fred explained, we need "a guard at the gate” of our minds, with very specific instructions as to what we want that guard to allow into our minds. Unwholesome thoughts and feelings? No, just show them the door. Wholesome thoughts and feelings, like compassion and acceptance? Yes, please, come right in and stay a while.

Next, we asked ourselves what fundamental views we have -- that we don’t always know we have -- about life and relationships. These views are often a cause of our suffering. I realized that I suffer when someone, especially someone to whom I’m close, says something I find annoying, irritating or even hurtful. This behavior breaks my fundamental view that people, and especially family, should act a certain way, the way I think is the “right” way. Having this view causes me to suffer. The Dharma teaches that understanding cultivates patience, an appropriate antidote in this situation.

In an effort to understand what is occurring and why, I realized that these unwholesome feelings are the result of my causes and conditions, what the other person said is a product of their causes and conditions, and in fact, we’re all doing the very best that we can!

Some time later, I’m still reminding my guard to turn away those unwelcome guests when they arrive. When they do, I search for wholesome mind states such as acceptance and understanding. I also practice deep breathing to access a forgiving and patient mind. These practices are new to me. I vow to be more generous and compassionate in my relationships.

Thank you, Fred, for once again, teaching me new ways of being and new ways of thinking so that I can be happier, calmer and more understanding on the path to becoming a Bodhisattva.

June Hemberger, of Naples and Norwich, VT, discovered Naples Sangha about nine years ago after previously meditating intermittently. She lives with her partner, Steve, and their happy 13-year-old standard poodle who teaches them to be calm, loving and good natured!

Invitation to Awaken

Sat, 17 Jun 2023 20:52:08 GMT

By TODD GORE

The recent seven-day Wisdom Retreat left me with significant insights and realizations. An important breakthrough came Tuesday morning, enabling the rest of my progress through the week.

For some time, when in the best state of mind, I've been able to see my mind as a vast open space, which felt very good, very

right. But I was limited because I saw it as “my vast open space” and would often

struggle trying to find it. Just a couple of perfectly timed words from Fred caused me to see the space of mind as no different than the space all around us, making it continuously obvious and giving me much clearer awareness and a feeling of non-duality and oneness.

The concept of not-self is one I've understood intellectually for several years but struggled with taking beyond a concept, noticing that the ego was gone when I was in the most mindful state, but not able to necessarily bring about that state. During the retreat I looked deeply for this thing I considered "self," and as has happened in the past I could not find it, but still felt its presence.

At several points I felt as if the "self" was fighting back, almost like it was in self-preservation mode, presenting arguments to help it retain its preeminence over my life. Without chasing after these arguments, I could see them as both not real and not valid, as if their purpose was just to plant seeds of doubt.

Continuing to look deeply, I became aware of what this "self" was not and this helped me to finally see it for what it is. I could see clearly that the "self" is not needed for the things that are really important -- for example, for memory, or to retain skills, or to feel joy, or to appreciate beauty, or to love, or to feel compassion. This led me to a deep insight and understanding that the "self" I've been identifying with is just a character that I made up. I could see it as this imaginary person that I've been adding on to since I was a child. It was very clear and felt very freeing.

The second insight came as I was feeling very awake and present during the early session on Thursday, with a strong sense of joy doing walking meditation with my brothers and sisters in the sangha. Fred came in and quietly instructed us to let go of the duality by seeing it as "just walking," not "I am walking."

This had an almost immediate impact as it built on the newly clarified view of the space of mind and the new understanding of “I.” I don't remember any of the specific words that Fred spoke after walking meditation. I just remember feeling what was being shared and it continuing to build inside. I don't have the words to explain with any detail what I experienced at that point. While feeling like I was really understanding the core nature of mind, of reality, the words that shouted excitedly in my mind were:“Everything Just Is.” This felt like all I needed to know. I felt tears running down my face and tiny tremors tingling throughout the body.

Shortly after that, a second realization overtook me with the same force as the first. Again, words do not fully explain the understanding of what shouted excitedly in my mind: “I do not exist.” But the meaning could not have been more clear. More tears, more joyful tremors. At the end of the session I went outside and walked by the pond, just being with the feeling. Eventually the physical reactions calmed down and I went back in as breakfast was finishing. I see these experiences as creating a wonderful new starting point to transformation through my life practice.

Todd Gore retired from IT work in 2016 and lives in Clermont with his wife, two dogs, and a cat. Upon hearing about mindfulness eight or nine years ago, he started reading about it and took some basic online classes. Eventually, he realized that self-study would not get him to where he would like to be and in 2021, he joined FCM.

I Can Show Up for My Inner Child, Just As I Do for My kids

Sat, 27 May 2023 16:53:55 GMT

By HELEN ANDERSEN

I decided to participate in the Radical Acceptance workshop, beautifully led by Angie Parrish and Betsy Arizu, as a way to deepen and continue the work I had been doing in the Emotional Healing Intensive which began in March with Fred.

The intensive and workshop have given me a clear way to observe those times where I feel ambushed by deep emotion – sometimes seemingly out of the blue.

What I have discovered is that these emotions have always been there waiting to be tended to – and what I have habitually done instead is to immerse myself in “doing” (fleeing from them), and then doing to the point of exhaustion -- doing to the point where it can be hard to just sit and enjoy playing with my kids.

I live in Parrish with my family – my husband Brandon, and Mia, 9, and Theo, 6. I began exploring mindfulness in 2013, but it wasn’t until I heard a recorded talk by Thay that I felt connected to a teacher. I continued to listen to this talk over and over, then read The Art of Living right after Theo was born in 2017. Taking Thay’s recommendation seriously to try to find a sangha to practice with, I felt incredibly lucky to find that FCM was just 50 minutes north and had a family program so we could all explore this path together.

At the Radical Acceptance workshop, I discovered that it was my inner child that was crying out for support in those times because she feels/felt it is her responsibility to fix, help others, keep the peace. She hopes that once things are fixed that she can then receive the love, acceptance, attention, etc., that she is looking for.

I have learned that as an adult I have the emotional maturity, compassion and strength to give my inner child what she is searching for – to be present to her, not to mistake her emotions for my own adult emotions. That separation has been so powerful. I do not need to be “blended” with that inner child.

Instead, I can show up for my inner child in the same way I show up for my kids -- like when my son was lying under a table crying over a piece of art that was not turning out the way he wanted, and I lay down next to him and offered a strong, compassionate, loving presence.

I see now, I can do that for my inner child, too. I am capable and I feel such a wonderful hope as I continue to work at practicing this in my everyday life.

Helen and Brandon Andersen and their children became FCM members in 2018.

Rediscovering Gentleness

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:24:24 GMT

By JUDY ROSEMARIN

Taken by surprise at the recent “Creating a New Future by Changing Our Past“ retreat, I realized that I wasn’t there to cultivate the usual suspects: compassion, patience, forgiveness, courage, generosity, etc.

No. I was there to nurture gentleness.

My realization was prompted by my emotional response to the gentleness in Angie’s voice. The soothing sound seemed to come from her but I know it’s never out there. It is only and always in me! However, me? The gentle one? Impossible!

But I went with the feeling, the surprise.

In the retreat, we were to identify our younger selves where contact, deep listening, recognition, healing, reconstruction, needed to be happen. I “met” my 12-year-old self at the camp’s horse stables. For all five summers, it was the only place where she didn’t feel scared or lonely.

I offered a soft, “Hello” and apologized for not giving her any warning, for leaving her for waaaaay too long. I told her that now, I was here for her. Just for her. And I promised that I would listen to anything and everything she ever wanted to say.

“I have nothing to say,“ she snapped.

I understood. I know that feeling. I accepted that. I assured her that I would sit on a bench nearby and wait.

After 20 minutes, with predictable starts and stops, staccato sentences, timid testing, our conversation began to slip into a smoother rhythm. I listened to her sadness, fear and loneliness, as she gently curried her horse.

“I am sorry for all you have felt.” (Silence) “I see you.” (Silence) “You are very gentle,” I said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“You are strange. But you seem nice.”

“You seem nice, too. You are also gentle.”

“Ha.”

Oh? Something funny?

“No one ever called me gentle.” She sheepishly smiled at me, then asked the horse, “Do you think I am gentle?”

And so the process began. For the first time as an 80-year-old, I touched my banished natural gentleness.

I continued listening to the deep silences and was unprepared for what she next said.

“I hated sewing name tags on my socks before camp…. But… (great silences, then hesitation on her part) “I just realized…I really liked sitting next to Mommy on the green corduroy couch. We sewed together.”

The old narrative suddenly broken open resulted in following epic learnings:

The old story is never the whole story. It’s wider, deeper and richer than imagined. Just listen.

Once the narrative is altered, the internal feelings change. I touched and then continually feel gentleness now, intentionally visiting it every day.

When I am in a certain mode of over reactivity, I need to recall that it’s not the adult who is reacting, but a younger self who has not yet been fully honored.

I’ve put little “G” (Gentleness) reminder Post-Its around the house and contemplate them daily.

I continue to integrate those blocked, battered, broken parts of myself into the adult I am now with gentleness.

I am an emerging gentlewoman.

With deepest gratitude and gentle bowing,

Judy Rosemarin, MS, MSW, has been a member of FCM for eight years and has had an active Zen practice for 12 years.

Finding the Right Poem to Honor Thay

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 21:30:32 GMT

By SHERI LISKER

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Not because I didn’t want to – after all, what better way to honor a beloved teacher than with his own words? But again and again, my efforts to select the poem by Thich Nhat Hanh to commemorate his transition from life that also was most meaningful to me encountered obstacles.

Our teacher Fred had invited members to bring favorite poems and quotes of Thich Nhat Hahn to our Tuesday night sharing. I was not that acquainted with Thây Nhat Hanh’s poetry. I knew that the title poem of the collection Call Me By My True Names mentions a young girl’s suicide after pirates rape her.

Since this was written by Thây, the poem is not focused on the rape, but on interbeing, how all of us, the most wretched, the most brutal, the earth, the buds on a tree, the mayflies, the frogs, even the Politiburo, are one. It turned out that one member read that poem and another member analyzed parts of it – demonstrating how truly interrelated we are!

I had figured I might point to the two quotes I have on my wall: Peace in oneself, peace in the world, which is fairly self-explanatory, and Are you sure of your perceptions? because I have often been mistaken on my own. I also could refer to my walking meditation mantras: Arriving/ Home and Touching/ Earth.

But 30 minutes before the start of the discussion, I thought it might not hurt to look for a poem. I chose the one from the Plum Village website I deemed most appropriate: Oneness, which begins with the words The moment I die/I will come back to you/as quickly as possible. But our program started with a beautifully sung rendition of this poem and I could not imagine following that.

Luckily, I had a back-up: Bhumasutra. I hadn’t read this poem before and moreover, it touched upon a subject I have been grappling with throughout my Buddhist studies: reincarnation. The poem starts with a discussion between a narrator (presumably the poet) and Death, who is challenging him: Aren’t you afraid of me?

Why should I be, the poet asks. Death says, Because I can end you, to which Thây replies, You can never end me: I will return again and again.

Death, prosecutorial, asks for a witness to these statements. And the poet calls the earth. Death hears the music of this world, the birds, sees the trees blossoming and “melts in the loving gaze of Earth.”

The poem ends with the narrator addressing his beloved (all of us). When you fear, he tells us, touch the earth deeply and “your sorrow will melt away.” In this way you will touch the deathless. This seemed appropriate for the anniversary of Thây Nhat Hanh leaving his body.

I listened to the sharing of the other members. One woman recited a poem she’d written to Thây. What a creative approach, I thought. Others shared poems and quotes as I nodded and thought, That was a good one. John McHarris shared the morning gatha: I wake with a smile/Twenty-four brand new hours before me/ I vow to live fully in the present moment/ and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion. That gatha got me through the depression stages of early Covid isolation. Angie Parrish shared a piece on how our presence is the greatest gift we can give others. Amen, I thought.

I began to question my choice of a poem – had it been the best choice? The one most relevant to me and my life? After our session, I looked at a copy of The Raft and saw another famous Thich Hhat Hanh quote: A cloud never dies. A cloud becomes rain, which waters a flower, whose seeds are planted in the earth and become part of the earth, part of us. And there I had it: reincarnation explained in a pragmatic and poetic way. I realized that as in so many times before, Thay had gifted me with just what I needed just when I needed it.

I bow to my teachers, Fred and Thây Nhat Hanh, and to all my teachers, those generous beings in the FCM sangha.

Sheri Lisker is a member of FCM from Sarasota.

Meditation Practice: Postscript to Sunday's Dharma Talk

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 22:53:27 GMT

By ANGIE PARRISH

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity and privilege of sharing my recent practice insights with the Sangha, which I’ve summarized below at the request of several members.

As time seemed to speed up at the conclusion of the talk, I failed to add a most important point, which is please take advantage of the wonderful resources that FCM offers to support your practice! We have a deeply experienced teacher in Fred, who works directly with members to guide their individual application of practices in the most beneficial way. Weekly interviews are available with Fred so members should take advantage of this tremendous opportunity for skillful practice guidance. As well, group and solitary retreats at FCM provide opportunities to take these practices to a deeper level.

And, among other programs, we have an upcoming Intensive on the Buddha’s Full Awareness of the Breath Sutra (sign up by February 12). This is an excellent opportunity for expert guidance for those new to meditation.

In a nutshell, during Sangha I shared the advice that our teacher Fred has given us so many times: to truly be free, with a mind of ease, clarity, and love, we will transform only through practice –- not by reading more books. I have been the incredibly fortunate recipient of many wise teachings from Fred over the years, but have been a rather lazy student oftentimes, so busy “doing” what will never be “done” instead of prioritizing my practice and waking up.

With support of my family and Dharma brothers and sisters, I was able to take seven full days after Christmas to join an “Intensive” practice retreat, led by Guo Gu of the Tallahassee Chan Center. The guidance and retreat practice sessions provided the opportunity for integrating and clarifying my meditation, the fruits of which have been greater interest, enthusiasm, and consistency in my practice. I also realized that had I been a better student in the past, I could have more deeply drunk the nectar of Fred’s teachings and guidance and would not have needed an Intensive retreat to shake me out of my complacency. Learn from my mistakes!

During Sunday's Dharma talk, I shared several charts that people remarked were quite helpful, so I thought I’d briefly share this information here as well.

First, with respect to preparing for meditation, it is very helpful to do the following:

1. Spend several minutes “limbering up,” though some yoga or mindful movement. This helps to both stretch the body in a helpful way and to begin to unite body and mind, when the movements are done with mindfulness.

2. Spend a few minutes (or however long is needed) doing a progressive relaxation, bringing attention to the body starting with the crown of the head and moving to the toes, letting go of any tension that may be noticed. It may be particularly helpful to pay attention to the eyes, shoulders, and abdomen, as these are areas where we frequently hold tension. Bring a slight smile to your lips as you relax the face, noticing how that smile helps you to feel.

3. Once the body has been relaxed, check your feeling tone/attitude. Do you feel content, happy, a sense of wellbeing? If so, proceed to meditation, but if not, see if there is still tension being held. You might also do a short gratitude reflection for someone or something in your life; gratitude can beautifully open our hearts and minds.

4. Decide on the method of meditation practice that you need right now. Depending on the state of your mind in any given session, you can use the following as a guide for examples of method you might find helpful.

What Practice / Method Do I Need Right Now?
Mind State	Methods
Very scattered (lots of thoughts of past and future arising, perhaps getting lost in stories/dramas)	A more “complex” method, meaning a weightier anchor that requires more concentration. Examples: following the sensations of the breath at the nostrils; counting the outbreaths backwards from 20 to 1 (while staying with the sensations of the breath); using seeing as your object by resting your gaze on a pebble or other small object; using hearing as your object. You can also do slow walking or very slow mindful prostrations when needed, but keep “swimming” with your sitting practice as much as possible.
Calmer, some scatteredness (but primarily thoughts arising related to present moment sounds, sights, sensations)	A less complex method (getting progressively “simpler” as the mind continues to calm). Examples: following the sensation of the abdomen rising and falling; resting attention with sensations in the left palm (with this palm resting palm upwards in the right hand, on the lap); resting attention on the sensation of the weight of the body sitting.
Very calm, still mind	At this point, students should seek instruction from their teacher as to the practices that are most beneficial given their level of experience.

With respect to practice when the mind has gained a solid level of stability, please note that we are cautioned us to not get caught in a “ghost cave” of peaceful bliss that does not lead to true awakening. At this point, our teacher Fred works with many students on advanced practices, often in the Dzogchen tradition.

Off-the-cushion practice is also important. As Fred and Thich Nhat Hanh have taught us, letting go of our thinking when not needed (perhaps more often than we might imagine!) and simply directly experiencing life, whether walking, doing the dishes, drinking a cup of tea, will help us to both touch the present moment more deeply, as well as to recondition the mind to not be constantly producing and moving into thoughts. Over time, this practice will also help bring the mind to greater stillness during our formal meditation.

With gratitude for the jewel of Sangha!

Harlem Heights Families Receive FCM Donations

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 19:42:33 GMT

Distribution of $34,283 in funds raised by FCM has been made to assist families in the Harlem Heights community of south Fort Myers whose homes and livelihoods were damaged by Hurricane Ian.

"The monies raised by FCM have all been distributed," wrote Dr. Debra A. Mathinos, chief programs officer for The Heights Center, which serves the community, in a report to FCM. "The outpouring of gratitude from the recipients was inspiring and reminded me of how simple acts of kindness can be so powerful and life altering.

"While the financial aspect of your gift is definitely important to the recipients, I truly believe this generosity has helped my families have a renewed sense of hope in the future, a reminder that there are many kind people in the world, and provided them with nourishment of their souls. I cannot thank you enough for becoming part of the support system for my families."

Here are some of the people whom FCM helped:

Camila: (4th grader) Camila and her family were trapped inside their home as storm surge waters flooded in. The family climbed on kitchen counters and eventually made their way to the house’s roof where they waited until daylight for rescue. The family lost their car, the majority of their personal belongings and both parents lost their jobs.

Xaiden: (5th grader) Xaiden lives with his grandparents. The family evacuated in the early hours of the storm, sheltering with a relative. Their home received over 4 feet of floodwater and is likely to be on a list of homes that need to be torn down and rebuilt rather than repaired. They continue to live with a relative.

Arianys: (5th grader) Arianys lives with her mom and two siblings in a rental apartment. The apartment received over 4 feet of floodwater and the family has lost all of their belongings and their car. Their landlord has yet to begin repairs on the apartment and the family continues to stay with friends, moving to a new location every 4-5 days.

Juan: (charter school paraprofessional) Juan and his parents evacuated their home as soon as waters started to rise. Wading through thigh-high water they reached The Heights Center’s Education Building where they sought refuge until morning. Water damage destroyed much of the living areas in their home and the family car was destroyed.

Yadira: (charter school paraprofessional) Yadira’s parents live in the neighborhood and were forced out into the storm as the storm surge quickly engulfed their home. Yadira’s brother placed their parents in a small boat that was floating by and, walking through chest-deep waters, towed them to The Heights Center’s Education Building where they sought refuge until morning. All areas of their home with the exception of an elevated sunroom received over 4 feet of water and the two family cars were destroyed.

Eliceo and Mari: Eliceo (5th grader) and Mari (4th

grader) live with their mom in a rental apartment. The apartment received over 4 feet of floodwater and the family lost all of their belongings and their mom has lost her job. Until two weeks ago, the family of three were living in a tent in the parking lot of the apartment complex. Through the help of volunteers at The Heights Center, the apartment was mucked and gutted and treated for mold. The landlord has stated that the apartment will be repaired at the first of the year.

Janelliz and Jayden: Jayden (3rd grader) and Janelliz (5th grader), with their older sister and parents evacuated their home prior to the start of the storm. Three days following the hurricane the roads became passable and they returned to Heights to discover their home had received over 4 feet of water, destroying all of the family’s belongings as well as one car. Mom lost her job as a result of the hurricane, as well. Their home is likely to be on a list of homes that need to be torn down and rebuilt rather than repaired. They continue to live with a relative.

Elina: (4th grader) Elina and her mother evacuated prior to the storm and sheltered with a relative. Three days after the hurricane they returned to find their home had been flooded by over 3 feet of water resulting in the loss of all their belongings. They continue to live with friends and relatives.

Gloria: (4th grader) Gloria and her mother rent one half of a block home in the neighborhood. Caught in their home by the storm surge, the family climbed on kitchen counters and eventually made their way to the house’s roof where they waited until daylight for rescue. The family lost all of their personal belongings and the mom lost her job. Their landlord is refusing to make repairs, so Gloria and her mother are working on making the space safe and livable with the help of The Heights Center’s volunteers.

Anderson: (3rd grader) Anderson and his parents recently arrived from Guatemala and had established themselves in an apartment and with employment a few weeks prior to the hurricane. With limited ability to understand the hurricane warnings and evacuation orders, Anderson and his parents were caught in their home by the flood waters. Anderson, who is deaf, was particularly traumatized by the storm. Both parents lost their jobs and the majority of the family’s belongings were destroyed. They are currently staying in a long-term shelter until they can find new jobs and a new apartment.

Jayden P: (2nd Grader) Jayden and his family lived on Fort Myers Beach. As the hurricane moved closer, the family decided to evacuate inland to a relative’s home. The family’s home was one of the many Fort Myers Beach casualties and has simply disappeared. The family has lost all their belongings, mom and dad have lost employment and it does not appear that the family will ever be allowed to rebuild a home. They continue to live with relatives.

Fery: (Kindergarten) Fery and his father rented a room in a house that received over 4 feet of surge water. The family lost all their belongings and are staying in a variety of homes while they wait for their landlord to repair the property.

Frankie: (Kindergarten) Frankie, his younger sister and his parents live in a rental apartment. The apartment received over 4 feet of floodwater and the family lost all of their belongings. Both dad and mom have lost their jobs. The rental has been mucked and gutted and the family continues to live in the apartment, waiting for it to be repaired.

Christopher and Erick: Christopher (5th grader) and Erick (6th grader) rent one-half of a block home in the neighborhood. The family fled their home during the eye of the storm as surface water had already caused several feet of water to enter their home. The family lost all of their personal belongings and mom lost her job. Their landlord is refusing to make repairs, so the family is making the space safe and livable with the help of The Heights Center’s volunteers.

Kaiyah and Zhara: Kaiyah (4th grader) and Zhara (5th grader) evacuated with their younger sister and parents prior to the storm. Three days after the hurricane they returned to find their home had been flooded by over 4 feet of water resulting in the loss of all their belongings. They have been staying with relatives but were returning to their home by Christmas even though it has no drywall, floors or working kitchen.

Liand: (1st grader) Liand and his parents sheltered with a friend during the storm and returned to find their rental home had not only been flooded by over 3 feet of water, but had lost its roof. Liand’s father lost his job as a result of the hurricane. The family continues to stay with friends as they look for a new place to live and employment.

Lindsay and Dustin: Lindsay (1st grader), Dustin (7th grader) and their mom sought shelter from a friend mid-way through the hurricane when water started entering their apartment. The family lost the majority of their belongings and continue to stay with their friend while they wait for their landlord to make all necessary repairs to their apartment.

Solitary Retreat: Relaxing and Trusting My Mind

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 03:15:04 GMT

By SUSAN GHOSH

In September, feeling stuck in old patterns and wanting a breakthrough in my practice, I checked in to Great Cloud for a seven-day solo retreat. Soon after I arrived, I met with Fred, and he inquired about my goals. I told him I wanted to rest in natural mind, and immediately he challenged me. "You can’t rest in natural mind until you know your mind," he told me.

He offered me the text of The Flight of the Garuda to work with and told me to focus on Songs 3 and 4 and to reflect on the questions they raised, using them to explore my own mind. He said I should do eight hours of meditation each day -- a daunting number.

On the second afternoon, he encouraged me to go on to the eighth or ninth song and to continue to apply the questions and teachings to my own mind. This meant that I looked to find an “I" anywhere in or out of my body. And I looked at thoughts: where they come from, where they went, what they looked like when they were present. Practicing in the Tower Room of Great Cloud, I asked the questions over and over again and did my best to investigate what was true for me, by looking in my own mind.

That night my mind put on a terrifying display of fear, anger, and worry. All "my" old problems resurfaced. It was horrible. I was a failure. Even the things I thought I'd achieved through my practice had not been achieved. Maybe I should quit… the retreat, the sangha, FCM. During the night a disturbing nightmare woke me. In a graphic way it offered a picture of my life ahead if I chose the pain of seeking pleasure. I had to smile because the meaning of the dream was so obvious. “OK," I decided, "I will not quit the retreat or the sangha. I am going to stay."

The next day Fred asked about the nightmare. Where was it? Was it real? I couldn't find it, and no, it wasn't real. It couldn't be found. Everything was like that. Nothing solid anywhere. Nowhere. He also went on to explain that what I was experiencing was a common part of the retreat process. He said, “I tell retreatants they are going to learn the Dharma, but they also will learn about their own minds. The old patterns will come up even more strongly than before, but on retreat we are unable to flee from them by blaming our spouses or distracting ourselves. We can't avoid seeing them.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. Fred knew me well. He knew I believed that no effort would ever bring me to the necessary standard of perfection. He made me look for this old thought pattern. I couldn't find it. Anywhere. “Everyone is unique,” he told me. “There is no perfection. It makes no sense to compare. Susan is Susan and she's an ordinary human being.” I felt calmed and held by Fred's compassion.

I described my observations so far: the near constant worry, the counting and chanting, the obsessive rehearsing, the review of the past. "She's living in a fantasy world," Fred said. "Just let her relax. Let her enjoy what's really happening. If she gets into a corner, go take a walk in the garden."

I went back to my room and, at first, breathed a sigh of relief. My teacher did not think I was hopeless failure. He saw and accepted me as a member of our community of Dharma practitioners. The exhalation barely complete, a light gray wall came down in my mind. Relaxing exhalations stopped. I could sense the change but didn't understand what was happening. So, l ignored it and kept on reflecting on the teachings and investigating my own mind as best as I could. I could barely concentrate and the day seemed to go on forever.

In the night I woke up to a mind that was whirring and animated by extreme anxiety. My body was tense and breath tight. Since it was clear that I wasn't going to fall back to sleep, I put my hands on my stomach and placed my attention on the rise and fall of my belly. Over and over my mind wandered off and I brought it back.

After some time I was aware of holding the view of the watcher. The thoughts slowed and I could see their insubstantial nature. In truth, they were nothing but thoughts, coming and going, arising from nowhere, going nowhere. For the first time I was able to experience that these thoughts, so deeply believed, were nothing.

A peacefulness arose and into that open space came the answer to what had seemed to be an insoluble problem. I would get up and simply do my best. What else could I do? Yet the simplicity of that was startling after many years of rehearsals, worry about outcomes, striving to be good enough or, preferably, the best. My body seemed to take over. It rose, and pushed the chair close the small table where my Buddha had been sitting. It arranged the blankets to support my body, put the text and the little clock on the side on the bed. That day I would sit in one spot and meditate.

At the next meeting, Fred asked me, “How is Susan?" I answered that she'd had another rough night but I'd come through it with some clarity. "What happened?" he asked, "Everything was fine when you left and nothing external happened. You've been on retreat the whole time." "I don't know,” I answered. “Look," he instructed me firmly. "You have to know."

With tears I explained that I had shown that total mess of a mind to him: the anxiety, the obsessions, the chanting, the rehearsing. It had been seen; I had seen it clearly myself. As I launched into this sad tale, Fred said, "Stop! Just look into your own mind. Look straight there. What do you see?" The truth was, I saw nothing. There was nothing at all there. The story dissolved. At that moment the teaching, the reflecting, the experiencing came into a coherent whole.

Fred encouraged me to let Susan be, to allow her to relax, to be right there, in the moment. "If you're practicing and you get stuck," he repeated," take a break and walk in the garden." Once again, I felt held by my teacher's compassionate gaze, his kindness, his clear guidance and the skillful way that his guidance was attuned to this particular mind and its strong habit energies.

I went back to my room. I sat in the space that I had prepared and applied myself to alternating short periods of shamatha, concentration practice, longer periods of meditation on the breath, walking meditation and reading and reflecting on the teachings in a flexible rhythm throughout the day and evening. It was not impossible. The teachings lifted me up and through the day. They were so specific, so easy, if one didn't fight them. It was thrilling to discover a simple way to cut the attachments to the complexes of superiority and envy that had caused lifelong suffering. I looked at my many preferences from the point of view of the watcher. My goodness, so much of my life spent thinking I was someone, an "I," a “Susan,” who was generally right and was entitled to a marriage and life that was in accord with my preferences.

The next day Fred arrived at our meeting with a new text. "I don't know why I picked this one up," he said lifting Pointing Out the Nature of Mind: Dzogchen Pith Instructions of Aro Yeshe Jungne by Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche. "I thought you might find it interesting." And, I did. The amazing text spoke to my heart. It was so simple, helpful and direct. Practicing with it, I was filled with joy and gratitude.

The following morning -- the last morning of the retreat -- Fred asked what had changed for me as a result of my time there. There were so many things. I felt so much joy at the end of the retreat. I felt so much lighter from recognizing that the thoughts that had caused me such suffering were insubstantial. Being able to examine my experience with the mind of the watcher completely changed my understanding of my "self" and the path. I had been trying to concentrate in a kind of brutal way to achieve a particular kind of quiet in my mind. Fred had guided me to understand that the path was about relaxing, not striving, and I had actually directly experienced enough of the difference to feel confident that I could go forward and practice in a new way.

I told Fred I also had a new understanding of and appreciation for my teacher and what he was offering me. I now had a felt sense of his enlightened mind, an indescribable mixture of wisdom, kindness, understanding, and compassion. I could sense he would keep showing up to help me, over and over again, that he would not judge or hurt me, and that he would even interfere when I was hurtful to myself.

His final gifts to me on this retreat were, "Relax. Trust Susan." Ever since the retreat I have guided myself with these three words.

Susan Ghosh, who attends the Tampa Sangha, is a long-time practitioner at FCM.

Working in the Kitchen: A Retreat Unto Itself

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 02:05:49 GMT

By MORGAN ALLEN

When I first heard about the opportunity to practice selfless service to the FCM community by helping in the kitchen during retreats, I jumped at the chance. I had been looking to become

more involved with the community in a way that felt comfortable and appropriate to me. My wife and I and our two children enjoy cooking at home and sharing meals together and this sounded like a great fit.

What I did not expect was how much the experience would deepen not only my connection with t

he sangha but my practice on the path.

As with most of us, I strive (and often fail) to bring mindfulness to daily life, to the simplest of tasks such as brushing my teeth or chopping broccoli. The distractions of home and my racing mind often make that simple concept exceedingly difficult. In the FCM kitchen, everything is treated with reverence, care and respect so just by walking in you are automatically in a physical and mental space that brings mindfulness to the forefront.

Each session begins with the invitation of the bell and a gatha to remind us that every moment can be a meditation if you let it. And that practice becomes even more pronounced when there are 10 pounds of broccoli to chop, 20 cups of brown rice to wash and cook and 30 carrots to grate. I have never cared so much about grating carrot!

Every precaution is made to prepare the food in a respectful and safe manner for both the preparers and those who will consume the dishes. So there again, you have a lesson presented to you, if you are open to receiving it: food prepared with clean, wholesome ingredients and attention to cleanliness and health becomes not only a practice of selfless service but a way to honor the earth and all it provides for us while not depleting her resources in too great a manner or contributing to those practices which further her continued warming.

Then, at the end, after appreciating what the earth has given our community for nourishment, you are able to share that with the sangha as they are amid the deep reflections of their retreat. You provide their bodies nutrition so that they may provide their minds another form of nutrition.

I came to realize that sitting on the cushion is not enough, a concept I knew but often need reminding of. Retreatants need meals to support their deep practice and so do I every single day. If I can support my body and what goes into it and be more mindful of how I take those nutriments from the earth, then my practice will inherently become truer.

Selfless service in the FCM kitchen is a retreat unto itself -- an opportunity to hone your mindfulness skills intensely and acutely so that you may take them into your own kitchen, your own life. It is a wonderful pairing, if you allow it to be, of caring for the sangha as well as yourself. You give the gift of nourishment to others, but I found the true gift to be how I felt walking to my car afterwards and the brightness that seemed to follow me for the rest of the day (and hopefully longer).

The next time I pick up a knife I can’t help but be reminded of my time in the FCM kitchen, which then instantly will drop me into a more mindful place right there at home. That is something to be cherished.

Morgan Allen, of Land O' Lakes, joined FCM in August 2021. He is controller for RPM, a full-service advertising agency for live entertainment and Broadway shows.

Cultivating the Dharma, Understanding the Brain

Tue, 03 May 2022 18:36:00 GMT

Finding a way to give people a 21st Century insight to promote an understanding of ancient Buddhist practice is what Alex Lerner and Ken Lenington are offering in a one-day online workshop May 14 called “Cultivating the Dharma, Understanding the Brain.”

The workshop will give participants an opportunity to more deeply penetrate the workings of their minds by understanding their brains. It will have added dimensions beyond what has been offered in the past and will be suitable for practitioners at all levels of experience. It will be from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.

“I’ve been exposed to many theoretical models for understanding psychology and mind,” Alex said in a recent interview with Mindfulness Matters,“but I have never come across anything as comprehensive as Buddhism to take on the deep understanding of why we suffer and how that continues to happen in modern life.

“With a mindfulness practice, we have the capacity to counter the deep conditioning that we have cultivated over many years and which causes us to continue to follow a path of suffering and chasing symptoms,” Alex said.

“Our mind is incredibly complex but nevertheless, mutable,” Alex said. “We need to understand why our brain is operating the way that it does and most important, because of the adaptation of neuroplasticity, that it has the incredible capacity to change how it functions. Making the change, however, is the result of an active and deliberate process rather than a passive one, and it therefore, takes intention, commitment, discipline and practice.”

Alex, a retired ob-gyn physician from Tampa, unceremoniously and unintentionally encountered Buddhism after he retired from clinical practice. Throughout his medical career, his orientation had mostly been based on the physical body, but when he retired, he became interested in the mind.

“What is wrong, what hurt, what needed to be fixed was my job as a trained surgeon,” he said. “When I was focused on healing the body, I was trying to make it whole or ‘right,’ but I never thought deeply about making my focus be the impact of the mind.” After Alex took an eight-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class, which was his introduction to meditation, it led him to sangha, which led him to a spiritual path, which was quite foreign to him.

“It is quite remarkable to see how a 2,600-year-old tradition is right in step with 21st Century findings in neuroscience regarding the function of the mind. It is interesting to be reminded that the only thing that the Buddha had to develop his insights and practice was his extraordinary observational ability to see and understand the human condition and how it functioned as people lived. Those observations from 2,600 years ago now align with what we have learned from 21st Century technologies.

“If you can give a person a reason why their brain works in a certain way, maybe we can give that person some assistance to help them understand how to change how they use their brain.”

For the most part, we’ve been conditioned to exist in a material world, which we needed to master on a non-spiritual path. Is that prescribed path to happiness working as promised?

How do you change that which you have trained yourself to do for so long? Were we born stressed and overwhelmed? Why do most of us have a negative bias? Why are we preoccupied with the future?

The workshop will explore these questions as well as exploring our emotions as part of the human condition. People say, “I can’t help it, I’m just angry or anxious,” but where did that come from? What is the Buddhist and neuroscientist's understanding of an emotion?

The workshop will also help participants understand the “self” that Buddhist teachings tell us is a fabrication but that we are conditioned to believe actually exists. Why does it seem so counterintuitive to think that we do not really exist as a separate and independent self? Can we come to see the “self” as a “useful fiction,” designed to help us navigate the relative, or worldly, world as a convenience?

Ken, a retired psychiatrist and addiction specialist from Asheville, NC, will add depth in discussion of Dharma and its correlation to neuroscience.

Both Alex and Ken are ordained members of the Order of Interbeing and are long-time members of FCM. Ken is a leader for numerous workshops, retreats and intensive practices.

Creating a Home for my Heart

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 19:52:21 GMT

By JULIA BERBERAN

“Be here now. Be here now.” I kept saying this over and over in my head the first couple days of the retreat, trying to encourage my heart and mind to be here in my body, in this present moment.

I had found FCM at the end of February when I was searching online for an escape from the world. I’d never heard of FCM (I live in Vermont) but I was going to visit family in Florida at the end of March and was glad to find a silent retreat I could go to first.

I didn't know what to expect. I’d started meditating more regularly in December (doing short guided meditations), and most of my relevant knowledge came from reading Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart multiple times over. I mainly signed up for this retreat because I didn’t want to talk to anyone for a week. I had no idea that the experience would be profoundly transformative.

As soon as I walked into FCM I was warmly welcomed by the kind folks inside. I felt the peacefulness of the people and the grounds. During the week I was moved by the sweetness of all of us greeting one another with a bow; the generosity of other retreatants helping me with my work meditation tasks; the beauty of the late afternoon sunshine bathing the Meditation Hall in golden light; and the vibration of the bells pouring into the cracks in my heart. I felt like I belonged here.

On the final day of the retreat Fred asked us to close our eyes and envision what we were going to take forward from our retreat experience. I saw myself in a cozy room inside my chest. It had orange floors, a comfy chair, a warm blanket, a little table with a salt lamp, and my favorite mug of tea. My heart was there too, as tall as myself.

I remembered that on the first day of the retreat my intention had been to welcome myself home. I had told myself to “be here now” to try to make that happen. But I realized during the closing circle that I hadn’t ever had a home inside myself to welcome myself into. Now I do. This retreat helped me create a home for my heart, and gave me the tools to maintain it.

When I remember to go slow; to feel the ground beneath my feet; to pay attention to my breath; to savor my food; to hear irritating sounds as “the voice of the Buddha;” to look deep into the core of my emotions and reactions and to be kind and gentle with myself— I’m tending to my home inside this body. I made a little Thich Nhat Hanh-style art for the walls of my heart’s home, it says “this is only the beginning but I am here.”

And I am here now. I have a lifetime of learning to do, and maybe I’ll always be at the beginning, but I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you.

Julia Berberan, a new FCM member who lives in Burlington, VT, aspires to spend more time in Florida.

St. Pete Friends Assist Local Organic Garden

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 19:25:50 GMT

By MITCH SCHAEFER

St. Pete Friends on the Path recently learned about sustainable gardening practices and lent a hand harvesting produce at the edible garden operated by Daystar Life Center, a nonprofit organization that serves the homeless and others in need in St. Petersburg.

Daystar helps to fight hunger, poverty, and hopelessness by providing the necessities of life to neighbors in need. They provide food, clothing, and personal hygiene items, as well as educate and empower the community through promoting healthy nutrition, good health, and financial literacy. Daystar also connects individuals with resources in the community that can help them get back on their feet. On a typical day, Daystar provides help to an average of 100 people.

Among the many inspiring programs Daystar operates is an organic edible garden which grows more than 50 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and herbs to provide a healthy diet to people in need. Daystar also provides nutrition information and healthy cooking classes, as well as guidance on how to create and sustain a backyard container garden.

During the visit, members worked in the garden alongside Robin Clemmons, Daystar's head gardener, learning about sustainable gardening practices, including the basics of container gardening in Florida, and how native plants benefit us and local ecosystems.

Members also harvested produce and prepared and bagged food for distribution to the homeless and others in need.

Friends on the Path have begun to cultivate new friendships during gatherings at Crescent Lake Park by sharing about their spiritual journeys ad the profound impact that Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings have had on their lives. One of the topics they have discussed was the opportunity to practice engaged Buddhism by working joyfully together to help those in need in the community.

Mitch Schaefer lives in St. Petersburg and participates in many programs at FCM's Tampa Practice Center.

A Smooth Flight to the Other Shore

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:28:09 GMT

By CHRIS BIRD

With the pandemic waning, I was grateful for the opportunity to attend this four-day silent retreat at FCM's Tampa Center on the 14 Verses on Meditation in honor of Thich Nhat Hanh. Previously, I had only recently started watching Fred’s Dharma talks online and joining the the weekly Zoom meetings of the Gainesville Live Oak Sangha.

My prior understanding of Thay‘s teachings was limited to reading some of his books, the Plum Village app and podcasts, and days of binge watching his transition ceremonies. I left the retreat with new tools to unpack my suffering and an inspiring image of the sandhill crane, migrating smoothly over danger below.

Arriving at the FCM practice center was like summer camp for the first time. Despite my inexperience, I immediately felt at home. Fred, the amazing volunteer staff, and my fellow retreatants help me connect with support on a peer level. The retreat ran like clockwork, with a sense of timelessness. The programming was balanced between intense practice sessions and relaxing personal space for reflection. The facilities and grounds were immaculate and uncluttered. Tasty and nourishing vegan meals inspired mindful eating. The mindful movements, guided meditations and work sessions helped me settle down into my body and distanced me from my thinking. The retreat invited stillness, deep looking, compassion, and laughter in the present moment. Hearing the beautiful voices of the morning and evening chanters, the invitings of the bell, and the smell of incense, with eyes closed I could have been sitting at Plum Village instead of Nebraska Avenue.

Fred’s Dharma talks were powerful and inspiring. During the Q&A sessions, I was moved with the skill of his loving kindness in assisting practioners to learn how to look in the mirror to understand their suffering. I was encouraged by my own baby steps in stopping and looking to begin unpacking and embracing some of my deeper seated afflictions. As Fred pointed out, in the present moment, you can only deal with one affliction at a time. Another of my takeaways is the importance of sangha to support my practice.

During the last two evening sessions, Fred encouraged us to devote an hour to solitary meditation. What manifested for me was a new object of meditation. I visualized a sandhill crane, gliding high in the sky with a steady tail wind, calmly migrating after a perilous winter in overdeveloped Florida, toward the refuge of a pristine prairie in Canadian summer.

Breathing in, wings up, breathing out, wings down. With stillness and ease, looking through clear skies, keeping the turbulence and dark clouds of thoughts and feelings at a safe distance. Deep looking on a smooth flight path toward the other shore.

Video of Sandhill Cranes Flying and Calling

Chris Bird of Gainesville recently retired from an environmental career implementing community-based best practices for climate and water resiliency. Chris’ spiritual path started with Kripalu Yoga and the Temple of the Universe led by Michael Singer, and currently the practice of mindfulness as taught by Fred Eppsteiner and Thich Nhat Hanh. He especially enjoys incorporating mindfulness into dog walking, paddleboarding, and hiking.

Residency Program Brings Joy in Every Project

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 23:48:36 GMT

By KASHA WILLIAMSON

When I traded in my corporate suit for a pair of carpenter shorts, baseball cap and work

gloves, I had no idea how deeply my life would change.

My husband, Kelly, and I got into handywork with my Dad when we moved to Naples in 2016 after both quitting our office jobs. I had worked in corporate communications and organizational development, and Kelly was a chemical engineer.

It was during this transition that I learned the process of working meditation. When I work as a handylady, most of my projects require 100 percent of my attention, particularly when they are on a ladder 12 feet off the ground or assisting my husband in changing out electrical lines.

I have been practicing mindfulness on the cushion and in life for about 10 years after learning about mindfulness through my children’s high school when the school was looking for volunteer mindfulness facilitators. Fast forward to 2016: I jumped into study and deeper practice with the Naples Sangha of FCM when we moved to Naples.

Since then, I have moved to Eustis, FL, but maintained my membership in FCM. During a chat with fellow member John McHarris, I learned about the part-time residency selfless service program at FCM -- a way to help out around the FCM grounds, while also having the luxurious opportunity to live on the campus, meditate and, for me, recharge my spirit while being of service to the Sangha.

After a few emails to Bill Mac Millen and David Braasch to see what types of projects needed assistance and to coordinate calendars, I set up a few nights, packed up my tools (although the campus has just about every tool needed), and headed to Tampa.

I stayed at Great Cloud Refuge four days and three nights. My daily schedule was pretty simple: morning meditation, breakfast, mindful service, lunch/rest, a little more mindful service, free time/walking meditation/personal study, dinner, meditation or join a talk if one was available that evening. I was fortunate to be able to join the Tuesday night discussion in the Meditation Hall during my stay.

I fixed door hinges, door closures, repaired drywall from a leak, touched up paint, and repaired/rebuilt an old wood cover on a water pump. I found great joy in every project I worked on at FCM, mostly because I was doing each “job” with a heightened sense of mindfulness and attention. I worked at a slower pace, even taking “bell” moments to reflect and to see where my mind was while mixing drywall mud or measuring out wood cuts.

This experience made me realize I could do this same practice when on a client site or working on one of our properties. It reinforced my practice IRL (“In Real Life”). I am very grateful for the experience and opportunity, the time spent with people around the campus, and the library was like a candy store!

Many types of projects are available at FCM. Check out https://www.floridamindfulness.org/Volunteer to learn more.

Kasha Williamson of Eustis, FL, Source of Ceaseless Aspiration, joined FCM in 2018 when she lived in Naples, and now practices with the Tampa sangha.

Ending a Pregnancy: Trusting the Sangha

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 23:43:13 GMT

By NANCY NATILSON

“Who would like to share their own direct experience of deciding to end a pregnancy?” Fred asked. He continued, “We will practice deep sharing and deep listening, without judgment and without expressing or holding on to our views. Abortion is a very divisive topic in America these days, and we need to learn how to be open to listening without judgment and to engage in compassionate dialogue, especially with those who hold views different than our own.”

The next hour of our Tuesday evening “Applied Buddhism: The Practical Application of Buddhist Ethics in Daily Life” was one of the most heartfelt, courageous sharing sessions I have heard at FCM. Women told about the circumstances that created the need to make a decision about their pregnancy. Some were in a stable relationship (and even married), but the timing wasn’t right; others were either not in a relationship, or in an unstable relationship, or with a partner who would not have been a good father. Some felt they were too young to begin a family; others already had children and felt they didn’t have sufficient resources to raise another child.

Regardless of the reason, all expressed a certain amount of sorrow about the loss – of the potential son or daughter that never was born; of the opportunity to be a mother; of the dissolution of the relationship either because of the pregnancy or over the decision to end the pregnancy.

The other common emotions expressed were guilt and/or shame – at having ended a potential life; at doing something that relatives and society considered unethical and wrong. And because of the shame, many of the women who shared had never had the opportunity to talk openly about their experience and reflect openly and honestly. They all felt they had made the right decision, but the impact lingered on.

The most poignant aspect of the evening for me was the willingness of one woman after another to bow in and reveal her experience of deciding to end a pregnancy and the lasting effects of having made that decision. One woman said, “While I had originally intended to simply be present and listen, I was very moved to speak by the sharing of others. I felt the loving support and understanding that I had longed for but did not have access to so many years before, when I had to make this difficult decision.”

Trust in the sangha allowed for sharing of previously undisclosed deep feelings. The impact of knowing that others were not going to judge them gave the women the courage needed to let what was in their hearts be revealed.

The collective sharing was healing to those who had had abortions and also very moving to those who listened to the stories. Many admitted in real time that the heavy burden of shame and/or guilt they had been carrying around immediately felt lighter. All agreed that the sharing was the beginning of their healing journey and they were very grateful for this opportunity given to them by FCM. Those who listened deeply agreed that the conversation opened their hearts; they were able to reflect with compassion and felt a closer bond with their courageous sangha sisters.

Nancy Natilson, a long-time member of FCM, is ordained in the Order of Interbeing. She has volunteered at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Tampa for many years, holding the hands of countless women during their abortion procedures.

Hugging Meditation: A Teaching from Thay

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 21:35:03 GMT

By REBECCA MEDINA

When I first heard of Thay’s transition, I knew that it would be a special time of deep practice for all of his students and everyone who had ever been touched by his noble compassion. I virtually attended the meditation and the memorial service to honor Thay through FCM. My aspiration the next day was to show up to life with gentleness in the way I walk, softness with the way I talk, and a vow to love more purely in honor of our beloved teacher.

I have been a member of the FCM parenting group, led by Karuna, for about five years. We have a monthly topic that is practiced between meetings. Using these practices has been instrumental in parenting my now 7- and 3-year-old. Karuna sent an email after Thay passed for the group to focus on Hugging Meditation for the next meeting. What a sweet way to honor our teacher and continue his teachings! I shared the intention of my commitment to Hugging Meditation with my Dharma Buddy and got started right away.

My first realization was that I had stopped hugging my daughter as much as I had when she was younger. We still hugged daily, but it seemed to be in passing as she got off the bus or ran out the door to play outside with friends. With intention clearly set, I sat on the sofa with her and held her in my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and we just hugged for several breaths completely present to the love we had for one another. I knew then that the way I would hug her going forward would be with more presence and purpose than the way things had been with our busy lives. There was a closeness as we hugged -- a deep connection was back in our every day lives.

The next day, my 3-year-old son was having a meltdown. My initial reaction was impatience before I quickly remembered my commitment. I stooped down on his level and asked him for a hug. He slowly walked toward my open arms, wiping away his tears. Upon our embrace, anxiety was eased, all fear softened, and anger melted away for us both. Through Hugging Meditation, I learned it would be pretty difficult to truly hold someone close in the space of awareness while simultaneously being irritated and annoyed with them. In that moment my heart was full of gratitude for Thay, Fred, and the Sangha. Thay’s teachings continued in me and I was passing the Dharma to my children through my actions. Knowing Thay was living on through me was a profound realization.

My son sometimes wakes at night for me to rock him back to sleep. Normally, I hold him, half asleep myself, wishing for him to doze off quickly so I can get some rest. That night, I answered his call for “momma” and held him in the stillness of the night as we swayed back and forth. His peaceful nursery, the feeling of my feet grounded beside his crib, and the warmness of his little body against mine made me wish that the moment could go on forever. My mind then turned to the notion of impermanence, and I went back to just breathing, fully aware of the moment, full of gratitude for our embrace. Now in the middle of the night I use the practice to remain present when he awakens.

Applying Hugging Meditation to my daily practice has helped me shift to a place of stillness. There has been an expansion of connection and well being with my children and a calmness that lingers since adding it to our daily lives. I am wholeheartedly honored to connect with my family through the teachings of our dear teacher Thay, who taught us to love with open arms.

Rebecca Medina moved from Tampa to Charlotte NC in 2020. She has been practicing for about eight years and has been a member of FCM for about six. She is a member of the Parenting Spiritual Friends group and attends the monthly family program via Zoom. Before children, she was involved in Wake-Up.

5 Aggregates: Dismantling the Sticky 'Self'

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 21:22:10 GMT

By MATT DOBBINS

What happened in those three days was nothing less than an elucidation of the very "parts that make a person," their sequential exploration, and

the dismantling of illusion within each.

It was in the recent retreat, "Loosening the Bounds of Self: Exploring the Five Aggregates of Clinging," led by Angie Parrish, that this dismantling of illusion and resulting ungluing of what we call the "self" came to pass.

Very patiently, so warmly, and rather gracefully we were given a path, a means by which to unfold layers of assumption, remove habitual seeing, and look -- and experience Reality. A key to transformation was shared with all of us.

What makes a person? A body? I described the Charnel Ground Meditation as shockingly disturbing, as I was guided to witness the natural stages of decay to my form -- from waxen to bloated, fetid and feasted upon, through parched bone and then dust, carried away by wind, chalk erased from the board. Ultimately, there was an appreciation for the miraculous, the magic of animated form.

The Five Aggregates, or Skandas, or Heaps, as they are sometimes called:

Embodied Form -- All bodies arise and disappear (like foam on water).

So, if it is not a body, what makes a person? A mind?

Feeling Tone -- The briefest of immediate experience of a sense object (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) arising and disappearing (a bubble).

Perception/Recognition -- Is it true? Is it a deception? Arising and disappearing (a mirage).

Mental Formations -- Thoughts, feelings, seeds manifesting, inclining the mind to wholesome and unwholesome ends, arising and disappearing (a hollow tree).

Consciousness/Cognizance - Awareness of what's present to the senses; what's getting attention? Arising and disappearing (a conjurer).

No inherent self is to be found in any of these "parts."

Observe, observe, observe, to know and remember, "not clinging to anything in the world."

How important is this? The Dalai Lama wrote, "Buddha pointed out that without knowledge of the emptiness of inherent existence of self there is no possibility of attaining freedom from our miserable state."

The lasting impression, the take-away for me, something that can breathe on its own after the nutriment rich air of retreat disappears, is watching the arising of the sticky self. It adheres to the identity of a form, a form that believes it has lasting values and accurate perceptions, concerned about and paying attention to...itself.

I will watch and recognize the arising of self in these dynamic ingredients, these empty Heaps, amalgamations, Aggregates. I'll watch it form, and I'll practice watching the self...thus loosening its grip.

Matt Dobbins, of Ocala, formed an interest in meditation in the 1980s, was introduced to the works of Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1990s, and most gratefully joined FCM a few years ago in the 21st Century.

Waking Up to My Perpetual Irritation

Sat, 23 Oct 2021 14:43:39 GMT

By HEATHER STAMBAUGH-MUKHERJEE

Practicing with anger has been a big part of my path over the last year-plus, and I recently

continued on this path of transformation by attending FCM's workshop, "Loosening the Knots of Anger."

The workshop offered the perspective that anger happens on a spectrum, from mild annoyance at one end to full-blown rage at the other. I have never seen myself as "an angry person." Most people who know me would likely say the same. But an internally annoyed and perpetually irritated person whose mind gripes endlessly about how nearly everything should be different than it is? Yes, there's no denying that!

It was beneficial that the workshop reiterated the simple lesson of watering seeds -- my mind gripes and feels irritated because those are the mind states that were conditioned in me and that I have since nurtured.

But by approaching all phenomena with kind investigation, I am learning to water wholesome seeds. When I notice my mind asking, "Why didn't my husband take out the trash last night like he said he would?!" (complete with the interrobang of frustration at the end), I can breathe, look deeply, and see that he worked late. I can soften as I remember his exhaustion at bedtime. I can ask myself if there is another possible explanation for the trash transgression besides "He doesn't want to pull his weight around here!" (Spoiler alert: There are hundreds of other reasons, and they all make sense given his causes and conditions!)

Of course, some days since I attended the workshop, the irritated seeds have popped up when I'm not practicing diligently. Annoyed rumination waters the seeds when I don't see my thoughts or emotions.

The workshop taught the importance of noticing various signs of anger, including body sensations. I'm realizing that my awareness has largely been disconnected from my body during an experience of anger. Now I'm making an effort to notice that I experience a clenched jaw when I'm annoyed, and that this sensation of tension is a "bell of mindfulness" to check my mind. This "bell" reminds me to relax my entire face, breathe, perhaps even smile, and touch a sense of calm presence.

And sometimes with this practice, there is not a calm presence. As was taught in the workshop, sometimes emotion underlying the anger arises. I've found lately that these underlying emotions for me are hurt and fear. When I become aware that what's present is actually a feeling of wounding or vulnerability, I can then choose a caring response, like RAIN or Metta.

I am deeply grateful for the wisdom, compassion, and skillful teaching that I find in sangha at FCM, and the "Loosening the Knots of Anger" workshop offered exactly that. As I write this, I'm reflecting on what life would be like if I had not found FCM, had not begun to wake up to my perpetual irritation... And I'm struck by a sincere wish that all may know the joy of healing and transforming their anger.

Heather Stambaugh-Mukherjee of Lakeland came to FCM in 2020 after practicing mindfulness-based psychotherapies in her private practice for several years and noticing a spiritual pull toward personal transformation. She has participated in a number of Dharma offerings over the past year, and is currently participating in the Four Immeasurables Intensive. In her spare time, Heather enjoys spending time in nature, making art, snuggling her pets, and baking sourdough bread from scratch.

I'm Pulling Weeds for FCM -- and From My Mind

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 12:00:00 GMT

Every Tuesday morning, Wi Piyasawat drops her husband, John McHarris off in Fort Myers so he can catch the bus to Tampa.

Every Friday evening, their

close friend, neighbor and FCM member Lindsey McCaskey picks him up and takes him home.

John is living an ordinary life in Naples half a week and a life of service in Tampa the other half, an arrangement blessed by a supportive marriage

and the Dharma.

John, co-leader and community care leader of the Naples FCM Sangha, is at present the only participant in the selfless service residency program at the Tampa FCM campus. Since September 1, he has been living three nights a week in the newly opened Great Cloud Refuge in Tampa while he helps to support the sangha at its headquarters, performing service ranging from pulling weeds to providing kitchen help for retreats.

Theirs is a FCM family. In addition to his leadership role in Naples, John and Wi regularly attend Tampa Sangha via Zoom, and their son Max recently completed an eight month in-person residency program in Tampa.

John chatted with Mindfulness Matters about his service in Tampa.

MM: How did your decision to live and serve part-time with FCM in Tampa come about?

John: I wanted to serve more, and I wanted to be closer to my teacher. I think Fred perceptively sensed this, and watered those seeds. The OI (Order of Interbeing) was also emphasizing selfless service. I knew that residing in Tampa part-time would strengthen existing friendships and make new ones possible. I was becoming increasingly aware that my tendency to be "happy as a pea in a pod" spending time with myself was limiting my development and opportunity to make a change for the better. Lastly, I had long been observing a small number of members generously provide a disproportionate share of community service, and that didn't sit well.

I was fortunate because of my personal situation. I had retired early and was active in caretaking Mom, but when she passed away last year, that opened up free time. And especially support from Wi, my wife. I feel so fortunate. I was thinking about it, reflecting about it for a while, not sure I would have her support, so when we talked about it, and she said she would support it, that was really big. Not every partner or spouse would support it.

Also, our son, Max, did a residency program from late 2020 to August 2021 and I had heard him talking about what it was like. He did a lot of selfless service. He was developing friendships and becoming more integrated with the community, and that piqued my interest.

So I started asking myself, what really are the constraints? Is it really the distance and the drive time (2.5 hours from Naples to Tampa)? It's not that far. I found a bus service that was convenient, comfortable, and affordable. I immerse myself in reading and listening to the Dharma while on the bus. The bottom line is I can be very integrated both with the Naples and Tampa communities. I think I also began to realize that the "constraints" were self-constructed as opposed to real.

MM: What does one do in the FCM residency program?

John: There are four areas where selfless service work is needed – gardening, grounds, housekeeping and kitchen – and I have performed work in all of them. Sometimes, I’ll dust or sweep, sometimes pull weeds, and I assisted in the kitchen during a retreat in September.

Today, I was on a ladder pulling ivy away from the retreat center walls and gently placing it on a trellis so it wouldn’t damage the walls. The strands of ivy are very intertwined and tangled, similar to my mind at times. Untangling is good practice.

MM: How does your residency and work integrate with your practice?

John: When I pull weeds, I think about the weeds in my mind, how deep-rooted they are. It’s important to pull them gently from the base. When I'm cleaning a room I also remember the practices related to cleaning my bowl (mind), which definitely needs tending to.

When I’m working with others, there are good opportunities to practice deep listening and right speech and things that make for good relationships. I walk down to Publix for groceries and eat a lot of salads. When I chop carrots in the kitchen for my dinner, I just chop carrots.

Staying in Great Cloud is like being on a retreat. I’m sleeping in a small room. It’s small and minimalist, but I have everything I need. When I’m home in Naples, it’s a much bigger living space, but there are distractions, like TV. Here the whole campus is built for practice. There are fewer distractions. Minimalism is good. It helps me remember how little I need. It feels lighter.

MM: What advice do you have for others who may be considering doing something similar?

John: Do it, if your situation allows! Everybody has other commitments. The advice I would give is ask yourself, Are the constraints that you think you might have hard and fixed, totally non-negotiable, or just challenges? Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that certain barriers are bigger than they are. I urge everybody to do whatever you can, whether Saturday selfless service days, or coming up for a couple of days. You’ll be nourished by the environment. It’s very unlikely that somebody would come away disappointed by this experience.

MM: How long will you continue this arrangement?

John: It’s indefinite. Until they kick me out!

In addition to his other responsibilities, John McHarris also is secretary of the FCM Board of Directors, a member of the current three-year Dharma Transmission Program, an OI aspirant, and has led several Dharma-related programs for FCM.

The 4 Immeasureables: The 'Heart Teachings' of Buddhism

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 03:22:46 GMT

Diane Powell, co-facilitator of the Mindful Living Path Intensive for the fall of 2021, tells us in this interview about the Four Immeasureables and how Intensives are significant in the development of our practice.

Question: What are the Four Immeasureables and why did the Buddha say they were so important in our lives?

Diane: They’re called the “Immeasureables” because the Buddha said they are the boundless capabilities of our hearts. They are very important in Buddhism because we think of there being ”two wings of the bird.” For the bird to fly, one wing is wisdom, and the other is the heart teachings. These are the heart teachings. The Buddha said, “I teach one thing, the cessation of suffering.” Both the wisdom and the heart teachings are pathways to the end of suffering.

The Four Immeasureables are loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

Loving kindness is the friendly, loving, kind, positive attitude we have towards other people, wanting the best for others, caring for others. Compassion is partly empathy (being able to feel the suffering of others) but it is more, wanting people not to suffer and, in its active phase, wanting to take action to alleviate their suffering. Sympathetic joy is taking joy in the joy of others. Equanimity underlies all the others, impartiality or even mindedness, applying our loving heart towards everyone, not just for the people we care about or like, but all beings.

This is a direct path to alleviating our own suffering, and to understand it, you only have to look at how your mind feels when you’re feeling loving towards somebody versus when you’re feeling constriction, anger, jealousy or fear towards somebody.

Question: How might this Intensive be helpful to FCM members?

Diane: If you are a newcomer and have not taken an Intensive but have been in some FCM programs and know a little about our teachings, Intensives are an important next step because they give structure and focus to our practice. It is said there are 84,000 Dharma doors, but that can be overwhelming. Where do I start? Intensives give a starting place and structure. If you find the teachings engaging, you should not be afraid to plunge right in and take an Intensive.

There are lots of elements in an Intensive – Dharma talks, readings, instructions about what to do in meditation and practices in daily life, and, one of the most important elements, the mentor group. You meet with the same group of five or six people and a facilitator every other week and share experiences with the readings and the practices. These groups are valuable because they give you a chance to articulate what is going on with your practice and to hear others and learn that the same issues are coming up for them, too. Also, it is a way of forming connections with others in the sangha.

I am so glad we’re offering the Four Immeasureables after the Anapanasati Sutra and the Four Nutriments, which we studied in the spring and summer. For those who have taken these Intensives, this fall our studies will flow naturally to the next level. In those two Intensives, we emphasized mindfulness and learning some stability of mind, bringing mindfulness into our lives to help make wise choices of actions of body, speech and mind. This Intensive will build on that foundation to bring our practice into the arena of relationships with other people and our mind states, the importance of having an open, loving, caring mind. We think of it as having a mind of goodness, a mind that brings goodness into the world. This path of the Four Immeasureables tells us how to do that.

Finally, I know we’ve offered this several times in the past. I’m so grateful to have been involved with it many times. Each time I take it or facilitate it, my mind is in a different place. I’m a different person each time. It always has new meaning and brings new depth to my practice. Like all the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, it can be practiced and realized on different levels. It is the practice of cultivating an open, caring, peaceful mind, but it has meaning at the level of interconnection and non-self for Wisdom-level practice, as well.

Diane Powell, a member of FCM since its formative years, is a senior leader who has facilitated many FCM Intensives and programs and is a member of the Elders Council, the Sangha Harmony Committee, and the Order of Interbeing. She is leading the Intensive on the Four Immeasureables with Bill Mac Millen, also a long-term FCM member and frequent presenter of programs for the Sangha.

My First Retreat: Enriching and Strengthening My Practice

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 12:00:00 GMT

By CHRIS SIDWELL

Enriching would be the word I would use to describe my first FCM virtual retreat.

As a longtime Buddhist but a newbie to FCM, I had never committed more than two hours at a time to any Buddhist activity. The FCM retreat was a big step out of my comfort zone and although I have never participated in an in-person FCM retreat in Tampa, I found this virtual format to be very impactful. I enjoyed being in the comfort of my own home and I did not feel distracted.

One point made during deep sharing was that we could implement what we had learned on the cushion minutes earlier, off the cushion during our activity breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was able to do that by participating at home.

This was my first encounter with Bryan Hindert, yet another sincere, experienced and educated teacher at FCM. Bryan was very well prepared and organized, and I appreciated how he structured the intensive down to the minute, letting us all know exactly what to expect hour by hour throughout the three days. He presented Dharma in a unique and contemporary way that really clicked with me. He asked us to focus on gratitude and, rather than asking ourselves, "What’s wrong?", suggested that we ask ourselves, "What’s not wrong?" -- a very powerful twist on our words and thoughts. I have incorporated that phrase into my daily practice.

The theme of the retreat was “Anchoring our Minds in the Present Moment.” I appreciated his analogy of an anchor being lowered into the depths of the ocean to illustrate grounding ourselves deeply in our bodies and minds. The image really clicked with me and was raised by many others, a great new tool in our belts to generate and deepen mindfulness.

Cultivating boundless love for all beings in the universe was the other main theme -- something that does not come naturally for me. Bryan introduced us to the Metta Sutra, or Discourse on Love, which I printed out and is also now part of my daily practice.

Bryan not only introduced us to 19 Gathas from Thich Nhat Hanh, but he showed us how to breathe during recitation of those gathas for deepest impact. Like many people, I found the gathas to be the most influential part of the retreat.

My takeaway is that I feel a deeper level of calm, and it’s not just post-retreat bliss. I'm filled with a new level of confidence from the many new tools I have gained that I can use to manifest mindfulness at any moment by utilizing breathing and bringing my breath deeper into my body.

Also, the retreat pointed out areas that I need to focus on in my daily practice – gratitude and generating love and compassion.

I have also gained a deeper sense of Sangha/community due to engaging and sharing with others throughout the retreat. Since I have previously participated in the Intensives, I feel this retreat was the next step in the evolution of my practice. I am profoundly grateful that I was given the opportunity to participate.

Chris Sidwell lives in Cape Coral and attends the Naples Sangha. He has been practicing Buddhism for 29 years but joined FCM in August of 2020. Chris relocated from Los Angeles in 2005. He and his wife founded Pacific Coast Music, a smooth jazz record label.

Guo Gu: A Story of Love for His Teacher

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 14:32:03 GMT

Because of love and deep reverence for his teacher, Guo Gu, the Florida State University professor who spoke at a recent FCM Sunday Sangha meeting, has created a thriving community of Chinese Buddhism in Tallahassee and beyond.

His goal is to make FSU one of the leading universities for Buddhist studies.

Guo Gu, whose American name is Jimmy Yu, is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center (www.tallahasseechan.com) and the guiding teacher for the Western Dharma Teachers Training course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York and the Dharma Drum Lineage. Chan is the Chinese precursor of Zen, which originated in Japan.

Guo Gu is one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s (1930–2009) senior and closest disciples, and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has edited and translated a number of Master Sheng Yen’s books from Chinese to English and has authored four books of his own. He is a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at FSU in Tallahassee.

Born in Taiwan, Jimmy first was exposed to meditation when he was four years old in 1972. He studied with one of the most respected Chinese meditation masters and ascetics in Taiwan, Master Guangqin (1892-1986). In 1980, at age 11, he moved with his family to the New Jersey and New York area.

Also in 1980, encouraged by his mother, he began learning meditation from Master Sheng Yen, who was residing in New York at the time. After a period as a bass player in two hardcore punk bands, he began to attend intensive Chan retreats in 1987 with Sheng Yen. After the first retreat Master Sheng Yen gave him the Dharma name, Guo Gu, which means, “Results From Being the Valley.”

In 1991, Guo Gu was ordained as a monk and became Master Sheng Yen’s first personal attendant who traveled with the master. Guo Gu described his former master as a man born at the margins of society who lived through war-torn China to become one of the most respected Buddhist clerics of our time and a leader who helped to carve out a presence of Chan in mainstream Buddhism in the world today.

Even though Guo Gu had left monasticism and re-entered lay life nine years before his master died, he returned from the funeral in Taiwan in 2009 and vowed to create a center in Tallahassee in Sheng Yen's honor and to carry on his work of teaching Chan Buddhism. He had received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Princeton University a year earlier and was a new teacher at FSU. All of that has come to pass.

Guo Gu is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening, published in March of this year.

In his talk at FCM, Guo Gu described a practice beginning with "progressive relaxation" of the body leading to “Silent Illumination,” a way to awaken to our true nature, aware to the unfolding of each new moment.

As he stated, "Mind, body, heart -- all one." We should follow the breath-body experience with great determination and great interest. When the whole body is relaxed, the meditation will be more beneficial. Only then can our true Buddha nature arise.

This can be described as the grounded embodied experience of just sitting in the present moment, Guo Gu taught. He also includes a period of “self-massage” while sitting after the formal meditation to practice mindfulness of movement and sensation in the body.

To Guo Gu, practice leads to Silent Illumination, which is an aspect of “correct view.” Silent Illumination isn’t a method; rather it is a metaphor for awakening to our true nature. It involves an awareness of the freshness of each moment as it unfolds. Each moment-to-moment experience is a “new beginning,” a manifestation of impermanence and emptiness. Silence is an aspect of our true nature, free from “stories” and notions of self.

Bodhisattva Vow Is My Way Home

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 12:30:00 GMT

By NINA HATTON

Making a vow affects us in ways that cause us to think and act with more focus, intention, and commitment than before we made the vow.

Having taken the Five Mindfulness Trainings almost 20 years ago and then committing as an aspirant of the Order of Interbeing two years ago, I have become aware that, for me, making a public vow has boosted and solidified my commitment to live in a way that aligned with the a life that brings me home to who I truly am, taking refuge in the Three Jewels and traveling on the Eightfold Path.

I have found that making such commitments not only makes the “way” more clear to me, but I feel energized by it. Making these vows had changed me in some ways, for the better. I used to feel that the Five Mindfulness Trainings were like a North Star for me, the direction was there, and provided support and guidance. Since committing to OI aspirancy, the image that has arisen is more like a “Yellow Brick Road” and this has encouraged and guided me even more. I can always see it, with all its beauty and promise, and truth. It’s the way home. The more I’ve learned from Fred, Angie Parrish, and other teachers at FCM, the clearer the path becomes.

At FCM we are incredibly fortunate to have an abundance of Intensives, retreats and workshops we can choose from to deepen our practice and our understanding of ourselves. The Way of the Bodhisattva, also known as the Bodhicharyavatara, was written by Shantideva, an 8th Century CE Indian monk, philosopher and poet.

While attending university as a young man, Shantideva's fellow students considered him to be quite a slacker, so they challenged him to give a Dharma talk in front of everyone. The discourse he gave literally blew everyone ’s minds. This seemingly lazy, disinterested young man eloquently, in long, elaborate, exquisite poetry, with the colorful, dramatic imagery of his time, presented step by step instructions on just how to relinquish one’s attachment to the Self and become a Bodhisattva.

Shantideva is quoted often. He takes us through systematic steps, beginning with extolling the excellence of bodhichitta, and on through deeper and deeper levels of how to combat our doubts, impatience, misdeeds, lack of diligence, and so on, ending with perseverance, meditation and wisdom.

In his fierce and convincing manner, Shantideva insists we examine our behaviors, reactions and mind states, convincing us that we really do want very much to relinquish the samsaric world and find joy and meaning in a bodhisattva way of life. To slay the ego and be solely alive for the purpose of helping others awaken, to help them heal and see the true nature of reality, is the mission of a Bodhisattva. As one of his verses teaches:

77. The source of sorrow it the pride of saying "I;"

It's fostered and increased by the false belief in self.

To this you may believe that there is no redress,

But meditation on no-self will be the supreme way.

Early in his treatise, Shantideva instructs us to make a commitment to follow this path of a Bodhisattva, to make our lives much happier by conquering the ego, (giving up feeding a false sense of self) and dedicating our lives to helping others wake up and reduce their suffering.

On March 14, thirty-two FCM members who had enrolled in the yearlong 2020 Intensive The Way of the Bodhisattva, took the Bodhisattva Vow in a ceremony conducted by Fred. Eleven bodhisattvas-to-be were present in the FCM Meditation Hall and the others took their vows via Zoom. Seven participants renewed the vows they had made in a previous year.

The ceremony was quite moving and the vow, which we all read in unison, was lovely and powerful. After the evening chant and incense chant, the ancient Bodhisattvas’ names were invoked and we all made prostrations to them, touching the earth.

Angie, Maria Teresa Jaureguizar and Fred each read offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Confession for Wrongdoing and the Seven-Limbed Prayer. Then we all repeated after Fred vows of Taking Refuge, Generating Bodhichitta, and the Bodhisattva Vow. After these, a Prayer of Rejoicing was read in unison by all.

At the end of the ceremony, participants walked up individually to Fred so that he could cut a lock of their hair. Those of us not physically present in the hall also cut a lock of our own hair at that time, and mailed it to Fred. He keeps the hair of his flock together, in the tradition of the Buddha.

For those of us who took the Bodhisattva Vow on March 14, I believe there is more joy and clarity in our walk along this path. I feel much gratitude for this opportunity to deepen my adherence to and reverence for this journey. And, to quote Ram Das, “we are all just walking each other home.”

Nina Hatton of Tallahassee is a retired speech-language pathologist who has been a member of FCM for four years, having studied Buddhism and practiced in the Plum Village tradition (off and on) for over 20 years. She is an OI aspirant about to ordain, along with six other OI aspirants from FCM, on May 2, and is co-lead of the FCM Membership Team.

Yogacara: A Path to Transformation

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:00:00 GMT

By LIBBY DUNN

As Fred covered basic concepts from the detailed framework of Yogacara in the recent four-week study group, he encouraged us to approach it from the perspective of our practice, instead of approaching it as a philosophy.

By helping us to imagine the mind as an ever-evolving process, Yogacara provides a powerful source of motivation and encouragement that can support us when we become frustrated by challenges and setbacks along the way.

We first learned that every physical and mental phenomenon -- every “thing” -- has three simultaneous natures: conceptual, interdependent, and empty.

It helped me to understand that at the conceptual level, we interact with projections of our own (often mistaken) ideas! Instead, it’s better to focus on the interdependent nature of phenomena. When I’m thinking about people with whom I feel conflict, if I can reflect on how their actions -- like mine -- flow from many prior causes and conditions, it helps calm my unwholesome feelings and loosen my grip on strongly held ideas.

One practice I followed to help absorb this teaching on the three natures was to select a physical or mental “thing” several times during the day, then identify and reflect on each of its three natures. This simple reflection also helped remind me of relative and ultimate truth. The importance of asking “Am I sure?” became obvious when we learned about the three subjective transformations taking place continuously within our minds.

Yogacara understands the mind as having eight levels, with six sense consciousnesses operating at the surface, and a much larger part, called the alaya, operating below the surface. Manas also operates at this deeper level, taking its inputs from both alaya and the six senses. Manas transforms the raw data to create a distorted version of reality that prioritizes a sense of self, guided by manas’ deep inclination toward self-delusion, self-view, self-conceit, and self-love. These details about manas’ functions and inclinations have helped me understand how my mind works behind the scenes to actively distort my very perception of reality.

For me, one of the most powerful teachings from Yogacara is its description of the deeper mind as an ever-evolving process. If we relate this to Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings about the mind as a garden, it can motivate us to become much more attentive gardeners.

If we want greater spaciousness and ease in our minds, then we have no choice but to get busy as our minds’ gardeners to cultivate more wholesome seeds and/or fewer unwholesome seeds. Thay calls this process “transformation at the base” and he teaches us that the “goal of our meditation is to make a change at the root of manas and the store consciousness. (Understanding Our Mind, p. 106)."

This gives me an optimistic view of my own agency and capacity for transformation and healing. It motivates me to stay on the well-lit path of practice, do my best to follow the precious instructions, and trust that the practices we’re following are designed to propel us forward.

The teaching on the ever-evolving mind also encourages me. While we were studying Yogacara, I participated in the FCM-wide emphasis on aspirations and vows. I tried to set explicit aspirations and send some of them in daily text messages to my aspiration buddy.

When the aspiration practices helped me identify where I was having difficulties following through on my aspirations, the Yogacara teaching encouraged me not to become disheartened. Instead, I took refuge in the knowledge that my mind is an evolving process and that I can take steps today that will make it easier for me to fulfill my aspirations in the future.

Instead of wasting time in self-doubt and discouragement, I can take a moment to recall some of the positive changes I’ve experienced since first entering this path and then get back to tending my garden.

Libby Dunn has been an FCM member for five years. She lives in Gainesville with her husband and two dogs, while her two adult children live in Tampa.

Learning to be Happy

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 13:30:00 GMT

By MARIA WINKLER

For four consecutive Friday evenings, eight members of FCM gathered virtually and shared reflections and personal insights inspired by our reading and study of the book, Happiness, by Matthieu Ricard, instead of pursuing the worldly idea of fun on a Friday night.

We were learning, studying and reflecting on life’s most important skill – learning how to be happy -- in the class “Cultivating Happiness in a Difficult and Changing World.”

It was the second time that I had worked with this book. This time I had volunteered to facilitate a discussion group, and that small step from participant to facilitator made a difference in how carefully I read the book and let the written word sink into my awareness.

Ricard’s approach is broad. He refers to many Western philosophers, such as Aristotle, Seneca, St. Augustine, Wittgenstein and others, and weaves in their knowledge and wisdom to support Buddhist insights and spiritual path.

Ricard posits that we all strive consciously or unconsciously to be happier – and that some do it competently, some clumsily. And I have to admit that I have been quite clumsy in my approach to happiness for decades.

For many years I thought and acted with the ingrained belief that if I just worked harder, applied better standards and set stricter boundaries in my work and private life and defended these boundaries vigorously, I would be happier. Now I realize I do not need to have the strictest of standards to be happy.

What I actually need is to change this notion “this is my territory – this is your territory!” When I approach family life, work and life in general with openness and a sense of interconnectedness and interdependence, I am kinder, less harsh in my expression and less demanding of myself and others. In other words, I am much happier.

Aristotle called happiness the ONLY goal! And St. Augustine posits that “the desire to be happy inspires every thought, every word, and every act so naturally that we are totally unaware of it.” This was such an “Aha” moment for me that I have this sentence underlined in red as well as highlighted in yellow. Imagine, EVERY act you do, EVERY word you say, EVERY thought you think is motivated by the desire to be happy! When I was wishing that someone would “drop dead,” all I was trying to do was to be happy?? How misguided!

“Dropping dead” thoughts made me feel jittery, made me feel lonely and prone to saying harsh words, and they did NOT make me happy! How could I have been so unaware of the effect of my mind states on my ability to be happy? It seems I needed to come to FCM, this “University of the Mind,” and listen to lectures, take courses, attend retreats and practice sessions and learn about the proven path to happiness!

Ricard gave us an exercise to look at how little one’s happiness is derived from outer circumstances and how much from one’s state of mind. I say harsh words and expect to be happy? I have judgmental thoughts, desiring or aversive thoughts and still believe they have no bearing on my inner harmony and fulfillment? Up until this reading and reflection, I really didn’t connect the dots.

Now that I have connected the dots between inner harmony and happiness and my thoughts, words and actions, I am slowing my life down. If I am going too fast, I miss the opportunity to recognize and be mindful of my desiring, craving or averting mind state. To let go of wanting or to let go of expecting a particular behavior or outcome is key for me.

Recognizing these expectations early in the mental game is most important. Often, I fail at early detection of the need for letting go. However, I catch myself more and more when angry or unwholesome thoughts arise. Then I close my eyes and pause to access inner calm. Or I look directly at the disturbing thought and something of its power is undermined and it dissipates. Now, l when I sit in meditation and practice to be centered and equanimous, more often than not, I feel grateful and happy.

Yes, it is true, we can cultivate happiness because happiness is essentially an interior state of being.

Maria Winkler is a retired mathematics educator and a yoga/wellness instructor and a member of FCM since 2012. She practices with the Naples Sangha.

A Time for Reflection and Integration

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 06:33:05 GMT

By FRED EPPSTEINER

Some members have referred to the amount of programs offered by our community in the past ten months as a “fire hose of Dharma.”

Intensives, retreats, workshops, classes and daily guided meditations have all helped sustain and develop our members' capacities to lead more balanced, peaceful and open lives. Many have been able to use this time to devote more energy to learning the teachings of the Buddha and to practicing the way of mindfulness and meditation.

Upon reflecting, it seems a good idea to pause for a month and give our members an opportunity to catch up from all they’ve learned and experienced in 2020, to reflect on what has been most significant in their past year’s learnings, and decide what to focus on and integrate into their personal and practice life now and in the near future. We can’t practice every teaching and meditation that we’ve learned, so we need to decide what is most essential and needed at this time in our lives.

To help support our members during the month of January, we will be offering a free workshop, “Empowering Your Life with Aspiration and Vows,” on Saturday morning, January 23. In addition, I am suggesting that we ‘buddy-up” for the next four to six weeks to give an added boost to our intentions for the new year.

Many of you participated in our Beginning Anew ceremony and created your list of aspirations/intentions for the coming year. This first month is most important if we seek to implement changes in the way we think, act and behave. Having someone to check in with daily for just a few minutes around our specific change goals will produce a better outcome because this produces accountability. You will be receiving an email about this program in the next few days.

Embracing a Sacred Mystery in the Shantideva Daylong

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 03:19:51 GMT

By CHARNER REESE

Seventy beings came together on Zoom recently to participate in a Daylong skillfully led by Diane Powell and Ken Lenington, where we deepened our understanding and practice of the Dharma so beautifully explained in Shantideva’s poem, The Way of the Bodhisattva. The focus of this retreat was on diligence and meditation, two of the Six Paramitas.

Knowing that wholehearted practice of the paramitas will bring us to the “other shore,” I sensed among our virtual community a heightened desire to learn and practice together the teachings being presented that day.

Particularly meaningful for me was the guided meditation on equalizing self and other, where Diane first read and explained some of the poem’s verses relating to this practice and then invited us to meditate, just as Shantideva did so many years ago:

Strive at first to meditate

Upon the sameness of yourself and others.

In joy and sorrow all are equal.

Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself.

Diane instructed us to choose someone in the online community to gaze upon, guiding us with specific reflections to contemplate as we looked into the eyes of another being, and in doing so, as Shantideva said in verse, “embrace a sacred mystery:”

Those desiring speedily to be

A refuge for themselves and others

Should make this interchange of “I” and “other”

And thus embrace a sacred mystery.

Suffering has no possessor.

Therefore no distinction can be made in it.

Since pain is pain, it is to be dispelled.

What use is there in drawing boundaries?

And so, why not identify

Another’s body, calling it my”I”?

And vice versa, why should it be hard

To think of this body as another’s?

So I chose the Sangha Sister in the Zoom square next to me. And as the guided reflections were stated one by one, I considered them as they related to her. One might think it would be difficult to do this virtually, but in fact that sacred truth of interbeing was experienced in those brief moments.

Once the guided meditation concluded, Diane asked us to do this meditation regularly, both in formal meditation and in daily life, because as with every practice to transform our minds, it is an ongoing process. And so the process continues. May all beings be happy!

A deep bow of gratitude to Ken and Diane for leading this retreat.

Charner Reese has been a member of FCM’s Tampa Sangha since 2011.

Voting Can Be an Act of Compassion

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 04:14:36 GMT

By NANCY NATILSON

Voting can be an act of compassion. Fred’s Dharma talk several weeks ago inspired me to reflect on ways I am engaging in compassionate action to ensure that I am always showing up with an open heart and aspiration to be of benefit.

We’ve been taught that compassion, “karuna” in Pali, is one of the four Buddhist Immeasurables that we practice to relieve the suffering of ourselves and others. Caring for one another and all life on our planet is the way we can express our compassion for living beings. I believe that we can manifest this caring by our participation in the upcoming election to find practical ways to bring healing and transformation to the suffering of our societal body.

We have to be careful these days that we don’t let our anger, apathy, frustration, and/or feelings of powerlessness stand in our way of exercising our right and responsibility to vote. In Florida, early voting opens on October 19, and absentee ballots can be requested up until October 24. Each state has an election website with up-to-date information. Florida’s is: https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/for-voters.

It’s easy to get carried away with the presidential race, but the elected positions up and down the ballot and the amendments all will have an impact on our lives and the lives of others. Please educate yourself about the other races and issues before you vote, especially since the wording of amendments can sometimes be misleading. The League of Women Voters publishes a useful non-partisan website guide for amendments by state. For those in Florida, the website is: https://www.lwvfl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Printer-Friendly-2020-Amendments-LWVFL.pdf

I know many of you are doing what you can to ensure a fair election and are taking actions you deem appropriate to help create a better world. I am volunteering with some non-partisan groups to make sure that all people who want to vote and are eligible to vote are able to cast their ballots. If you are interested in learning more about the opportunity to be a non-partisan Moral Observer or Poll Defender (anywhere in the country), please visit the Compassionate Voter Campaign Organizing Guide at https://greenfaith.org/USCompassionateVoter or go to www.thefrontline.org for details about the Poll Defender training, which has already begun. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at nnatilson@cs.com.

In closing, I offer you my vow to manifest as a compassionate presence in my actions of body, speech and mind and wish you the same liberation:

May we be free from anger, fear, and worry.

May we be of benefit to others on their healing and transformation journey.

May we fill our heart with compassion for ourself and others.

May we be open to receive others’ love and compassion.

May we vote out of compassion; and may we support others to do the same.

Nancy Natilson of Tampa joined FCM in 2005. She is a member of the Order of Interbeing and has served on FCM’s Board of Directors. She has taught many mindfulness courses and enjoys mentoring new FCM members.

Am I Working the Dharma?

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 16:39:36 GMT

By DOUG KALLMAN

Many of us have been participating in Fred’s teachings of “The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas,” a collection of verses of pith teachings of the aspirational path of letting go of self interest and dedicating our lives for the benefit of all beings. In addition to our daily practice and twice weekly Dharma talks, Fred offered a Saturday forum where we could learn from the questions of our Sangha classmates. I was requested to share a portion of this Q&A with Fred as it might be helpful for other practitioners.

In short, I asked Fred what do you do when you spin out, when as I phrased it, “the Dharma isn’t working.” Fred gently walked me through a reexamination of that idea. Was it in fact that the Dharma wasn’t working, or that I wasn’t applying the teachings properly?

He pointed out that the "self" was caught in wanting things to be a certain way and was irritated that it wasn’t going the way the self wanted. Like a petulant child, the self was having a good pout with a bit of foot stomping. I had lost mindfulness of seeing this clearly.

During this exchange I learned several things.

First, it was good to be vulnerable and share the problems I was having. In my life I have struggled with an inflated sense of my skills, a lack of humility, that has kept me from publicly acknowledging my challenges. This has been a source of suffering.

Second, on reflection, it is clear that if I had practiced patience and allowed the irritation to blow over, I would have suffered less.

Last, I remembered again to trust the Dharma, our wise and loving teacher and the support of the FCM sangha.

Here is a transcript of our conversation from the Q&A:

Doug (who is a physician): I had an experience this week where the Dharma wasn’t working for me. It usually works for me. I usually find some tool, pull something out of the bag of tricks. This week I was working a lot. It was hectic. Then there were lots of add-ons, including a good friend of ours getting very sick and my wife wanting me to put her to the top of the list, ahead of all my other patients. And so I got done with a long day and then took on her case.

You know those little bits of straw that can fuel a large fire? There was lots of kindling in there this week. I managed not to get angry, but there was a lot of irritation. The Dharma wasn’t working for me this week. And then I was getting upset that the Dharma wasn’t working (Fred laughing). I was on about the 12tharrow. Enough of the second arrow. I was starting to fire at will.

Luckily the Dharma was working somewhat. I don’t think I did any harm to the world around me. So that was probably a very positive step as I reflect on it. No anger got out, but there were heaps of irritation inside. I tried breathing. I tried stopping for five minutes. But I was getting less and less effective. I spun out of control.

So my question is, what do you do then?

Fred: So you were getting irritated at the Dharma because it wasn’t working for you. Let’s go back. Since I’m a strong upholder of the Dharma, I would frame it differently. It wasn’t that the Dharma wasn’t working for you. I would say that Doug wasn’t working the Dharma.That’s always my "go to."

Your mindfulness lets you know that you’re feeling stressed, tired, weary. And all of a sudden, the things that earlier in the morning weren’t a problem, as the day goes on, become problematic. You notice you are irritated. Why are you irritated?

We have to see that we have done something very different. We have disempowered ourselves. We have become the victim. We forget that we could have said no to your wife. Why did you say yes?

Doug: Because a Bodhisattva would say yes.

Fred: Yes. Because you weren’t dead yet. You had some capacity and you realized that you could help this person. Your wife was suffering because she was very concerned.

It’s almost as if there is this drama going on. On the one hand, you’re a doctor, here to help people, respond to their suffering. And then all of a sudden there is this other voice. The voice of "self." He’s going …grahh, grahh, grahh, grahh, grahh, grahh (Doug laughing). Can you see him? You need to be able to see that that’s where the irritation is coming from.

Those moments are good. Those moments are a choice point. Am I living my life according to the Dharma? Am I living my life according to my Bodhisattvic vows? Or am I living my life according to this very constricted, narrow self, whose voice is, “What about me...What’s in it for me…Why do people always want more from me?" It’s narrow. It’s petty.

If one is able to see that it is an empty voice, the self is empty, then it is no big deal. Then you can just blow away the irritation the way you blow away something that is not real. Again, it’s good to have those moments. To get bent out of shape.

We don’t hold on to the past but often we can learn from our mistakes. We certainly want to be able to reflect on past events, so we can learn fearlessness. Please remember, the Dharma always works. But we often don’t work the Dharma.

Doug Kallman, a physician from Atlanta, GA, joined FCM in 2018. He began a daily meditation practice in 2015 in the Insight tradition. With the bare minimum of prerequisite experience, he jumped into the deep end of the Dharma pool with Fred and FCM on a weeklong Wisdom Path retreat at Southern Dharma in June 2018. After a few days, he was all in, taking transmission of the 5 Mindfulness Trainings at the end of the retreat. Since then, he has been drinking at FCM's fire hose of Dharma, gratefully participating in Intensives and retreats with the community.

When My Ego Dropped Away, So Did My Anger

Sun, 30 Aug 2020 21:14:39 GMT

By ROSY SHARMA SEDHAIN

Growing up in a family where anger was very prominent, I was fully aware of the harm that it can cause. As a child witnessing it, I knew how frightening it could be. Later in life I was frightened to see the same seeds of anger in me.

Through a few years of meditation, Dharma study and practice, those seeds of anger had subsided to a great degree. I still experienced low-level irritation, frustration and sadness, and sometimes a little anger, too, but I felt they were normal and I had enough justification as to why they were okay for me.

But, now, as I have been studying The Way of the Bodhisattva by Santideva, every verse in the Patience chapter feels like it’s talking to me. Patience is something that I clearly see I need to cultivate. Verse 48 from the Shantideva's Vigilant Introspection chapter tells us that when anger arises: Do not act! Be silent, do not speak! And like a log of wood be sure to stay.

During the Patience Retreat I realized that, although I have been practicing to be like a log with no visible fire, the log was still hot inside and burning with irritation, sadness and frustration, which was fueled by wrong views. Through Fred’s teachings and reflection exercises, I realized that this log can be dangerous because slowly it will burn itself -- and the relationships around it -- whenever an explosive condition arises.

I realized why it is so important to make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small. I got a chance to go to the source of my anger and irritation. When looking back at my past, I realized it was rising in me when I didn’t get what I wanted or when people did not behave as I wanted them to.

So, ego / self-centeredness is the root cause of why anger arises in me. When it arises, this self-centeredness also makes me feel lonely and separate from everyone around me. It makes me feel like I need to protect myself. This “wrong view” makes me blind and keeps the fire of anger going.

This might not look like a significant discovery because Fred has talked about it multiple times in his Dharma talks, and I thought I had “gotten it” a long time ago. But only when I put my own life’s past events and my behavior patterns under the microscope and replayed those moments were my findings significant for me. I saw how the anger dropped as soon as the words “I, Me, My” were dropped. The story is the same, but as soon as I dropped the Ego, anger was nowhere to be found, and only sadness remained.

Wow, is it that simple? After the retreat, I have been trying to implement this new awareness in my life. It does help to stop the log from burning inside. It is not easy, but possible.

Rosy Sharma Sedhain joined FCM in 2017. This is her second year in the Dharma Transmission Program. She and Suzy Walker have been leading the Family and Teen Program. Rosy feels blessed to be part of the FCM sangha.

Life and Death: Not Separate in the Death Cafe

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 21:29:36 GMT

A discussion with Marilyn Warlick, leader of FCM’s program on Death and Dying, touches on the topics of death and life and the no-separation between the two.

When you attend a meeting of Death Café, are you attending a discussion about death, or about life?

When you spend time talking to Marilyn Warlick, leader of FCM’s Death and Dying Program, about this subject, you’ll quickly learn that a discussion about death is really a discussion about how to live a life and that death is not separate from life.

By figuratively taking us by the collar and shaking us to remind us of death, Buddhism reminds us to really live in the present moment, fully and deeply and with all the love for others that we can muster.

Buddhism also brings us face-to-face with death to prepare us – to open us to accepting it as a universal aspect of the human experience, Marilyn tells us, bringing us out of the avoidance of the subject that leaves Westerners so tragically unprepared. It is with this mind at ease that we want to greet death as an experience of life.

And so, if you join a discussion at a Death Café, you’ll find nothing morbid there. The sharing is deep and full of life and the fruits of rich and wise practice. Real life issues are raised and heard with loving attention. When death is discussed, we remind ourselves to live fully in the present moment.

The meetings offer an opportunity to find stillness and stability in practice that is precious in a time that can overwhelm us, given the pandemic, earth calamity, racial injustice, and our and other governments and countries in turmoil. Marilyn reminds us there is peace in simply letting go and finding a place to rest.

The words of Simon and Garfunkel’s landmark song come to mind: “When you’re weary, feeling small… Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down…”

As aspiring bodhisattvas, we are taught by Buddhism to help each other to learn to lay down preoccupation with life’s burdens and fears, which is really a preoccupation with the “self,” and to open to a mind of peace and ease. “I will lay me down” and be a bridge over troubled waters -- for others.

It’s about finding our “true home” in the midst of external turmoil. It comes back to mindfulness.

Marilyn recalled a passage by Thich Nhat Hanh in his book, At Home in the World. He was in Baltimore in 1966 when he learned that the Vietnamese government had revoked his passport and denied him re-entry to his homeland. His exile from his beloved country would last more than 40 years.

A now-homeless monk barely in his 40s, Thay wrote that he at that time still had not developed his practice to the point at which he had fully arrived at his "true home." He had been suffering from a recurring dream of being at his root temple in Vietnam and waking up to find himself in exile, and now it had happened. He took up residence in France because he could still travel in Europe on his expired passport.

All he could do during the first two difficult years was play with German and French children, connect with leaders of other religions to urge the end of the war in Vietnam, and do the inner work of practicing mindfulness to heal.

When we lose everything, that’s when we find our true home, when we lose our fear of death, he wrote.

“It was thanks to this practice (of mindfulness) that I survived,” Thay wrote. “The practice brought me back to my true home in the here and now. Eventually, I stopped suffering and I was in my true home in the here and now. When I returned (to Vietnam, many years later), it was a joy. But when it was time to leave my native country again, I did not suffer. ‘I have arrived, I am home’ is the essence of my practice. Since finding my true home, I no longer suffer. It was precisely because I didn’t have a country of my own that I was able to find my true home. I was able to break through and find my true home.”

Finding Balance in the Digital World

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 16:54:34 GMT

Balancing the mind, inhabiting the body and physical senses, being mindful, and spending at least two hours a week connecting with nature are important ways to deal with the effects of the use of digital technology, according to the recent workshop “Nourishing Wellbeing – Balance in the Digital World.”

Bryan Hindert, facilitator of the FCM workshop, led about 40 participants through a series of reflections and online discussions framed around the Four Nutriments (consumption of mental "edibles," sense impressions, volition/intention and consciousness) to assist in managing their use of digital media in a more intentional and mindful way. Digital media was defined to include computers, cell phones, TVs, and other modern electronic communications devices.

Here are some of the reflections and suggestions from the workshop:

How often do you use digital devices and for what purpose? When?
How do we feel when and after using these devices? Do we feel joyful and comfortable? Tired and empty?
Do we use each device intentionally; that is, do we know why we’re using it? (Connect to family and friends? Sangha? Work?) Or do we stray off into other uses? (Entertainment? Procrastination? To avoid suffering?) Do we even know why we use this device?
Are we trying to get something from it that we can’t otherwise get, such as to connect? To rest? Does this desire come to fruition? Be attentive to what your motivation actually is, not what you would like it to be.
Are you aware of what kind of thoughts you’re thinking when you are online? When you’re reading the news, are you thinking angry thoughts? Are you wanting to understand other people or to criticize them?
Are there other things we would like to be doing in our lives that technology keeps us from doing?
What content am I consuming? Is it nourishing me or causing suffering? Does the content I’m consuming meet my intention of what I want to “feed” my mind?

Some of the content we "consume" is wholesome. Much is manipulated. Neither the content of electronic media nor our perception of it meets the Buddha’s definition of reality. We need to be very careful and we need boundaries to keep from getting sucked down the rabbit hole.

In casinos, there are no clocks, so people don’t realize it’s time to go. As soon as one YouTube video is done, the next one starts. “Likes” on Facebook keep our eyes on the screen. We get a hit of dopamine every time we see the little dot in a new email. The average person spends 11 hours a day on devices, of which four hours on phones – one quarter of one’s waking day.

There is “digital burnout,” “digital overload” and “Zoom fatigue.” Blue light affects our sleep and our mood. We get physically tired and sit too much. This tech is not benign. It will have negative effects on us if we’re not careful.

Suggestions for practice:

If we have addictive tendencies, we need to treat our addictive minds very carefully. Use intention and mindfulness to exercise restraint. Bryan tries to block out one day of digital detox each week.
Nervous system arousal, mood and immune response are improved from spending only two hours a week engaged with nature, less than 20 minutes a day. This could be looking mindfully at trees, spending time in the yard or a park, exposing the body to the sights, sounds, smells and feel of the outdoors. It's important to come into our bodies and senses.
Become aware that internal discomfort drives us outward and that the answer lies within, not online. The use of electronic devices to avoid facing suffering does not work.
Consider using a gatha stating your intention when turning on electronic media.
Experiment: One day, use digital devices the way you have habitually done. The next day, check your intention and watch your mind; notice that you should feel much more balanced.
Neutral mind states become negative very easily. It’s important to constantly create positive and wholesome mind states, no matter how mundane the tasks you are performing.

Reflections from Retreat 'Cultivating the Fearless Mind'

Sun, 17 May 2020 22:01:10 GMT

The lesson of the retreat “Cultivating the Fearless Mind” was clear: We can transform fear by facing the fear straight on, right at it, replacing fear with trust, with confidence in our practice.

Sixty FCM members attending the retreat probed deeply into reflections about their fears and anxieties in the two-day online retreat last weekend led by Ken Lenington, Dharma leader from Asheville, NC (pictured below).

It was a hybrid of what retreat attendees have come to expect – a lingering and warm welcome of smiling faces on rectangular Zoom screens, noble silence, breaks for meals and mindful movements, chanting, Dharma talks and sharing, with much of it on the honor system at home. As FCM members have come to expect, the retreat left participants with practices to incorporate into their personal routines.

Ken based the content of the retreat on the Five Remembrances and the Three Fierce Mantras. They are shown below.

First, Ken asked retreat participants: What is the fear you want to work with today?

Second, What is the story underneath that fear? The second question disrobed the fear and left it standing bare and ephemeral – a mere image created by the mind.

Reflections on fear were deep, guided by many questions offered by Ken to help participants understand the nature of fear and the reasons it paralyzes us:

You have identified a fear you want to address. Where does this fear come from? Are there other feelings attached to it? Does it show up as anger? Loss? Sometimes anger is the first clue. Be with the fear and follow it. Where does it lead you? Can you find a source or sources? Be as open to the fear as you can. The closer you can get, the more you can see clearly where it comes from.

What desires may be present? What may be fueling the fear? Is there something you want to have happen? Is this fear realistic? Is there any real threat or danger here? If so, what’s the danger? When you look at the process that is labeled “this fear,” does it seem to be rational? Does it make sense based on your own experience?

Take a moment and explore whether this fear has any reality. Is there anything we can actually get hold of, other than passing thoughts that arise and leave? Does this fear exist anywhere outside my mind? Do you note any misperceptions – perhaps thinking something is permanent when it is not? Solid when it is not? Rational when it is not?

Ask yourselves: What am I resisting, even if you don’t feel you are resisting. What am I not accepting? What part of this event that is unfolding is unacceptable to me? What are the thoughts and stories that feed this fear, that perhaps help it grow? Identify them, give them names. Note if the fear is that you want things in your life to be different than they are. This might be a person, a thing or yourself.

Do I fear something that I hold dear will change or that I will lose it? Possessions? Job or income? Health? Love? Respect? Perhaps this fear is based on wanting to control what other people think of me, a fear of shame or embarrassment.

Looking as we have, can we see the truth of the situation a bit more clearly -- that all things in our lives are of the nature to change. Can we accept that we can’t control events or the other people in our lives, and when we try to control them, we become frustrated or angered by the responses that occur?

Are we beginning to clearly see that the grasping and clinging in our minds about how things ought to be causes suffering and unhappiness? Can we look and see that any sense of a solid and permanent self -- that which we call “me” -- is a fabrication in our minds, and nothing stays the same, even for a moment -- that we, too, are an appearance arising from the causes and conditions that make us appear us this way?

Look once again at the fear, the kernel at the center of it, the proposition around which it is formed, and ask, Is it true? “Is it true” is such a useful proposition. We’re not asking for an immediate answer. We want to relax into the question, into not knowing. It’s like a light.

Find the question at the heart of your fear: Is it true that I have too much to do? Is it true that I need other people to think that I am competent? Is it true that I would be devastated if I made a mistake and didn’t get things just right? That I need to be able to control what other people say and do and what they think about me? That I couldn’t handle it if I lost my job or my income? That I couldn’t handle it if I became seriously ill? That I couldn’t handle losing the love of my partner? That I need to be loved?

Who is it that thinks there is too much to do? Or thinks they couldn’t handle losing their job or income? Asking “Who is it?” is also shining a light. Relax into the question. If answer says, “It’s me,” relax into it. Who is it that needs to look competent? That needs to be liked? That needs to be loved? That doesn’t want things to change?

Let go of any answers.

Fears and anxieties that arise during this pandemic may seem different than ones we are used to, but they are not really different. The question ends up being the same as always: What should we do in the face of unexpected things? We watch. We watch the things that arise, the anger, the fears and anxieties. They change from day to day. You can make that your COVID-19 practice. Let yourself be there with them.

Ask yourself: Are these fears irrational?

One practice is when we look at our thoughts, there’s nothing there to hold on to. Let them be and let them move on. It’s not what arises that’s the problem. It’s hooking onto them. Just say, oh, “Fearful thought,” and let them go. They will leave.

The practice is that all of this is a dance, awareness that is coming and going, and you can trust in that. You can trust in the nature of yourselves, in deepening awareness, just this deepening interacting stream of being, dancing together, a part of each other, always changing and interchanging. If you see it that way, then fear dissipates.

* * * * *

The Five Remembrances

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 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.
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

~The Plum Village Chanting Book, Thich Nhat Hanh

Three Fierce Mantras

Whatever has to happen, let it happen!
Whatever the situation is, it’s fine!
I don’t need anything whatsoever!

A Retreat Experience: Images with Roshi Hogen Bays

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:41:55 GMT

In a four-day retreat on Verses on Trust in Mind, Roshi Hogen Bays, in his return visit to Tampa last week, offered moving teachings about mind and body that began with the foundations of mindfulness and sometimes brought himself and members of his audience to tears.

Equally as broad as the beloved sutra were the applications of the teachings, ranging from how one navigates fear and sadness after becoming vulnerable, to the wonder of feeling one's own pulse throughout the body, to a glimmer of understanding of the oneness that encompasses all beings and everything in an unending universe.

This unknowable beauty is yours, claim it! exclaimed Roshi in a burst of emotion that was pure heart. The tears of the retreatants mingled with his tears of wonder.

The less sublime was beautiful, too. It ranged from the pure joy of our teacher Fred at sharing Dharma space with Roshi, his Dharma friend of 50 years, to retreat attendees sharing tasks so simple as sweeping the floor together in silence.

Although Roshi would wag his finger and admonish, "No stories! And anything older than a nanosecond is a story!" here are some pictures to share the experience of oneness that came together at the retreat. After all, human beings seem to can't resist the shared delusion of telling (or depicting) stories!

The kitchen chop-and-slice team, from left, was Spence Davis of Tallahassee, Nina Hatton of Tallahassee, Chef Nancy Natilson of Tampa, Robbie Tisch of Bethesda, Maryland, and Carol Green of Naples.

Bryan Hindert of Tampa and Maria Sgambati of Tampa, residential caretaker, led weekend cooking duties.

Lunch duty was tough, but somebody had to do it! Making sure there was no food waste was, from left, Scott Nissensohn of Tampa, Marilyn Warlick of Tampa, Mitch Schaefer of St. Petersburg and Dana Mooney of Temple Terrace.

Tidying up in the kitchen are Elena Rigg of Atlantic Beach, left, and Maria Sgambati of Tampa.

Ned Bellamy of Clearwater and Diana Fish of St. Petersburg inspect some forks with globs of peanut butter stuck to the tines. Dishwashers don't like peanut butter!

The peanut butter problem brings Bobb Hart of Tampa into selfless service. He makes sure that peanut butter doesn't get stuck on the forks.

Chris Witrak and Betsy Arizu, both of Tampa, sweep a gazillion crumbs from the dining room floor. Eating in silence can be messy.

Roshi checks out the kitchen, to Bryan Hindert's delight!

Tran Phung of Tampa, left, shares a laugh with Roshi and Fred in the dining room.

Nina Hatton of Tallahassee, foreground, and CiCi Claar of Tampa, right, get into the spirit of Diane Powell's Mindful Movements class.

Roshi Hogen Bays Teaches Trust in Mind Sutra in Retreat

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:25:41 GMT

The Trust in Mind Sutra so often chanted at FCM Sangha meetings is about having deep trust, right here, right now, Roshi Hogen Bays of Portland, Oregon, told attendees in a four-day retreat on the Verses on Trust in Mind held recently at the Tampa Practice Center.

Roshi led extensive periods of sitting meditation and various practices of getting in touch with the body and physical sensations as a first step toward building the foundation for deep, calm stillness of mind. You can trust that the earth is supporting your body, always, he said. You can trust in your clear luminous mind to always support you, too, he added.

Roshi is a Zen priest of the White Plum Sangha of Portland, a leader of the Zen Community of Oregon in Portland and co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon. This was his second year of leading a retreat at FCM in Tampa by invitation of our teacher Fred, a Dharma brother of Roshi under Philip Kapleau at the Rochester Zen Center in the late 1960s.

The evening before the retreat began, Fred and Roshi held a dialogue about their experiences for the benefit of the community.

"It all starts with our own body, knowing all sensations are just flow. It's the flow of energy, just the tingling vibration of life. We are nothing but experience," Roshi said.

His meditations delved into the direct experience of sensations within the body and the experience of being alive "from the inside out." These sensations take us back to a place of forgotten direct experience before we learned speech, before our Buddha minds were hidden beneath layers of adaptations, projections and illusions that now cause us to suffer. This body of sensation is pure awareness, Roshi said.

His guided meditations and Dharma talks were filled with pithy humor and wisdom:

Look around. What do you see? Are your problems here? Is your rent here? Are your taxes? Not unless you bring them here. Bring only your presence. Right here. Right now.
Always start meditation with the body. Anchor yourself with the breath or your hands/legs/torso, from the inside out. Become aware of the presence of the whole body with its tingling, pulsing, internal sounds, moisture. You may want to start with feeling the hands; they rest in tingling aliveness.
Stop arguing! About governance, the environment, with reality!
Concerning the bodhisattva vow to save all beings: That's big. The good news? They don't need saving. They are perfect as they are! So relax.
No stories! Body still. Mind still. Come from a place of stillness. If it's not happening right now, in this instant, it's a story. It happened in the past.
Everybody is doing the very, very, very best they can. Things are perfect just as they are (They are arising from causes and conditions causing them to manifest as they are).
What about the children who are imprisoned on the border? Each of us can do only what we can do, and so we pick what we can touch and we do that. Some of us can do something large; some of us can do something small. That is what the universe asks of us, that we decide what we can do, and we do it out of a calm, loving heart-mind.
If fear arises from what we discover when we open ourselves up, the answer to our fear is to serve others.
If we're not afraid of ourselves, we're not afraid of anything else.
There are good times, there are bad times, but there is a place of trust that is always, always there. Meditation is resting in that foundation of trust. We can actually feel that knowing of love that is always there.

Words of Love Describe Life of Ruth Eppsteiner

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 03:23:14 GMT

Framed by Buddhist prayers and sutras, words of love described the life and impact of Ruth Eppsteiner as the Florida Community of Mindfulness came together to say farewell to her earthly presence in her funeral service Sunday.

Our teacher Fred led the ceremony for his mother, who passed away at home in Naples on February 11 at the age of 102. The service included music and eulogies from family and sangha members.

Fred told the Sangha that the role of a Buddhist funeral is to support the deceased in their continuing journey of transition and to remind us of impermanence, reminding us to be mindful of its impact on our relationships.

Ruth's younger son, Rob, of Naples, remembered her as a mother whose life centered on love of family and who kept family and extended family members near all her life. He described a generous heart that could best be defined as "Give away your love!"

He said all three of her children were born into the Jewish faith but ended up practicing Buddhism, along with Ruth herself becoming Buddhist at age 80, causing Ruth to ask later in life, "What karma do we have?"

Rob Eppsteiner describes Ruth's deep love of family, while Fred's granddaughter, Metta,

looks on.

"Her great teaching was don't waste time," he said. "Love your family and friends."

Ruth's youngest grandson, George Eppsteiner, spoke on behalf of her numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, recalling memories of her as a loving grandmother who provided warm cookies when he was young and plainspoken lessons in life even in his adult years.

Angie Parrish, speaking on behalf of her time with Ruth as well as for Sangha members who had submitted their comments, recalled the FCM pilgrimage with Fred to India in 2009, which Ruth had joined in spite of warnings from Fred that it was strenuous and that she might die there because of the difficult conditions and her age. Her response was "Sign me up!" Angie said the rest of the group got sick and had to push to keep up with Ruth.

"When we went to Naples, we would sit on the porch of her condo and talk about Dharma," Angie said. "She called Fred her teacher. She loved the Dharma and she loved the Naples Sangha very much."

Fred commented that "at age 102, she had lost everybody, her husband, her friends, yet she never changed. She just began attracting younger people. Her body aged, but her mind never aged."

He said he found notes from a Dharma talk given by Ruth that reflected thoughts that she had not discussed in her talk. One bit of self reflection said she hadn't seen outside her little circle of people she loved but that her practice caused her to begin to open up her love to all beings. Her Dharma talk, in which she talks about developing her practice after coming into Buddhism late in life, can be accessed by Clicking Here.

Ruth's Dharma name was Source of Boundless Love.

As had been requested by Ruth, the Sangha recited the Heart Sutra.

Courtney "CiCi" Claar sings "If I Loved You," a song from the Broadway musical Carousel.

Also requested by Ruth was "If I Loved You," the favorite song of her and her husband of 52 years, Larry, who predeceased her. It was sung by Courtney "CiCi" Claar of the Tampa Sangha.

Diana Fish of the St. Petersburg Sangha played cello for a silent meditation, and a group sang "Five Remembrances."

Singing "The Five Remembrances" from the balcony were, from left, Anne Louise Kracmer of Fort Myers, Charner Reese of Tampa, Molly Conlon of Tampa, Maria Teresa Jaureguizar of Tampa and Christopher Lee Nguyen of Fort Myers. They were accompanied by Rick Ferriss of Tampa on the guitar.

A reception, featuring a video of Ruth's life and loving relationships with family members, followed the service.

Elements of the service are included below:

CONTEMPLATION OF NO-COMING AND NO-GOING:

This body is not me.
I am not limited by this body.

I am life without boundaries.

I have never been born,

and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,

manifestations from my wondrous True Mind.

Since before time, I have been free.

Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,

sacred thresholds on our journey.

Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.

So laugh with me,

hold my hand,

let us say good-bye,

say good-bye, to meet again soon.

We meet today.

We will meet again tomorrow.

We will meet at the source every moment.

We meet each other in all forms of life.

MINDFULNESS OF THE DECEASED:

Brothers and Sisters, it is time to bring to mind Ruth and to send the energy of loving kindness and compassion to her. Let us sit and enjoy our breathing for a moment, allowing Ruth to be present with us now.

Brothers and Sisters, please listen. The peace and joy of the entire world, including the worlds of the living and the dead, depend upon our own peace and joy in this moment. With all our heart and one-pointed mind, let us begin anew for the benefit of ourselves and our beloved ones.

OI Community Deepens Commitment at Retreat

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 01:54:25 GMT

It was a weekend of commitment and celebration with the combination of the annual transmission ceremonies of mindfulness trainings to 24 persons and the yearly retreat of the FCM Order of Interbeing (OI), where 12 new aspirants were announced.

The Tampa Meditation Hall was filled to overflowing for Sunday's transmission ceremonies. Photo by Alex Lerner

Led by our teacher Fred, commitments were made February 2 by 23 adults to the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) and the 5 Mindfulness Trainings and by one child who made the Two Promises.

Fred, far left, leads the transmission ceremonies for the Three Jewels, 5 Mindfulness Trainings and Two Promises at Sunday Sangha in Tampa.

One child, Leo Reiff, age 7, Fred's grandson, made the Two Promises during the ceremony. Above, he is assisted by his little sister, Metta.

Salima Grannon leads incense chant at Sunday Sangha in Tampa.

The transmission ceremonies ended the weekend OI retreat, at which members and aspirants also attended discussions on right speech/mindful communication/beginning anew, leadership, and recitation and discussion of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings. Fred led a discussion about the purpose of OI mentoring, the role of OI within FCM, readiness for ordination to OI and how to manage retreat/lazy time encouraged for members of the order. A tea ceremony in the Plum Village tradition held Saturday night featured poetry music and personal reflections.

Listening to a discussion about OI's purpose within FCM are, from left, Chris Lee Nguyen, Bryan Hindert, Fred, Angie Parrish, Scott Nissensohn, Raven Dreifus-Kofron and Nancy Natilson.

The Tampa Sangha listens as new OI aspirants introduce themselves and ask for support.

New OI aspirants for 2020 were introduced at Sunday Sangha before the Transmission Ceremonies began. Each of them stated their aspiration and asked for support of the Sangha.

OI aspirant Dragos Zanchi of Tampa asks for support of the Sangha on Sunday.

Photo by Alex Lerner

They are Raven Dreifus-Kofron of Brandon, Teresa Fernandez of Tampa, Misti Oxford-Pickeral of Gainesville, Patricia Lukacs of Tampa, Rob Mitchell of St. Petersburg, Scott Nissensohn of Tampa, Mary Robinson of Fort Myers, Margaret "Maggie" Tudor of Tampa, Chris Witrak of Tampa, Antonela Zanchi and Dragos Zanchi of Tampa. Absent but accepted into the OI aspirant program was Shana Smith of Gainesville.

OI members and aspirants joined in a discussion Saturday in Tampa.

Photo by Alex Lerner

Members Explore Inner and Outer Pilgrimage to India

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 08:29:13 GMT

By BILL MacMILLEN

Last month two other FCM members and I had the great opportunity to travel to India for a pilgrimage to a number of renowned Buddhist sites, including Lumbini, the site of the Buddha’s birth; Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha’s awakening and the legendary Bodhi Tree; Deer Park in Sarnath, the site of his first teaching, and Kushinagar, the site of his death, or paranirvana.

Our group, which included Diana Fish, Chris Gahles and me, had the great fortune of being led by Shantum Seth, an ordained teacher in Thich Nhat Hahn’s tradition, and an extremely knowledgeable conduit of both Buddhist and Indian history. Our path covered 14 days of touring and being with these sites and their history, as well as the cities and countryside of the Indian state of Bihar, the poorest and most populous state in India.

As Shantum said, there is an inner and an outer pilgrimage.

First, a description of the outer pilgrimage:

The pilgrimage was aptly titled, “In the Footsteps of the Buddha.” We literally were in the footsteps walked by the historical person, Siddartha, 2,600 years ago. That aspect alone was very powerful, realizing that this was the land where his birth, awakening, teachings and death occurred.

With Shantum providing both detailed accounts of the history of each site, as well as daily opportunities to meditate as a group at these sites, it made for a very integrated and rich experience, melding the intellectual and the spiritual aspects beautifully. Millennia old stupas and temples, rich with the history of the Dharma were found throughout the tour, each with their own unique details that Shantum described.

Chris Kahles, from left, Diana Fish, Jagdish (the logistics assistant for the pilgrimage), and Bill MacMillan at Nalanda, the famous 6th-11th Century site of advanced Buddhist teachings.

Other than the initial flight out of New Delhi and a return flight there, the transportation from site to site was by bus, and the opportunity to experience the countryside, cities and people was a teaching in and of itself. The level of poverty is severe, with families living along the roadside in what would be considered abject poverty in the United States, with little or no infrastructure support. Cows, goats and dogs abound, mixed with bicycles, tuk-tuks and motor scooters carrying 3 or 4 people at a time, often with women riding side-saddle and carrying a child, with horns blaring constantly.

Although India is an overwhelmingly Hindu country, the Buddhist pilgrimage sites are significant attractions and we found large crowds at most of them, with hosts of street vendors and beggars ever present and desperate. Bodh Gaya in particular, with the famous Bodhi tree and the Mahabodhi Temple, was a cacophony of sound as different Buddhist traditions chanted, often using amplified speakers.

Also in Bodh Gaya, we had a photo taken of us and Shantum with Basudev, a cobbler whom Fred befriended when he was in India in 1975. Basudev was begging in the streets at the tim

e; Fred bought him clothes and shoes and basically acted as his benefactor. Years later Fred encountered him again when he was working at his uncle's shoe shop. He is now the proprietor of that shop!

Shantum and Jagdish, Shantum's employee who assisted us, took us to the shop, where we presented Basudev with a gift from Fred after showing him a photo of Fred with Karuna (whom Basudev met around 2000 when Karuna was in college and studying in India) along with Metta and Leo, Karuna's children. Basudev smiled immediately upon seeing the photo -- a great moment!

The tour group watched the teeming scene along the ghats (steps) on the Ganges River at Varanasi.

We spent a fascinating morning in Varanasi, one of the holiest sites for Hindus, who come to ceremonially bathe as a ritual for a better life in the Ganges year-round, and also where loved ones are cremated along the river in funeral pyres. The ghats are the steps leading down to the river, which is lined with centuries-old buildings inhabited by both people and monkeys.

The walk through the streets to the ghats, even at 6:30 in the morning, had a street festival atmosphere – smells of street vendors cooking, cows meandering hear and there, music playing, teeming with people. After making it to the river, we hired a boat and watched the various unfoldings from the river, with an almost surrealistic feel to it all.

Bill, Diana and Chris, led by Shantum Seth, third from left, stopped at a Thai Buddhist temple in a rural area in India for dinner. Thai temples were selected as rest stops because of their restaurants and clean restrooms. In the rear are a Thai monk and nun from the temple.

A particularly meaningful time occurred for me toward the end of the pilgrimage at the Jetta Grove in Sravasti, the location where the Buddha’s itinerant sanghas often stayed during the rainy season and site of a large number of his teachings. Diana, Chris and I each renewed the Five Mindfulness Trainings in a ceremony Shantum conducted in the Plum Village tradition established by Thay. A number of the other members of the larger group with which we traveled also took the 5 Mindfulness Trainings for the first time.

We completed the pilgrimage with a drive to Lucknow and flight back to New Delhi and were fortunate to extend the trip one day to travel to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort before the 14-hour flight back to the States.

Yes, Shantum said it best: There is an inner and an outer pilgrimage, and the inner continues long after the return to one's home. It was a fascinating journey and one that I found has altered my views of life -- in ways I don’t understand yet.
Many thanks to Bill MacMillen of Tampa, Facilities Care Leader, for this wonderful article about the pilgrimage taken with two other FCM members to significant locations in the Buddha's life in India.

Vegan Bruschetta: Smoky Beans on Toast

Sun, 22 Dec 2019 20:33:43 GMT

Here's a good recipe for Beginning Anew, thanks to a discovery by Susan Ghosh!

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Smoky beans on garlic toast make a perfect vegan bruschetta. Delicious, healthy, inexpensive and packed with big flavors!

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 10

10 slices baguette or rustic bread, toasted

1 1/2 cup cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
2 Tbsp onion, chopped
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/8 tsp chilli flakes, or more to taste (optional)
1/4 tsp salt, or more to taste
1 tsp fresh thyme, leaves
2 garlic, cloves
10 black olives (optional)

Instructions

Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a pan over a medium heat. Cook the chopped onion for about 3 minutes, until soft.
Add smoked paprika, beans, thyme and salt, stir well and cook for a further 8-10 minutes stirring occasionally. When they're done, smash half of the beans and add the rest of the oil.
In the meanwhile, toast your slices of bread in the oven or in a pan with a little of olive oil, cook for a few minutes until golden. This method adds more flavor.
Rub the toasted bread with fresh garlic, top with a spoon of smoky beans and some black olives (1 olive per slice of bread is fine) a pinch of chilli (optional) and a drizzle of olive oil or extra virgin olive oil.

Recipe Notes

The cooked beans keep well in the fridge up to 3 days.
1 1/2 cup of beans is enough for 10 small slices (Recipe used one French baguette).

Wake Up Tampa Bay Practices as Young Adult Community at FCM

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 13:30:00 GMT

By CHRIS WITRAK

Have you ever wondered what all those cool young adults you see at Sunday Sangha do at Wake Up? Well, you’re in luck because this article will give you a sneak peek into what this awesome group is about and how its members practice.

Wake Up Tampa Bay members, from left, Jerry Stinnett, Chris Witrak, Samantha Demmi, Brother Fulfillment, Jennica Robe and Ven Kat.

Thich Nhat Hanh created Wake Up so that young adults could have a community where they can practice mindfulness to nourish their own happiness and contribute to building a healthier and more compassionate society. Like the Plum Village tradition and Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, Wake Up has spread across the globe with the Wake Up International website listing 114 Wake Up sanghas.

At FCM, Wake Up Tampa Bay is the primary space where young adults in their 20s and 30s can practice mindfulness among peers.

We begin a typical Wake Up meeting at 7 pm in the Meditation Hall and practice sitting and walking meditation, read an article or book written by Thich Nhat Hanh or another teacher such as Pema Chödrön, and practice deep sharing and deep listening. During deep sharing, whoever wishes to do so can share what resonated with him or her from the reading and share successes and struggles with his or her practice without fear of criticism or judgment.

When I first attended Wake Up over three years ago, I easily took to the group because everyone was very friendly and welcoming. I have met some of my closest friends at Wake Up. After attending for a few months, I also felt comfortable becoming more active within the group since everyone was open-minded and no one forced an agenda.

Both Wake Up Tampa Bay and the larger Wake Up community hold inclusiveness as an important value, and young adults from all religious and cultural backgrounds are welcome in the group.

Attending Wake Up helped me establish a regular sitting practice during my initial months and has helped maintain it. Now that I have been part of the Wake Up for several years, I also have the opportunity to practice by helping newer members establish their own practice by leading meditations.

Wake Up offers Dharma study groups as well for those interested in going deeper with their practice. After establishing a mindfulness practice, participating in the Dharma study groups helped me really begin to heal and transform my mind and also motivated me to become more involved at FCM and sign up for my first intensive.

Today, Wake Up Tampa Bay has a regular attendance of around 15 to 30 people, and a bunch of us have become active in the larger FCM community. If you haven’t had a chance to meet any of us, please introduce yourself! We would love to get to know you. Strengthening bonds within the larger FCM community is one of the best ways to help the Wake Up community strengthen and grow.

If you would like to read more about Wake Up, you can do so on the Wake Up International website by Clicking Here.

Thanks to Chris Witrak, a member of the Tampa Sangha and Wake Up Tampa Bay, for this informative article.

Mysterious 'Knowing' Led to Commitment to Teachings

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 07:10:51 GMT

By Marilyn Warlick

In reflecting on years of our practices, Sam and I noted a mysterious turning toward something, a sense of a commitment to a view. While not initially knowing what this view was, we realized our old way of living and seeing life was not how we wanted to live our lives. What was it we saw?

I did not know and yet kept moving toward something over the years.

Something, like a knowing that is deeper than the thinking mind -- a seeing deeper than the episodes of the day, a mystery about what this knowable “something else” is. What is it? I don’t know. Yet when I am still and quiet, there is something.

We recall as children a peace in nature away from relationships and events, a calm. Somehow knowing there is something else. What is it I have been recognizing in nature, in some people who had an inner peace? We would gravitate toward these places and people over the years, not knowing why.

And so we commit.

The teachers of this 2,600 years of practice and study have looked and seen the mind movements and developed guidance for us on how to develop in practicing training the mind, so that we can learn to live a life with more understanding and compassion.

The Lojong slogans are to help us recognize where we are in our aspiration to live a life of meaning in the midst of so much we may not yet know of this mysterious mind. The slogans help us learn to develop an intelligent interpretation of our experiences and see the way we use our thoughts and emotions in our lives. We begin to see that how we use experiences is always up to us -- whether we use them for betterment or for continuing old familiar habits. The Buddha offered us encouragement and wisdom teachings, and the teachers of Lojong slogans guide us with specific slogans, such as making a commitment to the mind training.

This making of a commitment is different than other commitments in our lives.

When the teachers guide us to commit, and recommit, it is not a commitment like we have made in the day-to-day usual world, of promises made and broken, then feel guilt.

This is a different relationship with commitment.

A deeper voice making a promise we hear, of a way knowing that may not always be apparent in our days of failures and distractions, afflictive emotions, entangled relationships. Somehow there is this knowing like we experience this evening sitting together, still, an experience of being with one another and a view of living.

As we sit with support of a guided meditation, supported by each others’ attention, we cultivate qualities of our natural mind, and we touch this experience of calm, of space. There is a knowing deeper than the thinking mind, a view beyond day-to-day events. Whatever is happening outside does not affect this mind.

Then with the Metta practice, we wish this wellbeing for not only for ourselves, but also for others. How amazing the experience of heartfelt wish for our happiness and for others, realizing the effect of our wishes result in experiencing a connecting, a oneness. A mystery. Of what is this experience of such wellness?

When we gain some space for a wider view, the mind trainings give us opportunity for a moment to stop and not blame ourselves or others. An opportunity to look at ourselves and commit not to continue rehashing old stories, for this moment, and this moment, and this moment. And so we seek out the teachings, we seek out teachers, we seek out other people to be with and soak up their peaceful stable minds.

To strengthen our resolve, a certain amount of commitment is an essential element, a commitment to resist the seductions of old tendencies. Time and time again to deliberately think about our commitment to our intentions and the mind trainings and reaffirm our determination to do something meaningful and purposeful with our lives.

With recommitting, we become more aware and attentive to our daily situation and notice how many opportunities we ignore while ensnared in personal dramas. When we commit to capitalize on situations as they arise we see most of them are capable of bearing fruit. And so we commit: Whatever happens in my daily life, I will use every opportunity to practice training the mind.

Our thanks to Marilyn Warlick for this article drawn from a Dharma talk given by herself and her husband Sam at the Naples Sangha in November. Sam, led by Fred, recently gave FCM's first Mind Seeking Way talk in Tampa.

Member at First Retreat: Opportunity Should Not be Passed Up

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 20:25:21 GMT

By JUDE SMITH

My name is Julian (Jude) Smith, and I believe humanity is very young. I recently attended the first of our three non-residential retreats on a Friday and Saturday, Mindfulness of the Breath and Body.

This was my first retreat and the longest I have ever attempted to concentrate continually.

I had some caution as the retreat started but was energetic and confident that I would be able to make use of the whole time. I did make use of the whole event, but my caution was warranted. This was difficult!

We talk a lot about how awareness is the natural state of mind, and that we are simply returning to it, but we all must choose to practice that. When we live the way we do day to day, we adapt to the conditional nature of our daily tasks. If we practice mindfulness to help bring some clarity and context back into our awareness, although we are returning to the natural state of mind, it is a profound shift in experience. It takes work!

I got through that challenge with some compassion for myself. I let it be okay that I wasn’t as strong as I thought I could be.

I let the experience be what it was without needing it to be “better.” Lo and behold, that thought of “better” was the main distraction from the present moment. By doing my best to simply be present, after multiple sessions of sitting, I experienced a mental clarity that was finer than my usual state of mind.

The Buddha teaches in the sutras that when a person truly experiences the Dharma, the change in him or her is great and can occur quickly. While I haven’t even scratched the surface of where this practice can take me, I found it incredible how much can change with only a couple days of sincere effort.

The opportunity to practice for these extended sessions is an awesome one that shouldn’t be passed up. The stillness of the hall and the clarity of the teachings helped a great result take place for me, and I felt a sort of “aliveness” that I rarely felt before without intense adrenaline. Although in instances of great stress or excitement, I have felt a natural imperative to be conscious, the effortlessness of natural clarity born of calm and focus has a far stronger impact.

The constant reminder of the practice, second by second, reaffirmed with each breath, serves as a confirmation of that awareness. In this sort of clarity, life is not simply issuing a challenge to be awake but is expressing its very "awareness" through us in a way that is utterly stable. The phrase "sit like a mountain" comes to mind. How different from riding the gusts of the world's winds!

The goal of this practice is to end distraction and experience the true state of reality. This is very attainable. The nature of life is right here and now if we choose to observe it. It just takes a little practice to break our habit of running.

The world we live in is filled with running people. There are people running after rewards, mental or physical, which suggests they are incomplete. There are also people constantly running away from stress, which only provokes the experience of being unequipped to deal with an issue, or that the stress in question is simply at odds with a livable life.

If we can break this habit and embrace every moment as it is, then we can realize every event in life is natural and purposeful, and we can be really free.

So the chance to sit is a precious one, and I can’t emphasize enough what an opportunity it is to have a community that provides events like these. I encourage everyone to take part.

Our thanks to Jude of Winter Haven, a member of the Tampa Sangha, for sharing his insightful first retreat experience. He joined FCM in March of this year.

There's Something Magical About Retreat at FCM

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 21:56:58 GMT

By SCOTT NISSENSOHN

What does it mean to be on retreat? To me it’s a letting go of anything and everything and immersing myself in the practice. The retreat was a special weekend of teachings with special friends in a special place. Sangha is always a special place, but spending 14 hours a day for three days during the nonresidential retreat on the Four Seals of Buddhism was truly special. For someone that has always felt out of place, Sangha is home.

I was hesitant about signing up for the retreat at first because it was nonresidential and I live about a half hour from Sangha and let’s face it, Nebraska Avenue is a far cry from the Franciscan Center and the Hillsborough River!!

My hesitation was alleviated within five minutes of arriving on Thursday night. Settling in at dinner with old friends, I felt the weight and stresses of the world lift away as we sat down to what would be our last talking meal for four days. Bryan Hindert, Carol Meyer and the other kitchen helpers outdid themselves with one incredible meal after another.

It was an interesting experience leaving Sangha in silence and heading home each evening. What if I ran I to my neighbors? Would they think me rude for not speaking? Waking up in time to make it to Sangha by 7:00 am was a challenge, and Friday morning I walked into the foyer just as Marilyn was ringing the bell -- what a letdown, starting the first day in the foyer while my sisters and brothers were chanting. Lesson learned: I would arrive much earlier the remaining days!!

The more I settled into retreat and the quieter my mind became, the more at peace I was with myself and the world. There is something magical about being on retreat at FCM; the love and the energy is just wonderful.

The highlight of the retreat for me was my interview with Fred. As I sat in the chair waiting for Fred to ring the bell, I kept thinking, “What am I going to ask?” “What incredible insight have I had that I can share?” As I sat and watched my thoughts, I decided I would go into the interview with no agenda and see where it went.

It amazes me how within 15 seconds Fred can be right at the core of whatever is going on in your world. With a couple of pointed questions and his wise guidance I came to the realization that I’m not living an engaged life, that due to previous pain and suffering, I had disengaged from life. I’ve done a lot of healing over the past few years but I still haven’t fully engaged in Sangha and aspects of my personal life.

Fred helped me to see that I excel at work, that I’m fully engaged and thriving there, so why can’t I carry that over to my personal life? Fear. Fear of rejection, fear of not being accepted, not fitting in. I made the commitment at that very moment that I would live an engaged life. I would be more present and engaged when at Sangha, with my kids and with my friends. Fred showed me there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was my “self” that was afraid and that I needed to let that go. How powerful and freeing!!

Another highlight of the retreat was the closing circle. Listening to my brothers and sisters share their experiences and what they would take home from the weekend was truly special. Everyone shared from deep within their hearts, new folks and elders sharing what they had learned and what they hoped to take with them.

Once Great Cloud is complete and we will be able to hold residential retreats in Tampa, retreats will be taken to a higher level. To be able to stay on the grounds and roll out of bed into the Meditation Hall will be magical. I’m looking forward to spending that first retreat with y’all.

Thanks to Scott Nissensohn of the Tampa Sangha for this insightful article and to Alex Lerner for panoramic photo in the Meditation Hall above.

Prison Dharma Program Needs Volunteers

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 04:24:03 GMT

By NED BELLAMY

In the six years since FCM members began sharing the Dharma with a few inmates in Florida state prisons, the Prison Dharma Program has grown from offering regular programs at one prison to now meeting with prisoners at four institutions.

It began in 2013 with Chris Gahles, who, with encouragement and guidance from Rick Ferriss, shared Dharma with a few inmates. Then, Alex Lerner and Nancy Cunningham visited a prison, followed by many others, who began to faithfully visit institutions on behalf of FCM and continued for many years.

Recently, Ned Bellamy of Clearwater has transitioned to replace Chris Gahles into the role of program leader and is implementing regularly scheduled bimonthly visits to each of the four prisons. In the weeks when no visits are scheduled, the prisoners have DVDs of Fred’s Dharma talks available to view and discuss.

Now, the program is ready for more volunteers. We are inviting FCM members to consider joining our current team of eight volunteers to help us continue to nourish the seeds that have taken root in these parched prison settings.

FCM volunteers travel once or twice a month to meet with small sanghas at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution (ZCI), Polk Correctional Institution (PCI) at Polk City, Sumner Correctional Institution (SCI) at Bushnell, and Charlotte Correctional Institution (CCI) at Punta Gorda. Each two-hour session in prison includes sitting and walking meditation, chanting, a Dharma talk by one of the FCM visitors, and an opportunity to share and listen deeply.

Because most of us are a little apprehensive about visiting a prison for the first time, all new volunteers are accompanied by more experienced FCM hands for two or three months. Beyond the gates, we cross well-landscaped interior grounds to meet in the chapel with perhaps three to seven Dharma brothers seated on cushions. It is surprising how quickly we feel welcomed and even at home.

The chaplain and his staff are usually working in their offices down the hall and other services are often held in adjoining rooms. Ideally, each FCM team includes two people, with at least one male. The addition of women as team members has been especially effective and is encouraged.

We are looking for volunteers who have been FCM members for at least two years, with a daily practice, and who have participated in some retreats or intensives. We invite you to contact any of our volunteers to learn more about the Prison Dharma Program or contact Ned Bellamy at nedbellamy46@gmail.com or 727-642-5900.

A deep bow to Ned Bellamy, head of FCM's Prison Dharma Program, for this article.

What's It Like to Work with Prison Dharma Program?

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 04:09:48 GMT

By NED BELLAMY

Perhaps you would be interested in volunteering to help the FCM Prison Dharma Program, but how could you know? Perhaps listening to the voices of a few of our prison sangha brothers and then some FCM volunteers will give you a better idea of the experience of working in the program.

Prisoners:

“This week, our two least favorite guards totally tossed my cell again. I don’t even get mad any more. Things are just as they should be: the guards’ causes and conditions lead them to toss my cell. My causes and conditions lead me to put it back together again. At least until their next shift on Tuesday.”

“Because my job is inside cleaning our dorm, I can arrange to sit in formal meditation for a couple of hours every day and read a lot about the Dharma. I live like a monk since I joined the sangha.”

On Easter Sunday after a heavy rain, the sun was shining over a flock of sandhill cranes, the prison gardens, and the lush green courtyard. A long-time practitioner walking beside us said, “Yeah, it is beautiful. And you know what? For the last 20 years, every single morning here has been beautiful.”

A prisoner with a violent past quietly shared his new aspiration. “I want to continue to reduce my anger, bit by bit, so that when I die in here, one person in this whole prison might come to my service to say I was a good man.”

“I have 69 roommates, many with mental health problems, so coming together in our small sangha is literally a refuge. Supported by friends, the sound of the bell brings us all home to the present. I’m encouraged by the teachings that remind me of what is possible for us, even during our stay.”

“Before I was incarcerated, I tried to meditate once, but was so wired, I couldn’t sit still. My levels of stress and vigilance dramatically increased in the chaos of this prison, until I came to Buddhism and meditation. Now, when my surroundings feel the most overwhelming, I’m learning to go inside.”

“I’ve been in foster homes, jails and prisons for 45 years. I was hopeless when two Buddhist teachers began to visit us regularly. They were the very first people who had ever noticed, much less believed in me. Inspired by their practice and teachings, I turned my life around and have been a committed practitioner ever since.”

“Sixty days of solitary is really tough because in this prison, writing and reading material is forbidden. Then, the Chaplain agreed to bring me two Buddhist books. I re-read them many times, and began meditating. I think they saved my life.”

“I’m new in here and facing a 40-year sentence. I have only three tasks: attend to my AA meetings, to my court appeals, and to my Buddhist practice. Period.”

***

FCM Volunteers:

Chris: What could possibly be better than sitting in a small circle sharing the Dharma?

Susan: No way to tell any difference between us. Who’s teaching? Who’s learning? I always leave with some treasure.

Alex: It’s satisfying to help them learn that their last freedom is the attitude with which they meet their day.

Kevin: The ‘guys’ inspire me to practice, and their gratitude for having FCM members share the Dharma with them is palpable.

Kerri and Dan: To share our experience of the teachings requires diligence and focus in our own practice.

Ned: These walled compounds are constant reminders that my old habits and beliefs imprison me in barbed wire of my own making.

Brian: Their deep and rich practice in very difficult circumstances is moving and inspiring.

Thanks to Ned Bellamy, head of the Prison Dharma Program, for this article.

Thursday Evening Meditation Is a Mini-Retreat

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 04:53:11 GMT

By BEATRICE BOLES

The very first time I crossed the threshold of FCM was on a Thursday evening for Extended Meditation. That was over three years ago, and I continue to be a “frequent flyer.” Extended Meditation, with or without an optional private interview with our teacher Fred, is one of the most precious to me of FCM’s many activities.

If I’m going to have a deep meditation at all during the week, it is likely to be here. Structure, silence, and the support of the teacher and the group give me the self-discipline I need to make my best effort. For me, it’s a mini-retreat.

As the saying goes, “Structure provides the container that holds the practice.” Two senior students generously facilitate to ensure that the evening runs smoothly. Time is controlled by bells, whose sonorous tones announce the start and end of seated and walking meditation periods. And for those members who choose to opt in, on some evenings the noise of a tinkling bell carries the invitation for a teacher interview.

Other than the bells, there is near-perfect silence. I love it that there’s no talking at all in the Meditation Hall during the two hours (except for a few short instructions from the bell master and a dedication of merit at the end). Once I’ve entered the hall, I’m committed. So I just relax, rest my mind, and resolve to go deeper.

If sometimes the length of the two 40-minute seated periods seems challenging, and if tension or pain arises in my body, I’ve learned that it’s best to just observe the sensations -- and they will transform. There are no outside distractions, nothing to think about or plan, and no words to formulate. As the sun sets, the light in the room silently changes.

All I have to do is sit, walk, and sit again. Bow. And leave, carrying the silence home.

On many evenings, after about 20 minutes, members are given the chance for an interview with Fred. (It’s completely optional.) For those of us who are reticent, it can be challenging to take the plunge when interview time is announced and to stand up to take a seat in the interview line. Once we’ve broken the ice and done it a few times, we develop more of a relationship with the teacher -- so it gets easier.

At the sound of the teacher’s summoning bell, when it’s my turn, I walk downstairs. Following the traditional formality of “dokusan,” I bow at the door of the little room, enter, close the door, and take a seat. Then we talk till he signals the end of the interview. He and I bow, he rings his small bell, and then I exit with a bow at the door. Returning to my seat upstairs, I usually feel lighter.

I find Fred very easy to talk to. He seems patiently accepting of wherever we are on our developmental path, even as he stirs us on and offers his great insight and encouragement.

My ideas about life sometimes differ from his, and when I’ve been confrontive, he’s handled my challenges cheerfully and respectfully. With Fred’s coaching I’m learning to release my grip on concepts and ideas, and this has been freeing.

Overall, these interviews have helped me to deepen my practice and become a better human being. Extended Meditation is an ongoing, rich opportunity on Thursday nights. I’m grateful for my mini-retreat.

A bow of gratitude to Beatrice Boles, Tampa Sangha member, for this thoughtful article.

__________________________________________________________

Selfless Service: A Beautiful Moment to Quiet Mental Chatter

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 19:16:09 GMT

By MARILYN WARLICK

Through the years with the FCM community, I have seen my relationship with selfless service develop as my meditation practice develops.

While from the outside, the “to do” lists appear the same, over the years the very same tasks have grown into a flowering of joyful efforts and from heartfelt gratitude now comes a desire to give.

Now this may seem a superficial statement.

How can computer work from home or making the drive to the meditation center for meetings, or selfless service on work days grow into flowers of joyful efforts? I find mindful experiences offer a cumulative effect of touching my practice and life deeply.

FCM selfless service, for me, began upon my arrival in Tampa from North Carolina in 2012 to help clean and remodel our newly purchased practice center. I had practiced with FCM for many years through distance membership and brief retreats. Now Sam and I were living on the grounds with the community 24/7!

Helping with this new beginning was exciting; however, I was also seeing familiar mental afflictions of “fitting in,” “getting it right,” or “seeming competent.” The second arrow, “but this is a mindfulness community, so I should not be having these afflictions rise?!” of course added to the energy of the doubts and anxious thoughts.

Developing a mindfulness practice within a community made a big difference for my life. This community of brothers and sisters were all aspiring to cultivate mindfulness energies and use practices such as working gathas and mindful breathing to nourish wellbeing for all of us, including myself. The joy that also arose in these first days and months was quite amazing.

So this mixture of joy and suffering in these early months was interesting, and I wanted to learn more.

For example, as I began to learn to invite the bell, I saw familiar afflictions rise -- my desire to be seen as competent and appreciated. But this time, this effort to learn a new skill was in the light of mindfulness and of a community supporting awareness. As a result, increasingly these afflictions were actually seen as “friends rising.” I could gaze with mindfulness and come to know these afflictions. In sharing our experiences as brothers and sisters, I could gaze in a much more friendly light of mindfulness upon these familiar companions in life.

As we all gave time and energies to cleaning, helping with various events at the new center, I had the opportunity to further learn. With any task, stopping, relaxing and calming were key, whether it was inviting the bell, or picking up trash left by the homeless neighbor who slept on the grounds last night. Mental afflictions arose and increasingly dissolved.

In the light of mindfulness, these afflictions while seemingly small or petty, actually had been a source of a great deal of suffering over the years. Now, in a mindfulness community, I could see the risings and learn to sit with and let go of these afflictions around work, acceptance of others, or self-criticisms.

As afflictions lost their energy, a rising of gratitude became present and generosity in giving service was energized. I could more clearly see and reflect upon the subtle mental chatter as the years rolled by. This was the chatter that, for decades, I had followed in my work, my relationships, my private time, this non-stop mental chatter.

Selfless service has helped me learn to be in the moment. The work gathas remind me to come back to just this moment. The brothers and sisters I spend time with enliven my heart and mind with joy as we share an intention to bring peace to ourselves and peace into our world. This common intention is like fuel in the body-mind to energize actions, try something new, make time in my life for one more task.

Earlier in life, taking on tasks would mean becoming so busy in the doing I would forget what I was doing or where I was. Now, selfless service is a welcome opportunity to come back to my breath and practice remembering what I am doing and where I am. I am in the present moment, a beautiful moment.

Marilyn Warlick is a member of the Tampa sangha, a retired mental health professional, founder of FCM's Death Cafe, and leads various workshops for FCM.

Q&A in Asheville Shows Direct, Pure Wisdom of Fred

Fri, 05 Jul 2019 18:42:28 GMT

By DONA MENZ

Our teacher, Fred, spoke to a full house at Asheville Insight Meditation on the Sunday following our retreat at Southern Dharma in June. With little publicity, he drew a crowd of around 40 practitioners and those curious about the practice.

I invited friends and family after our sangha brother and OI mentor, Ken Lenington, let me know Fred would be speaking.

I am always curious to see people’s first impression of Fred. There is something pure and direct that happens, much like the Dharma itself.

When Fred discovered that his topic for the talk had not been publicized, he did what he does so well and invited the group to ask questions about their practice.

The first man wore a t-shirt with the name of the sangha and was clearly a dedicated practitioner. Fred spent a few minutes, maybe not more than five, and helped the man turn, look at his awareness and rest there. The man was clearly moved and had the experience, right there and then and … while I certainly cannot speak for him, it felt as though he shifted, that his practice had changed, his experience had changed. I felt my breath catch and my heart open.

I believe we have all witnessed this in one way or another when Fred works with someone in a group. But for some reason it hit me anew how vital and important this work is – for all of us – and how fortunate we are to have a realized teacher to so beautifully guide us on the path.

Questions followed and Fred did what he does so well -- answered with clarity and wisdom and no hint of indulgence. My friend chuckled after one exchange and leaned over to whisper, "I like him, he doesn’t take any crap." I laughed and nodded and felt a curiosity about my teacher, how he teaches like this is his last day or ours, like his hair is on fire, hoping you will have realization, so kindly stopping us in our immersion in obscurations and snapping his fingers with his words: wake up!

After the talk, other friends commented how much they had enjoyed it and friends who couldn’t make it asked when he would return. There is such a beautiful desire for the Dharma, but especially on this level. I have never met a teacher like Fred and I could sense from the room that many shared in this knowing.

But it was my brother whom I was most curious about. He and my sister-in-law, Carlan, our sangha member from Greenville, SC, attended. My brother is curious about many things but has never been drawn to practice. Afterwards, he said he had enjoyed it very much and commented that he liked that Fred didn’t give anyone the answer but let them find their own. Such a beautiful way to describe Fred’s wise style of sharing the Dharma. I join all of you who are in deep gratitude for our teacher Fred.

Dona Menz is a psychotherapist in Asheville and Hendersonville, NC, who works with clients suffering from trauma, depression, anxiety and addiction. She follows a spiritual perspective using mindfulness and meditation. She is in FCM's Dharma Transmission Program.

Interested in Forming a Group to Tour Revered Indian Buddhist Sites this Fall?

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 20:51:34 GMT

Bill MacMillen of the Tampa Sangha has signed up for a tour of India, "In the Steps of the Buddha - Saal Pilgrimage," November 9-22, 2019, and is advising FCM members and colleagues in the event a group might be formed. Please email Bill at bmacm21@gmail.com if you are interested.

The tour will visit Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment; Deer Park at Sarnath, where he gave his first teachings; his favorite meditation places such as Vulture Peak in Rajgir and the Jeta Grove at Sravasti (where he spent 24 rainy season retreats), and Kushinagar, where he passed away.

Also, it will visit Lumbini, where he was born, and the palace at Kapilavastu, where he spent his childhood, as well as monasteries, temples and shrines. The trip includes visits to homes of locals in cities and villages, and a walk to the Dungasiri Mountain (Mahakala Cave) where the Buddha practiced his austerities.

At each site, Shantum will tell stories of the Buddha’s life and give teachings to help us understand the Buddha as a human being, the drama of his life and the significance of what he taught. There will be time for daily sitting and walking meditation, regular discussions and contemplative time. The creation of a traveling sangha will be an important aspect of this trip, giving the journey a greater cohesiveness and building support for those seeking to deepen their practice.

The tour maximum is 35 participants, and the cost is $5,950, without air fare. The website (http://www.buddhapath.com/Saal.html) has detailed information.

Shantum, an ordained dharma teacher in the Zen Buddhist lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, is the foremost expert on sites associated with the Buddha and has been leading pilgrimages since 1988. He has co-authored books such as Walking with the Buddha and been a consultant for films like BBC-Discovery’s Life of the Buddha and BBC-PBS’s The Story of India.

FCM Community Cares for Each Other Through 'Storms of Life'

Sat, 22 Jun 2019 22:01:20 GMT

Don't Wait to Begin Preparations for This Summer's Hurricane Season

By EVELYN HASEMAN

The “storms of life” bring us life-changing events such as serious illness, physical injury, death of a loved one, the joy of birth, divorce, hurricanes and tornados -- only a few of the many events that may impact our lives.

The sangha offers us support with its collective energy of mindfulness, compassion and lovingkindness. Whenever we find ourselves in a difficult situation, our sangha friends are there for us. Community involvement and caring are components of our compassionate sangha culture.

Hurricane season can bring one of those “storms of life.” June is the start of hurrica

ne season. We hope all of our FCM Sangha practitioners will be prepared with a plan in place.

Determining where to go if a severe storm approaches is an important part of a plan. After exploring the requirements of sheltering with the Red Cross, we determined that our Practice Center (as with most facilities other than certain public schools built to a very specific code standard) does not qualify as a shelter. Since we will not be able to offer shelter to our members, this is the time to decide if you will stay home, stay with relatives or friends, or go to a hotel or a public shelter.

Most of us are familiar with a storm preparation list, but it is easy to get caught off guard and find ourselves looking for supplies when shelves are empty. You can ease your mind by preparing ahead of time. In addition to a place to go, you will need food, water, lanterns, batteries, medicines and other necessities listed on the national hurricane link, http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hurricane/plan.shtml.
We recommend that you check the link now.

The beginning of hurricane season reminds us to think of others and how to offer assistance. When we find ourselves in a difficult situation, sangha friends can help us stay in the present moment. We can offer support by being present for each other. Whether it is a hurricane, tornado, or any kind of physical or mental suffering, we can offer our lovingkindness, compassion and mindfulness.

Evelyn Haseman, Sangha Welfare Lead and Tampa Sangha member, facilitates support of FCM members experiencing life-changing events. She can be reached at sangha-care-leader@floridamindfulness.org.

Buddhist Wisdom Is Solid Foundation for Both Life and Death

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 20:24:19 GMT

By JAN KERNIS

In a 2018 wisdom intensive Dharma talk, our teacher, Fred, told us about resting in mindful awareness: "It is best to approach this as if you knew, learned and understood absolutely nothing."

The recent workshop, Buddhist Wisdom on Death and Dying," emphasized the "don't know mind" of which Fred spoke was the wise and compassionate approach to the process of death and dying -- both our own death and that of others. It was clear that the fundamental Buddhist teachings of mindful awareness that we learn and practice at FCM to eliminate our suffering in daily life are also those helping us at death.

What made this workshop valuable for me was the completeness of the offering: its supportive atmosphere, reflections and guided meditations, poetry, Dharma, practicality, references and opportunities for experience, healing and transformation.

The workshop had a guided meditation to help us look at how our priorities shifted as we saw our time of death become closer. Daily busy-ness and “to do” lists dropped away as death was imminent.

We reviewed some common aversions and anxieties of death and how Buddhist understandings can help us think about them. Much as we try, "magical" thinking that "death doesn't apply to me" is not reality. The Parable of the Mustard Seed was offered to shed light: Kisa Gotami, grieving the loss of her baby, learned from Buddha's skillful teaching as she went from house to house in search of a family untouched by death, that life ends for all living beings. The Five Remembrances and Nine Contemplations were shared and seen as part of daily practice to keep this awareness and presence fresh.

A reminder that “our attitude is our freedom” was offered to suggest to us to find meaning and purpose in being, no matter the circumstances. In view of the loss of control faced at death, what attitude can we cultivate now in preparation for our death and those of our loved ones? We learned that Buddhism advises us to go toward adversity, as in Lojong saying to use adversity as a path of transformation and awakening. As Thay says, "Hello, anger, my friend." We were shown how to use Tonglen, a Lojong practice, to help transform pain and afflictive emotions.

There were meditations that structured opportunities for us to look deeply beneath the surface of our “cultured” responses and to gently and safely reveal our fears and insights of death and dying. The dissolution of the story of fear of pain at death that I had been telling myself created space for compassion and understanding to flow to others. I was able to see how much suffering I had been causing myself, a reminder that deep openness of awareness to impermanence and death are the key features of life as well.

We were reminded that "we are going to the Mystery" and, with reference to Frank Ostaseski, founder of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, "This is not like an Agatha Christie mystery where we investigate and find out who did it in the end." While the mind thinks it's got it all together, be ready, it's going to be a surprise, and the best preparation is being able to be with awe and wonder, grow in confidence and trust of the process, and rest in mindful awareness.

The point was made that our practice has deep purpose in death as well as in life -- familiarizing us with our natural awareness, our "don't know mind," our presence in each moment. This familiarity mitigates the panic and fear at death (as it does in life). The reality is that we do not know how we will react. The whole is a mystery -- life and death -- and it is the practice of remembering to rest in our awareness and becoming familiar with this that enables us to be truly present with compassion and wisdom.

The profound Dharma teachings, the mystery of life and death that we are, as presented in this workshop, point to the essential Buddhist teachings on emptiness, the "don't know mind," resting in our awareness, that we have been cultivating in our daily practice and intensives at FCM. I left feeling at home, at greater ease with death, and with deep gratitude for this offering by our Dharma sister and brother Marilyn Warlick and Alex Lerner, with profound inspiration from our Dharma teacher Fred.

Jan Kernis, a member of the FCM Tampa Sangha, is a newly ordained member of the Order of Interbeing.

Tender Work

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 19:04:44 GMT

By ANDA PETERSON

Work with what you are.

If you are a fawn

at dusk

you will

stand still as wood

in a field of tall green grass

at the edge of a forest

your dark eyes wide open

watching sparrows

flit and fly home

through the twilight.

If you are a fawn

your soft brown ears

upright will catch sounds

of wind through the pines.

If you are a field mouse

you will

scurry, slipping between

wildflowers

fawn hooves.

If you are a human

you will

see the fawn, the pines, the wildflowers

feel your breath as wind,

how your heart beats as

bird, mouse, fawn

then and only then

your tender work

is done.

Selfless Service Caused Internal Debate of Self vs. Self-less and Taught Benefits of Giving

Sun, 26 May 2019 00:54:57 GMT

By GABBY BETAGGLIO

Gabby Betagglio and Gerry Stinnett vacuum meditation cushions at a recent Selfless Service work day.

I wanted to be more involved in my Wake Up community, so when Bryan Hindert approached me about leading the Selfless Service aspect of Wake Up in the hopes of getting more people involved in doing altruistic work, I accepted his invitation.

On my end, I was motivated by the thought of being more involved in a community that I was growing to love and to become attached to. In other words, it felt a bit selfish -- rather than selfless -- for me at the time. Since then, I have learned that these feelings are normal. Altruism, selfless service, the act of giving is something that can be cultivated. Props to Bryan for that lesson.

Just because the motivation initially isn’t “I want to be of service to others” does not mean that it cannot eventually become that. So long as our intention is to be more altruistic, more grateful, more geared towards thinking of others rather than ourselves, practicing at events such as the work morning will cultivate that virtue inside of us. At least, that is what I have noticed for myself.

At first glance, I can’t say that I am ecstatic about thinking about others before myself. This is because I have personal goals, I am constantly feeling like there isn’t enough time to do what I want and the thought of giving my time on a Saturday morning definitely clashes with a lot of my motivations. But if I think about it…thinking about myself too much causes me suffering. It really does.

Of course, goals are important and I will continue to work towards reaching them. However, I have found that these work mornings help grow an essential quality that I wish for myself…an altruistic quality that will, among many other things, benefit my mind and nourish my life.

To talk a bit about the actual time spent at the selfless service mornings…let’s just say there is a curve. During the morning meditation and group powwow to decide the day’s jobs, I feel peaceful and grateful to be there, healthy, on a Saturday morning.

Then the work begins. It begins, and so does my mind. Thoughts about what else I could be doing pop up. Sometimes even anger! “Why am I here? I need ‘me’ time after the long week I had at work! This isn’t fair!” All sorts of thoughts… “I should be cleaning my own house. I should be doing the thing that I have been avoiding for months anyway…” All of this comes up as if on cue when the work begins.

I don’t have much to say about it except that the reality is that these work mornings last three hours and no more…and really, there is much more to be gained than there is to complain about.

So, I will say a bit about how, again, Bryan, suggested I deal with this yuckiness.

One way is by shifting my perception. Instead of hanging out in anxiety-world as described above, I, we, can think about how much others will benefit from the work that we are doing. How people will come to the beautiful center, beautiful in part because of our work, and maybe even transform their lives.

Another way is to shift the mind toward gratefulness. “I am so grateful to be here with my community. Not everyone has a loving community such as this. I am working, and so is everyone else around me. They care for me and want peace and happiness for me just as for themselves.”

So those are strategies that I have recently learned and I am looking forward to using at the next work morning I attend.

Going back to the curve, after the work finishes we have our closing circle. That is where all the gratefulness and bliss sets in. I truly enjoy this time, sharing about my experience with everyone else while sipping tea and enjoying some healthy snacks.

Here is where it’s obvious to see that we are not just working…we are doing much more that is of huge benefit to ourselves. The altruistic act of doing service is of benefit to ourselves. Just had to reiterate that, in case you, like me, need the reassurance. :)

Thanks to Wake Up member Gabby Betagglio for this thoughtful article!

Practicing with the Zen Center of Oregon

Mon, 20 May 2019 18:12:51 GMT

By ANGIE PARRISH

FCM Executive Director

Fred and I recently returned from a wonderful week of practice and connection with both the Zen Center of Oregon (ZCO) and the Oregon Community of Mindful Living.

In this article, I’ll share about our experience with ZCO, with a follow up article about the Community of Mindful Living.

Heart of Wisdom Zen Buddhist Temple in Portland, OR

By way of background, several years ago Fred reconnected with Roshi Hogen Bays, a Dharma brother from the early 1970s at the Rochester Zen Center (RZC).

Both left RZC as young men in their 20s, and although each followed his own spiritual and personal path, their lives today are similar in that both Fred and Roshi Hogen have founded and now lead Buddhist communities. Seeing the benefit to both communities of sharing teachings and experience, each enthusiastically invited the other to visit and teach at his Dharma center.

As a result, Roshi Hogen visited the Florida Community of Mindfulness (FCM) in March for a week of talks, a weekend retreat, and informal get-togethers with various members of our community. Those of us who had the opportunity to hear and interact with Roshi Hogen were touched by his teachings and his generosity in sharing his years of experience in creating the Zen Center of Oregon, which includes both an urban Heart of Wisdom Zen Buddhist Temple in Portland and the Great Vow Zen Monastery in rural Clatskanie.

In turn, Fred and I were invited to visit the Zen Center of Oregon (ZCO) this month, where Fred shared his Dharma wisdom in many creative ways and we had a very rich exchange of experience with Roshi Hogen and his community.

Visit to ZCO’s Urban Heart of Wisdom Temple

We began our visit at ZCO’s Heart of Wisdom Temple in Portland, where we participated in meditation followed by Fred offering aDharma talk to ZCO’s lay community. As with FCM, there was a mix of ages and experience, and the audience engaged with Fred around several topics related to the Seven Points of Mind Training.

At the annual meeting held by ZCO’s Board of Directors and membership, we enjoyed hearing about their programs, community and plans, both for Heart of Wisdom Temple and Great Vow Monastery.

While ZCO follows many traditional Japanese forms in terms of meditation and chanting, we learned that their programs are very similar to FCM’s in many respects. For example, they place strong emphasis on the Buddhist precepts, setting aspirations, developing concentration, practicing the Four Immeasurables, mindful eating, and more.

And, similar to FCM, their community is nurtured and supported largely by selfless service from many warm and dedicated lay individuals.

Visit to Great Vow Monastery

After several days in Portland we traveled to Great Vow Zen Monastery, ZCO’s residential community of lay and ordained people engaged full time in Buddhist practice. The practice heritage of the monastery is the Soto/Rinzai lineage of Taizan Maezumi, Roshi.

Great Vow offers residencies, retreats, and workshops that are open and available to everyone. The monastery was created 20

years ago through the purchase and conversion of a discontinued public elementary school, and is located 80 miles northwest of Portland on twenty forested acres overlooking the Columbia River flood plain.

It includes a large meditation hall, guest and resident dormitories, dining hall, and a large organic vegetable garden. Within the forest is Great Vow's famous Jizo Garden, a memorial garden for people who have died, and the newly dedicated Shrine of Vows, a place where people leave tokens of their deep aspirations.

Roshi Hogen and his wife, Roshi Jan Chozen Bays, are the spiritual directors and head teachers of the monastery with teaching assistance from other ZCO teachers, both lay and ordained. Roshi Chozen is a physician and has written a number of highly regarded books on various aspects of mindfulness and Buddhism, including two books that we have used for FCM classes and practices: Mindful Eating, and The Vow-Powered Life.

During our stay at Great Vow, we were able to fold into the daily practice and routine of the ZCO residential community. There are currently 13 women and men in residence – mostly in their 20s and 30s – with a daily schedule of silent meditation (“zazen”), chanting, Buddhist study, work practice and community living. The experience of this group ranges from lay members who are exploring this path to fully ordained Zen priests.

Great Vow conducts at least one seven- to ten-day retreat (“sesshin”) per month in the monastery’s formal Zen tradition. When not in sesshin, each day typically begins with wake-up bells at 4:50 am, followed by zazen, chanting, temple cleaning and breakfast, which is often in the Oryoki tradition. Many of you may be unaware of what Oryoki means. Often translated as “just the right amount,” Oryoki is a highly choreographed ritual of serving and eating food. It was certainly a new experience for me, and despite a few “I love Lucy” moments, with the help of the residents I participated in and enjoyed this ritual, which also is a very efficient way and non-wasteful way of feeding a large group of people.

Work periods and short chanting services continue throughout the day, with zazen and chanting closing the day. We also were treated to a lovely soft chant by the residents when they performed “lights out and closing rounds” each evening at 10 pm.

During our time with Roshi Hogen, Roshi Chozen and the residents, Fred and I had a number of very interesting and meaningful exchanges about the development of Buddhism in America. Over the past five or so years, Great Vow has invited teachers in other traditions to lead retreats on topics such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra. As well, more secular teachers such as Byron Katie have conducted workshops and retreats on topics that are often related to emotional healing.

The group was very interested in the three-path developmental model that Fred has created for FCM, and there was a rich discussion around the inclusion of teachings from different lineages and traditions within one community.

Our stay at Great Vow was both very simple and powerful for me. With no outside distractions and such a strong container for practice, one can appreciate the capacity for deepening that is offered by monastic living. And, being a practitioner who lives in the wider world of beings, I am very happy to bring the fruits of this experience back to our lovely lay community at FCM.

Untying Knot of Anger Workshop Brought a Wakeup Call

Sun, 05 May 2019 22:24:51 GMT

Seeing the Knot as One Thread at a Time Was Helpful

By ELLEN OBERLIN

From the moment I signed up for the Untying Anger workshop I was thrust into awareness of anger arising.

I was feeling smug about having enrolled myself and my husband, David, in the workshop, thinking I was finally going to get a handle on the anger thing.

That feeling didn’t last long as I quickly received an email detailing the homework. Homework, my mind reacted? I felt exhausted just from confronting the issue enough to have signed up for the workshop!

I thought I wouldn't have enough data in the log we were asked to do regarding our anger since it was only two days until the workshop.

Not so, I was surprised at the multitude of opportunities I had to log my annoyance, irritation, frustration and plain anger in so short a time even over insignificant things. It seemed I was on the anger spectrum for long stretches of time. That alone was a big wakeup call.

I had known this was true, but seeing it in black and white on the log made it undeniable. I could no longer pretend.

I had managed to not entirely coerce my husband into doing the workshop with me by asking that it be considered my birthday celebration. What better way to have a lasting positive effect on our lives than to gain a framework we could work with together? He agreed although I didn’t think he would join me since he is not an FCM member.

Once we got to the workshop I felt ill at ease because David was there with me. I noticed worry arising about how his experience would be. Noticing it, I was able to let go because I knew from past experience that I would later find myself having missed the workshop if I didn’t let go.

Betsy Arizu and Bill MacMillen, the facilitators, were great oceans of calm for me. They had us work in experiential exercises with someone we didn’t come with at first. What a relief to me, since David and I had been dealing with anger arising, often unskillfully, for over 30 years. We didn’t have to jump right into the deep end.

The course, designed by Angie Parrish, was well thought out and proceeded methodically to look calmly at the issue of anger. I wanted to jump right in to “what to do,” so I had the opportunity to practice patience, a vital skill for dealing with anger, from the beginning of the workshop.

I also felt great support from the other attendees in the workshop. They looked normal, not someone you’d think had an “anger problem,” and I felt my heart opening to our collective courage to confront this challenge head on. Most spoke quite frankly about the pain they’d suffered surrounding their experiences of anger.

One thing I won’t forget about this workshop is the slide Betsy showed with a knot of threads enlarged to show that there were distinct threads within.

That knot is how anger felt in my heart; it really resonated with my experience.

So, I could relax and trust that this path had a way to sort out the strands and untangle my feelings successfully.

I won’t attempt a summary but will end instead by expressing my deep gratitude to the entire Sangha for their contribution to me and my husband as we work to engage more skillfully with each other and the world.

Thanks to Ellen Oberlin for sharing her experience in this important workshop!

30 People Receive Three Transmissions in Ceremonies at FCM April 17

Sat, 23 Mar 2019 07:10:57 GMT

Thirty people joyously received transmission of trainings at three different levels March 17 at FCM's Tampa Center and made vows to follow the path toward compassion and awakening.

"Today the community has gathered to give support to those who will vow to go for refuge to the Three Jewels and receive and practice the Two Promises, Five Mindfulness Trainings, and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings," our teacher Fred told the three groups.

"You have had the chance to learn about and observe the way of understanding and love that has been handed down to us by teachers over many centuries," he said.

Ten senior aspirants received transmission of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings in preparation for ordination to become members of the Order of Interbeing (OI) community, 17 persons received the 5 Mindfulness Trainings, and three young people made the Two Promises.

The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing are expanded ethical guidelines that the members of the Order take as their aspirational lodestar for a life of understanding and compassion, the life of a bodhisattva dedicated to relieving suffering.

Receiving OI transmission were Brandy Kidd of Naples, Chris Lee-Nguyen of Fort Myers, Beth Schroeder of Naples, Jan Kernis of Tampa, Diana Fish of St. Petersburg, Evelyn Haseman of Temple Terrace, Eleanor Cecil of Tampa, Lindsey McCaskey of Naples, Tony Pollitt of Naples and Maria Sgambati of Tampa.

Their next step will be to receive full ordination later this year from monastics at one of the Plum Village centers in the U.S. or at Plum Village in France. At that point, they may wear the brown jackets signifying the humility of service to FCM, the Plum Village community and to sentient beings everywhere.

In addition to the OI aspirants, 17 students took the Five Mindfulness Trainings as a public commitment to taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

They were Bobb Hart, John Renner, Tracy Walter, Dana Mooney, Allon Bell, Maggie Tudor, Rita Greenspan, Misti Oxford-Pickeral, Teresa MatassiniFernandez, Ellen Mefford, Raven Dreifus-Kofron, Scott Nissensohn, Courtney (Cici) Claar, Mary Periard, and Jose F. Rodriguez, all of the Tampa Sangha; and Noreen Haines and Sheila Ludwig, both of the Naples Sangha.

Three children/young people renewing the Two Promises were Sophia Cabra-Lezama, Emmy Stepp and Luke Dluzneski, all of the Tampa Sangha.

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Photo #1:  Fred leads ceremony under watchful gaze of Thay (the Vietnamese word for teacher; Thich Nhat Hanh was Fred's teacher).
Photo #2:   OI aspirants do prostrations as they receive 14 Mindfulness Trainings.
Photo #3:   17 adults receive 5 Mindfulness Trainings, take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and receive their dharma names. Three young people, front row, left, renew their vows in the Two Promises.
Photo #4:   Fred gives certificate with new dharma name to Jose Rodriguez of Tampa Sangha.

Photo #1 is by Nancy Natilson.

Photos #2, 3 and 4 are by Sam Warlick.

Fred, seated, center, leads transmission ceremonies before a packed house, while Bryan Hindert, left, serves as bell master. OI aspirants are at right.

More than 135 people watch as 30 people receive transmission March 17.

Fred explains the dharma foundation of the commitments being made in the ceremonies. Angie Parrish, FCM executive director, looks on at right.

Photos #5, 6 and 7 are by Alex Lerner

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Big Vows by Young People Challenge Adults
Three Students Renew Their Commitments

The Two Promises made by children and teens commit to develop deeper understanding and compassion -- big vows, indeed.

One wrote in the application to renew vows that they wanted to renew their promises because they wanted to become a more understanding and compassionate person: "I believe it will help my relationships with people, animals, plants and minerals, and help my meditation practice."

"I want to have a larger comprehension of understanding and compassion," wrote another.

"I want to renew my vows to become a better person," wrote the third young adult. "The promises help me to stay on the path to be patient and grateful."

As Fred said in the ceremony Sunday, "Go out there and show the adults how it's done!"

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The students are, from left, Emmy Stepp, Luke Dluzneski and Sophia Cabra-Lezama. Photo by Sam Warlick

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New Members Thoughtful About Commitments
Finding a Sangha, Helping Others Played Big Role

Two new members, Noreen Haines and Sheila Ludwig, both of the Naples Sangha, were thoughtful about their reasons for taking refuge in the Three Jewels and receiving transmission of the 5 Mindfulness Trainings in a discussion after the ceremony. Both joined FCM this year.

"Standing up in front of people and making a commitment to following the path makes it so much more real," Sheila said. "Also, there was something about the linking of Fred to Thich Naht Hanh that goes all the way back to the Buddha that struck me. They brought out a picture of Thich Nhat Hanh and put it on the altar, and I thought, 'This is kind of big'."

A retired music teacher who spends part of her year in Naples and the rest in Medina, Ohio, Sheila said she was thrilled to find a sangha that offered community in Naples, where she felt "embraced." She has searched for a home sangha in Ohio, but hasn't been able to find one, so when she is in Ohio for the summer, she plans to stay connected to FCM during intensives via Zoom and to maintain communications with new sangha friends.

Sheila has a cousin who is a Soto Zen priest and, for many years, has been discussing Buddhism with him and reading Buddhist books that he recommended, but at FCM, she found "the last jewel," she said. "I added sangha."

Noreen, an avid hiker and massage therapist who spends half of her year in Naples and half in Salida, Colorado, said she can't imagine a life without helping others. She saw joining FCM and committing to the practice as an opportunity to get support while following that purpose.

"It was a turning point when I heard Fred say that (Buddhism) is an easier way to live, and I thought that feels very practical. You need to figure out how to be present and awake and how to communicate to help people, and if somebody can help me understand that, I'm all about it.

"I found this treasure (at FCM). Give me a shovel. I'm all about it. Give me more!"

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OI Provides Core Community Services to FCM
Building Strong Sangha is Key Role Outlined by Fred

In a recent talk before the Naples Sangha, Andrew Rock of Tampa, FCM's OI Coordinator, and Nancy Natilson, OI member from Tampa, described the OI program as "connective tissue" that binds the community together.

Nancy said the brown jackets work by ordained OI members are a symbol of humility, a statement that "we are here to serve you." OI members perform service tasks of all kinds for the FCM and Plum Village communities, with particular emphasis on sangha building.

The Order of Interbeing was originally founded by Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) in Vietnam in 1964 during the Vietnam war to provide support and guidance for a handful of his closest students and associates engaged in providing aid to their suffering people, often at risk of their own lives. Thay reopened membership in the Order 15 years later, and our teacher Fred was among the earliest of the new members.

The OI includes both monastics and laypeople, and there are now thousands of members around the world, including 52 aspirants and ordained OI members in FCM, perhaps the largest OI chapter within a sangha in the country.

In an informal discussion with the OI group last weekend, Fred described the history of OI, his own involvement with the opening up of the Order in the West and editing of Thay's book, Interbeing, and how he has emphasized OI's development as a "core community" within FCM, which strategically uses its cadre of lay volunteers to offer a wide array of services to its 300 members scattered up and down the west coast of Florida and, increasingly, into farther cities and other states, as well.

Andrew orchestrated a symphony of OI members and aspirants and coordinated with selfless service volunteers and leaders in the FCM community to produce a retreat that flowed smoothly. Nancy led the catering operation for the retreat.

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Above, Andrew Rock and Nancy Natilson model symbolic brown jackets. The green ribbons signify membership in the Earth Holders Community, a Buddhist group concerned with issues relating to climate change. Photo by Carol Green

Transmission Ceremony for 10 Order of Interbeing Aspirants To Be Held

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 04:45:05 GMT

Thanks to Andrew Rock, a member of the Tampa Sangha, for this article on FCM’s Order of Interbeing.

On the morning of Sunday, March 17 we will have a wonderful and inspiring transmission ceremony for two groups at FCM’s Tampa practice center.

Our teacher Fred will transmit the Five Mindfulness Trainings to a happy group of his students who are ready to make the public commitment of taking refuge in the three jewels of Buddhism – the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha – and to take the Five Mindfulness Trainings as the ethical guiding lights for their thoughts, words and actions.

In addition, ten senior aspirants in FCM’s Order of Interbeing (OI) community will receive transmission of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, expanded ethical guidelines that the members of the Order take as their aspirational lodestar for a life of understanding and compassion, the life of a bodhisattva dedicated to relieving suffering.

The Order of Interbeing was originally founded by Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) in Vietnam in 1964 during the Vietnam war to provide support and guidance for a handful of his closest students and associates engaged in providing aid to their suffering people, often at risk of their own lives. Thay, now resident at Plum Village Monastery in France although he is currently staying at his root temple in Vietnam, reopened membership in the Order fifteen years later, and our own teacher Fred was among the very earliest of the new members.

The OI includes both monastics and laypeople, and there are now thousands of members around the world, including fifty aspirants and ordained OI members in FCM, perhaps the largest OI chapter in the country. As stated in the OI Charter, the aim of the Order is to actualize Buddhism by studying, experimenting with, and applying Buddhism in modern life with a special emphasis on the bodhisattva ideal.

Aspirancy to the Order is opened in December of each year to members of FCM who have practiced diligently for at least two years, and are willing to commit themselves to service and to their healing and transformation for the benefit of all beings. Aspirants are assigned a mentor to guide their study and practice of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and help them develop the skills and experience to serve as sangha builders.

The diverse FCM group, like other OI members, is geographically diffused among the various FCM sanghas and beyond, but it has regular monthly Zoom calls to recite the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and to discuss how we can best serve our sangha and develop our practice. We have annual OI retreats; the 2019 FCM OI retreat will take place in Tampa next weekend and will include Sunday’s transmission ceremony.

Fred, our teacher and respected elder OI brother, often says that the OI is the core of the FCM community because its members may be found serving the sangha in many ways, although Fred is always quick to point out that there are many deep and dedicated practitioners who are not members of the Order of Interbeing.

But the Order is not only, or even primarily, a subset of FCM: the Order of Interbeing is an integral part of the worldwide Plum Village community created and led by our root teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. There are also annual OI retreats at the North American Plum Village monasteries at Deer Park in California, Magnolia Grove in Mississippi and Blue Cliff in New York, and of course at Plum Village itself in France, where members of the Order, many of whom live in places where they may be the only OI member, gather to practice and renew their sense of community. In many ways the OI members, as well as the ordained Dharma teachers and monastics, are the “connective tissue” that holds the international Plum Village community together, particularly within lay communities such as FCM.

Full ordination into the Order of Interbeing is conducted by Thay’s senior monastics – formerly by Thay himself – at OI retreats and at retreats of the bi-annual Plum Village North American tour for those aspirants deemed ready by their teachers, OI mentors and themselves. Once ordained, they receive a new Dharma name and a brown jacket to wear on ceremonial occasions such as transmission ceremonies -- not as a mark of attainment, (as the Heart Sutra famously says, there is nothing to attain), but rather as a mark of humility and dedication to a life of service.

At the very heart of the Order of Interbeing are the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh as embodied in the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, and in the profound insight that indeed everything is interconnected. More even than interconnected, we inter-are with all that is. We truly are not separate selves, and with that heart-realization come the compassion and love that power the members of the Order of Interbeing to commit their lives to deepening their understanding and service.

Andrew Rock
True Collective Healing

Beyond the Body: A Retreat with Roshi Hogen Bays

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 22:00:04 GMT

The practices offered during the retreat and the confidence and authenticity of the Roshi sparked in me a sense of life flowing as both form and formlessness."

~ Charlie Stewart, FCM Tampa Sangha Member

“Mindfulness of the body in the body” is the First Establishment of Mindfulness offered by the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta.

Mindfulness of the body is an entry level practice for beginning practitioners and a foundation practice for experienced practitioners for opening and sustaining each session of formal practice. In this retreat, the Roshi demonstrated to the participants, through very skillful guided meditations, how mindfulness of the body in the body can be a portal for mindful living, understanding Dharma teachings, and cultivating wisdom.

The Roshi began by guiding us to awareness of our two hands as objects of meditation with the key instruction being to feel our two hands simultaneously from the “inside” while setting aside ideas about the construction of our two hands that have been formulated by observation from the “outside.”

Taking us step by step into experiencing our hands, he led us into noticing the difference between the experience of our two hands and the anatomical view of our two hands. The “inside” experience is one of formlessness, while the anatomical view that has grown out of looking at our hands from the outside is that our two hands are made of concrete elements, such as fingers, hair, and bones.

Completing an exercise and listening to participants’ experiences of each meditation step, the Roshi would decide what to explore next. Taking us deeper into the experience of the body, based on the same foundation of deep awareness of our two hands, he led participants in practicing acceptance and gratitude for our bodies. He encouraged the participants to develop and hold the attitude toward the body as that of “our beloved.” He pointed out that because the body holds the imprints and summation of all our past experiences, embracing the body in this way heals all wounds from the past.

Always starting with the simultaneous awareness of the two hands, the Roshi continued to take us through the hands, the face, the eyes, and the world around us to experience the formlessness of each phenomenon. This he said is the formlessness (emptiness) that is the subject of the chant in the Heart Sutra. Form is emptiness (formlessness) and emptiness (formlessness) is form. Neither one is negated or eliminated by meditation, but meditation reveals and allows us to experience the formlessness and change our relationship of attachment and grasping with regard to the form.

Some participants shared experiences of feelings or views of the world that were reminiscent of experiences they had earlier in life, especially as children or young adults. The Roshi pointed out that since we are uncovering the clear reality of what we are and have been all along, such experiences from the past can be kinesthetic anchor points for what we are uncovering in the present and gives us confidence to look deeper.

The Roshi cautioned that the profound openings and insights that came from our experiences in this retreat would fade and be forgotten unless we intentionally cultivated and applied our insights in life off the cushion. He shared that in square dancing with his wife they had learned more than 200 different movements that could be performed in different combinations. These movements, which are the basis for a smooth and enjoyable performance, must be taken to dance floor and practiced continuously to retain them and to be proficient. So the participants of this workshop must continue to practice touching the formless to know it clearly and to reflect on how its presence changes our understanding and approach to the formed, i.e., the conditions of our body and the views, stories, and attitudes of our mind.

As I reflect on the personal impact of this retreat, I can feel something was stirred in my consciousness, the formulation of insight, but at this time it is not complete. As I write this, I see that insights come from the formless and their arising is known by a feeling. Conceptualization comes later. From past experience, I know that if I cling to the conceptualization of an insight, I stop the unfolding and get stuck. Holding an insight loosely and examining it by looking into the feeling, allows the insight to deepen and evolve.

The practices offered during the retreat and the confidence and authenticity of the Roshi sparked in me a sense of life flowing as both form and formlessness. Also the boundaries and barriers we experience in ourselves and in the world are constructed (imagined) and can be deconstructed.

For me, the Roshi’s teachings, guided meditations, and practices brought the ideas of Dharma into actual experience, such as the form and emptiness of the Heart Sutra. I can also sense more of an experiential understanding of the practices and the Dharma I studied with Fred in the recent wisdom intensive. (It must be noted that participants of all levels of meditation experience were getting insights about their lives and practice.)

The retreat confirmed for me the closeness and straightforward presence of truth that all of us can readily experience when we open and dissolve the boundaries of what we think is true. Compassion and connection are also experienced through the opening of these boundaries.

As the Roshi foretold, these exercises brought memories of past experiences when I was especially concentrated and open and could sense a deep connection with my surroundings and the people present. At these moments, I felt in perfect harmony with all that was happening, knew exactly what action was appropriate, and felt free to act. These moments were no accident, but at the same time they were not created by thinking about them or planning for them.

Finally, I will take away a renewed intention for continuous practice. Only continuous practice of these meditations, reflection on the insights, and action based on the insights will bring true healing and transformation. It all starts with “mindfulness of the body in the body.”

I bow with respect and gratitude to Roshi Hogen Bays.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Roshi Hogen Bays offered a retreat on March 1 and 2, 2019, for “open minded practitioners who are interested in exploring their identification with the body” and “stepping into the Great Mystery.” A group of 70 practitioners ranging in experience from beginners to those with many years of experience undertook the journey. The Roshi was a Dharma brother of our teacher Fred as they began their Dharma study together under Roshi Philip Kapleau at the Rochester Zen Center in 1968. Both left the Rochester Zen Center in 1975 to continue with Dharma study and practice on separate paths. In recent years Fred re-established contact with the Roshi and invited him to visit FCM and offer teachings. Roshi Hogen Bays is the co-abbot with his wife, Roshi Chozen Bays, of Great Vow Zen monastery near Portland, Oregon, and has been a leader in the Zen Community of Oregon since 1985.

Selfless Service Work Mornings Changed My Life (Really!)

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 06:26:54 GMT

Dana Mooney Shares Learnings about Dirty Dishes, Other Nasty Chores

In my 10-year relationship with my dear husband, I’ve spent maybe nine and a half years of it battling about the dishes. Having higher standards for tidiness, I would find myself time and again resentfully washing dishes, repeating phrases to myself like:

“How many times to I have to ask him to do this one thing?“
“Does he even listen or care when I ask for help?”
“I’m not his mother!”

As you can imagine, this negativity and resentment perfumed our other interactions, and dishes became this symbol in our marriage of my not feeling seen, heard, or responded to, left to take care of things myself. In short, I was feeling neglected and taken advantage of. But prior to Selfless Service, I couldn’t see that, at least not so clearly. All I saw was pain and frustration, well practiced over almost a decade. He acted out his role and I acted out mine, both to our detriment.

When I started coming to Selfless Service work mornings, I learned to watch my automatic reactions to cleaning and began to transform them. I brought awareness to my practiced negativity and was able to be with the work I was choosing to do. Noticing that I was choosing to do it for the benefit of my community, and was not being forced, I was able to generalize those patterns to my work at home:

I’m choosing to clean these dishes to care for my family because I love them.
I’m very skilled and efficient at this task, and I’m glad to use my skill to help out.
I can clean these dishes mindfully, and practice finding joy and peace in this ordinary task.
Dishes aren’t inherently stressful. The stressful part was the story I told about it.

I practiced in this way for several months at home, and it changed my life drastically:

I stopped carrying anger and resentment about cleaning dishes, or doing any other chore for that matter.
Cleaning times were now an opportunity to cultivate peace and joy in myself to ripple out to my family.
I saw the positive effects that having a clean home had on the well-being of the people in my house, and I want my family to be well. I now clean happily so they can be well.
I was able to ask for help around the house without projecting anger and shame about tasks not completed, which made my requests much more palatable. It turns out that it’s far easier for my husband to want to help out when there’s not an underlying message of, “You’re not a good partner,” or “You don’t care about me,” or “You’re acting like a child.”

I have deep gratitude for the opportunity to continue practicing at Selfless Service work mornings to reinforce these patterns and would recommend it to anyone. These mornings do not feel like a morning of chores. They feel like joyful mornings with community, caring for the Center and each other, and learning about ourselves through practicing mindfully.

Dana is a member of the FCM Tampa Sangha.

Ben Connelly: Let Yourself Be Immersed (Steeped!) in Your Experience

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 00:15:59 GMT

Beth Schroeder, Naples Sangha member, writes of her experience of the recent retreat and Sunday dharma talk at FCM by Ben Connelly, visiting teacher and priest at the Minneapolis Zen Center.

Ben Connelly, a Soto Zen priest, loves the unlikely word “cool.”

It’s a youthful, fun, easy-going word -- just like Ben. He brought this attitude to us as a guest teacher from the Minneapolis Zen Center as he taught the Dharma using the “Song of the Grass Hut Hermitage” poem as a template. He is also the author of the book, Inside The Grass Hut, which deeply explores the poem’s meaning, line by line, showing his love for the poem with careful analysis and discoveries that he shared.

We followed Ben in exploring how this little 1,300-year-old poem written by a monk living in a grass hut on a rock -- an impermanent dwelling in which “no one of importance” lived calmly and happily teaching the dharma to others -- could be so important in the 21st Century.

“Song of the Grass Hut Hermitage” dates back to around 700 and was written by Shitou, a monk who lived and taught dharma in a remote mountainous area of China. While other Buddhist teachers at the time lived in more comfortable large monasteries, Shitou chose to live in conformance with what he taught. At the time, people tended to be named after where they lived, so the name Shitou literally means “one who lives on the rock.”

Cool also is a word used to describe jazz. Ben, also a jazz musician, used music to help us understand how to listen, connect and be with what is. Music has many subtleties and layers to its meaning. Music/sound/vibration speaks to me almost as much as visual art. So it was a delight that one of the first things we did during the retreat was chant the entire text of “Song of the Grass Hut Hermitage.” We chanted it again several times during the retreat, following Ben’s resonant tones.

Read, let it sink in and then reflect, he told us. First, read the poem/song, letting the words wash over us, not striving to understand them. Next, allow the blended sound of our voices to penetrate our bodies, then read it both softly to ourselves and then allow one phrase to bubble up in our awareness. Then, we were asked to examine that phrase.

For me, words crystalized and feelings followed, allowing an easy connection to the ancient wisdom. It all became very fluid as he directed us to notice how it felt as the sound flowed through our body, mind and consciousness. “Remember to feel,” he reminded us. “Emotions are part of the experience.” He pointedly directed us to not leave anything out. “Let yourself be immersed in it,” he said.

Do you recognize the Four Foundations of MIndfulness? Here they are, as explained in an article in Lion’s Roar:

More than 2,600 years ago, the Buddha exhorted his senior bhikkhus, monks with the responsibility of passing his teachings on to others, to train their students in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

“What four?” he was asked.

“Come, friends,” the Buddha answered. “Dwell contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, unified, with concentrated one-pointed mind, in order to know the body as it really is. Dwell contemplating feeling in feelings… in order to know feelings as they really are. Dwell contemplating mind in mind… in order to know mind as it really is. Dwell contemplating dhamma in dhammas… in order to know dhammas as they really are.”

The brilliant way Sensai Ben led us into deep Dharma was inspiring. He said things like “Let go and loosen the thought,” helping me to cling less to the intellectual and engage my body, mind, feelings and consciousness more fully with the wisdom of the song. We came back to this theme many times during the retreat -- when chanting, when sitting, when eating, when doing anything -- let yourself be immersed in it, have a relationship with it, let yourself be steeped in the practice (like a tea bag steeping in a cup of water).

Today we live in a culture that leads us away from significant immersion. We are privileged, lucky and wise to have found a path that leads us to connection and liberation from the damage our culture can inflict.

Ben reminded us the very first night of the retreat to take care of our Buddhist lineage. To take care is a sacred action. By hearing these very words, and allowing them to merge with our being, we come back to this sacred path and the great line of Bodhisattvas who stepped onto it eons ago. Our actions bring the practice and lineage into this world and the evolution of how we will evolve as a species, as a world and as beings.

It is doubtful we will retreat as Shitou did -- more likely we will stay in the midst of it all. However we look at it, we are part of it. We are in it. When we practice for ourselves, we practice for others. We inter-are. We are part of Shitou now, we are part of the chant, we bring it to where we are with it in each step.

Awesome, yeah, and daunting. We have the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) as our vehicles. With the Sangha we can travel on a true path and support each other.

Ben brought us his warm, light, wise Dharma touch traveling from chilly Minnesota. We may only need to walk to the mailbox and say good morning to the post person to continue this great gift of Dharma he brought to us. But when we walk with the lineage in our hearts, we take the dharma transmission with us. Who knows what effect it will have, but it certainly deepened my understanding of how to practice the Dharma in my little hut off 3rd Street North in Naples.

It’s all cool, right, Ben? Hope you visit again soon.

***

Beth is a professional artist and art teacher whose paintings on silk scrolls grace the FCM Meditation Center in Tampa.

Mind Training Can Lead to a Wholesome and Happy Life

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 05:05:11 GMT

Thanks to Carol Green, Naples Sangha, for this article about the Winter retreat on mind training, written just before the beginning of the Spring Dharma Path Intensive studying mind training, or Lojong.

Our minds are going to think, no matter what we do. So why not use that amazing, mysterious capacity to build a wholesome, happy life, rather than an unhappy, uneasy, frazzled one? Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

That was the theme behind the winter FCM retreat led by our teacher Fred. He even named the four-day event “Mind Training: How To Use the Thinking Mind to Support Your Transformation (Rather Than Sabotaging It!).” Throughout the retreat, he drilled the challenge home: Become aware of what is in your mind and act on your ability to mindfully choose what your mind is thinking.

Truly radical stuff. You mean I can choose what my gnarly, swirling mess of a mind is thinking? But it has “a mind of its own…”

Right on, Brothers and Sisters! I can take the steering wheel of my mind. Whoa, this is a Big Deal!

Fred told us to learn the difference between reality and our thoughts about reality. We were sitting at 6:00 am in pre-dawn light of the Franciscan Center shivering in the chill when we could have been snoozing under a warm blanket and I forgot to put on my socks, and my feet were cold. This was my reality. If there was drama, it was our fabrication, he told us. (Yep, I dramatized it).

My Storehouse Consciousness thought this chilly sleepiness was real and projected barriers, blew up a big deluded balloon of a Self, and didn’t want to meditate. This Self was a Trickster, the Joker of King Arthur’s Court, the Kokopelli of the Navajo. Its role was to continue to create problems. It popped up at the most inopportune times. I looked this Self over. Not pretty.

This is why mind training is so important, Fred reminded us. When unwholesome, negative or distracted “stuff” arises, if we use mind training -- plus mindfulness and awareness -- we will see our thinking is distorted and can change our thoughts – and thus our emotions. If we are mindful, we can see the “stuff” when it is arising and make choices.

Mercifully, my mindfulness returned. I saw reality: It was simply 30 minutes before dawn beside the Hillsborough River and I was sitting in a room with 40 friends trying to wade through the morass of Self and Distortion and find Calm. The irony was that Calm was sitting right there on a peaceful morning.

Fred continued to spoon feed us with great love and deep patience, a nibble at a time. Do you want to “get” this? Or not? Turning to the Vitakkasanthana Sutta: Relaxation of Thoughts, he gave us five steps to train our minds. Fellow retreat attendee Dan Vantreese creatively came up with an anacronym – STAIRS:

ST – Substitute Thought: Substitute a wholesome thought for an unwholesome thought. If that isn’t enough, and doesn’t tame the unruly mind, go to the next step:

A – Analyze/examine: As yourself: What suffering will this thought bring me if I don’t change it? If that doesn’t work, go to the next step:

I -- Ignore/distract: Ignore or distract yourself from the thought. If that doesn’t work, continue to the next step:

R – Relax: Relax, calm yourself. Then go deeper and ask: What underlies this thought? If that doesn’t work, you must be really attached to this unwholesome thought. It’s time to get stern:

S – Stop it! Tell yourself you have had enough. Simply order yourself to “Stop it!” Stop thinking the unwholesome, negative thought that causes you to suffer.

And finally, Fred threw in one last helpful suggestion. As you consider the thought that is causing you to suffer, ask yourself: Are you sure? Is it (this thought) true?

The retreat was a wonderful preliminary to the Dharma Path Intensive beginning this week, “Living the Bodhisattva’s Life: The Seven Points of Mind Training (Lojong).”

End of Life Transition: FCM's Death Doula Program

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 08:27:00 GMT

FCM offers a Death And Dying Program, including end of life transition support. Under our Dharma teacher Fred Eppsteiner's oversight, a team of FCM members, who have previous experience in the area of death and dying, recently completed training to become death doulas.

FCM’s death doulas assist members who are dying or who are caring for a loved one who is dying. Through their mindful presence and experience with the process of dying, they offer support and helpful information through home visits, and upon request, guided meditations to calm and stabilize the mind of the dying person.

Thanks to Fran Reilly of the Naples sangha, a member who recently completed the program and now shares her experience of FCM’s death doula training.

When the idea of learning to become a death doula was first discussed with me, I had two reactions – excitement and intimidation. Yikes, what does that mean exactly and what would be expected of me?

I was both excited to have this opportunity to work with Fred and other team members to learn more and at the same time intimidated at the prospect of becoming a death doula. Trusting in my Buddhist practice and knowing that life is impermanent – that we all die at some point, never knowing when -- I decided to make the commitment.

Over the course of the past five months I have been part of a core team of 10 FCM members enrolled in death doula training. I knew from the outset we would be called upon to look closely at our capacity to face our own deaths and that of our loved ones. Of course that makes sense: If we haven’t faced our own fears, how could we have the stability and clarity and the ability to bring benefit, guidance and support to others? So, we have been sharing reading materials and other resources, discussing, learning from Fred and each other as we follow through with our commitments.

Early on we learned that our focus as a death doula would be to act as personal coach, a support and guide to help the dying person with their aspirations. We would learn to offer practices to reduce worry and fear and help the person stay grounded and as present as possible. We would not act as social workers or hospice personnel because there are many other services available in the community. Our core job would be to benefit the other person and family in their time of need. Clarifying our role helped me to have more focus and encouraged me to keep learning about the many practices that are offered in our tradition and avail myself of the wisdom teachings that are here for all of us.

The Buddhist perspective on death is one of transition. Fred helped us understand it is a journey. I appreciated the transition analogy because it is easy to understand from this perspective. There is a continuity of consciousness so our mind state at the moment of death and leading up to death is important. The body is dying and the mind, as a stream of consciousness, is entering the world beyond birth and death. We discussed and shared many of the sutras, chants and practices that can help create a wholesome mind state during the dying process.

Through these past five months I’ve come to appreciate all the resources we have through our community and each other. I am not the only one who is going to die, I am not the only one who is going to lose a love one — this is the reality of life! As I open my heart, willing to let go of self-centered fears and to become open to the spaciousness beyond, an ease permeates my being. I have also been inspired to focus on taking care of my own advanced directive, getting my mind clear regarding my own transition, and having the family discussions that are important for all of us. I realize it is an ongoing process, a lifetime journey, and I continue to learn each and every day.

We are fortunate to have so many heart-centered practices, meditations, chants, and books to support our learning. And most of all, I am grateful for my Sangha brothers and sisters who inspire me with their efforts and open hearts, and our teacher who inspires and guides us along the way.

I’d like to end with the words of Thich Nhat Hanh from his book No death, No Fear: “If we know how to practice and penetrate the reality of no birth and no death, if we realize that coming and going are just ideas, and if our presence is solid and peaceful, we can help the dying person. We can help the person not be scared and not to suffer much. We can help the person die peacefully. We can help ourselves live without fear and die peacefully. We can help ourselves to understand that there is no dying. To see that there is no death and there is no fear. There is only continuation.”

Reflections on the Fall Retreat on Mindfulness and Calm Abiding, by Ned Bellamy

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 20:20:06 GMT

With gratitude to FMC member Ned Bellamy for this sharing

On the retreat grounds before dinner on our first day, I walked the labyrinth’s outer circumference. I didn’t take the time to proceed inward toward the center. But after the retreat, I thought of my movement around the outside of that circle a lot, after Fred challenged some of us to consider if our Buddhist practice was marked by “movement, but not progress.” That description seemed an apt, albeit uncomfortable, way to describe my own practice.

For five months prior to this retreat, I’d honored a personal commitment to increase my involvement with the sangha and to deepen my practice. But by the retreat’s end, I realized I still had not been doing enough to progress along this path. I was still looking “for an easier, softer way.” This weekend provided the time and space for me to finally examine some of my self-created obstacles.

First, although my practice had recently become my highest priority, my other interests, including some volunteering and research for a book, were eating into my formal meditation time. It seemed very clear now that to develop the concentration skills and habits of mindfulness I needed to progress, I must devote more time and attention to my practice than I had planned. I decided to relinquish indefinitely some of my other time-consuming pastimes.

Second, although I had been reading a lot of Buddhist literature, I felt stuck in my meditation practice. I was a little bored and not finding meditation very satisfying. I had begun to think I just didn’t have the meditative chops to do this right, or well enough. During the retreat, we spent many hours in guided meditation that reignited my curiosity about, and interest in, the contents of my mind. The result, so far, has been a lessening of my impatience, an increase in energy, and greater enjoyment of formal meditation.

Finally, I recalled that I never had an ongoing mentor or teacher in my personal, academic, or professional life. My resolute self-reliance reminded me of a grandchild insisting she could tie her shoes by “me self.” I acknowledged to Fred in a small group that I gave up trying to do this alone — and needed his help. Fred and I have since met and I’ve also asked a senior practitioner to help coach, encourage, and challenge me.

******************

I was reminded of how much of meditation is about remembering. During formal meditation, of course, we remember to return to the object of meditation. In my case, the larger challenge occurs off the cushion: remembering to be mindful in the first place, remembering to slow down, and then to stop. Lately, I’ve focused on my drive times -- especially difficult occasions for me to remain present.

Fred, Angie, and Bryan reminded us during the retreat to protect our mindfulness practice from incursions of thoughts about the past and future. It was useful to notice that my most troubling future thoughts were about all four pairs of the eight worldly concerns — and not just one or two of them. Thoughts about gain or loss, or praise and blame, for example, were so potent because each pair was accompanied by both fear and hope.

Once I’d identified these recurring thoughts, I found these concerns easier to interdict at mindfulness’ gate, before they had a chance to get a running start.

The most far-reaching result of my retreat was the wake-up call to confront and close the gap between my stated aspiration for my practice — and the time I’d set aside to fulfill it. Rather than feel discouraged by this realization, I feel enthusiastic about embracing a more realistic view of the work ahead.

The other benefits of the retreat largely resulted from our many hours of guided and unguided meditation together. With a freshness that feels like “beginner’s mind,” the following fruitful changes to my practice have been unfolding:

I'm sitting a couple times a day now, and for more extended periods.
Formal meditation has begun to feel more interesting and much less like a chore.
With increased frequency, focused presence occurs earlier at the beginning of each session; and at sessions’ end, I feel more energy — instead of less.
·Although I’ve been able to enjoy shamatha for some time, during the retreat my concentration practice seemed effortful and inconsistent, perhaps because my breathing is shallow. So I am setting aside more time than in the past to just counting breaths.

Since the retreat, I am focusing more attention to my informal meditation. Every 15 minutes my phone invites the lovely sound of a new re-mindfulness bell. Walking the dog is more a more effective meditation practice now that I stand still to “turn on the mindfulness switch” before opening to choiceless awareness.

Also, my time spent driving has always been a challenge to my mindfulness, so my new oft-repeated private gatha to interrupt my thinking is: “Ned, where are you now? C’mon back.”

Engaged Buddhism: Bringing Our Practice Into the World

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 16:30:00 GMT

With gratitude to Patty Meyers for this sharing

Despite no professional connection to or background in the climate change issue, I’ve felt a strong calling to get involved. But with a lack of expertise and living on a small island near the tip of Florida, what real difference could I make upon this massive global issue?

But the reality of global warming was hitting too close to home to ignore. Our little island was one of the first and most impacted towns hit by Hurricane Irma. Two of our neighbors’ homes had to razed and we sustained over a foot of water in our garage. The ongoing toxic proliferation of both red and blue/green algae blooms has seen our beaches littered with dead marine life and the subsequent economic, environmental and health fall-out. So despite this lingering feeling of hopelessness and impotence, when the opportunity arose to be in San Francisco during the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS), I booked my flight.

The experience turned out to be far more rewarding and inspiring than I could have imagined. Through information gleaned from my sangha friends at the Florida Community of Mindfulness, I was introduced to GreenFaith, a global interfaith coalition of religious traditions sharing concern for the planet. I contacted them and they immediately put me to work making phone calls to various Bay Area religious organizations soliciting participation in the RISE UP for Climate, Justice and Jobs March. As a volunteer parade monitor, on a beautiful cool sunny morning, I escorted a spirited yet respectful 30,000 person-strong contingent down Market Street in a united show of concern and action. The week ended on a quieter more reverential tone with an all-day symposium entitled “Loving the Earth,” held at Spirit Rock in the pastoral hills of West Marin, a fitting finale to this life-affirming week.

In between, I attended numerous activities mainly organized through GreenFaith and Interfaith Power and Light. The official GCAS conference was reserved for high-ranking government officials, climate experts, policy wonks, businessmen and environmental advocacy groups but free affliliated events and seminars were happening all over the city. One in particular was an all-day forum entitled Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, which highlighted the moving stories of tribal and indigenous women leaders and the tactics they are using to halt the takeover and destruction of their sacred lands primarily for fossil fuel extraction. There was focus throughout the conference on these proud bearers of traditional culture and wisdom who are leading the movement to reclaim Mother Earth's rightful place as provider and protector. One evening, there was a powerful multi-faith service at Grace Cathedral featuring a grand procession, uplifting music and thoughtful words from clergy representing all the major religions as well as emissaries from the Holy See and a livestream shout-out from H. H. Dalai Lama. The universal message was clear -- it is our duty as people of faith, as caring communities that respect and honor the sacredness of Planet Earth, to stand up, speak out and actively work for her survival.

I chose to participate in these faith-sponsored events because it’s become increasingly clear, that for me, any activism must be steeped in the grounding of mindfulness. It is only now, with my deepening practice and the inspiration of so many, do I feel prepared to face my fear and consciously turn towards it… to move beyond paralysis into a place, a space, of well… healing. Joanna Macy, Buddhist lioness and environmental activist, spoke of fear as only one side of a two-sided coin, the other being love. They are inseparable. By confronting one, I am touching the other. This can be my practice, my “living on the razor’s edge,” as Kristen Barker of One Earth Sangha likes to describe it.

As Buddhists, we believe that at the heart of every emotional, existential and environmental meltdown there is an opportunity for great transformation where anything and everything is possible. I was continually reminded how great insight can arise from great suffering -- not to actively create it, but to recognize and embrace it, understanding the opportunity it presents as a doorway to ultimate liberation. Christiana Figueres, past executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, asked us to harness the rage and despair and “use the energy of pain to transform.”

Figueres, who became an adherent of Thich Nhat Hanh after turning to his teachings in the midst of an emotional breakdown while organizing the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, is quoted as saying “This had been a six-year marathon with no rest in between. I just really needed something to buttress me, and I don’t think that I would have had the inner stamina, the depth of optimism, the depth of commitment, the depth of inspiration if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.”

This path of confronting climate change will take real courage and fortitude. I now realize there is a growing coalition of committed eco-warriors, teachers and sisters and brothers out there who will support me with encouragement, resources and wisdom. As Thay has stated, “It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.”

This was the resounding message of my week… it will take a community, a powerful congregation of like-minded individuals to turn this tide. Not just the dedicated folks of Plum Village or Florida Community of Mindfulness or Marco Island or the US, but a global awakening, a slow but persistent shift of consciousness, a world Sangha… and, as our teacher Fred reminds us, the inner peace, strength and love that is required starts with me.

Patty Meyers

Source of Unceasing Commitment

Marco Island, FL

Florida Community of Mindfulness/Naples Sangha

Building a Unified Community: Connecting Wake Up and the Broader Sangha

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 20:26:41 GMT

Building A Unified Community: Connecting Wake Up and the Broader Sangha

With gratitude to Bryan Hindert for this article, which was originally published in the Plum Village publication, "the Mindfulness Bell." Please consider subscribing to the Mindfulness Bell to help support our greater Plum Village community. Visit www.mindfulnessbell.org/subscribe for more information and to subscribe.

It was a moment of connection across generations. I smiled.

At the end of a recent retreat with the Florida Community of Mindfulness (FCM), a sangha in the spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh based in Tampa, a fellow Wake Upper shared an insight during closing circle. He was surprised to learn that some practitioners older than forty were dealing with many of the same issues that challenged him and his Wake Up friends.

The seeds of aspiration to build a sangha where members of all generations could connect, learn from each other, and see they aren’t so different after all were beginning to bear fruit.

I began my own Dharma journey with FCM, an all-inclusive sangha. In 2013, my teacher, Fred Eppsteiner, the founder and Dharma teacher of FCM, encouraged me to find a way to help young adults who came to our practice center to connect with our community and to the Dharma.

In all honesty, I was not thrilled. I had been practicing with FCM for a few years and was quite happy being one of the only two or three really engaged young adults in the sangha. Although I had been making significant transformations in my life and had healed much of my own wounding and mental suffering through the practice, looking back, there was a whole area of life I was avoiding because of the pain it often brought me. Due to various causes in the past, I would go into a comparing, jealous, and self-critical mind-state when I was around other young adults. The idea of spearheading a group to invite more young people into our sangha felt counter-intuitive, to say the least.

Luckily, I had learned through practice that listening to my thoughts was risky business, and Fred had taught me that to grow in the practice we can’t be afraid to get uncomfortable. Thus, with Fred’s guidance, and a bit of a nudge, Wake Up Tampa Bay was born.

Before we had our Wake Up group, young adults would visit FCM, but they would usually come only once or twice, and then disappear. Once we started having a Wake Up meeting every other Friday night, when young people would come to the sangha, I or one of the other younger members would personally welcome them and invite them to our Wake Up group. It became clear that the ability to connect with people their own age was a key factor in whether young adults continued to come to sangha gatherings.

Over time, our Wake Up group grew from an initial three members to twenty to thirty participants, a thriving community of young adults supporting each other in living wholesome, mindful lives. In addition to our Friday evenings, we also began having our own Wake Up Days of Mindfulness, Wake Up Dharma study and practice groups, regular social activities, potlucks, nature walks, and many informal events.

In one sense, it seemed that FCM was becoming a more age-diverse sangha. In reality, however, two separate sanghas were beginning to emerge. In the early days of FCM, most of those who came to Wake Up Tampa Bay were also interested in participating in the activities of the broader sangha. However, as attendance grew, a shift began to happen. More and more, the young adults who came to Wake Up seemed satisfied with the peer support and did not seem particularly interested in attending gatherings of the broader sangha. Rather than being an extra support to younger members in our community, Wake Up had become, in a sense, an island unto itself.

While it was wonderful to know that a community of practitioners had developed that nourished and supported mindfulness practice in young adults, it seemed that both Wake Up and FCM were missing out on an important connection by this bifurcation of the sanghas. To me it seemed that our Wake Up community had much to gain from the wisdom and experience of the older, more seasoned practitioners, as well as an opportunity to deepen our practice through the many Dharma programs and the connection with a teacher that FCM offers. Likewise, FCM could benefit greatly from having the youthful energy of Wake Uppers join in their activities. It was also striking that our sangha, while professing to offer an alternative path to the unwholesome elements of our culture, was, in a certain sense, mirroring the division and separateness we often find between different age groups in society.

Thus, with Fred’s guidance, a few of us Wake Up organizers began a concerted effort to integrate the two divergent groups. While the first few years of Wake Up were aimed at creating a space where young people could come to heal, transform and support each other in mindfulness and meditation, these past few years have been more focused on integration into the larger FCM community. Our intention has been to create a unified, truly age-diverse sangha that offers both peer support for the Wake Up group and the experience of seasoned practitioners.

To foster this integration, many initiatives were experimented with, and much consistent encouragement, creativity, and patience have been needed. There are signs that the fruits of this effort are blossoming as more Wake Uppers are now participating in much that FCM offers. For instance, at our recent sangha picnic and at our last tea ceremony, we had about as many Wake Uppers as non-Wake Uppers in attendance. We also now have about thirty Wake Up-age participants who have become formal members of FCM. With close to 300 FCM members in total, this is still a small percentage, but we have come a long way from the original three young adult members. We are also beginning to see a good representation of Wake Uppers at our weekly Sunday sangha meditations and Dharma talks, and many are beginning to take part in more of the intensive Dharma programs that FCM offers, working with mentors, and taking advantage of having a Dharma teacher to guide them in their practice.

Perhaps most telling, this year we had two Wake Up members take on leadership roles within the larger FCM community. We in our Wake Up group are maturing in our practice and there seems to be a real thirst for deepening our study and engagement with the Dharma. Also, as more Wake Uppers are getting to know the older practitioners in a deeper way, there appears to be an eagerness to explore further ways of connecting with them.

Last February I had the opportunity to meet several other Wake Up Ambassadors at a Wake Up Care Taking Council Retreat at Deer Park Monastery. In our discussions during the retreat, I learned of the many ways that Wake Up sanghas are watering wholesome seeds in young adults and helping them to heal their suffering, cultivate joy, be of service to others, develop leadership skills, and begin their journey on the path of Dharma. What also became clear in our discussions was that the division that FCM had experienced between its Wake Up group and the broader sangha is the reality for most of the Plum Village sanghas in North America, rather than a special case of our Tampa Bay community. Although our experience in Tampa may be somewhat unique, since our Wake Up group was born out of our broader sangha, perhaps it may be helpful to share what we learned in the experience of integrating our two groups. I believe it is in the best interest for the entire Plum Village community to integrate these two sangha streams, and it takes consistent effort from both ends to make it happen.

For Wake Up organizers who would like their Wake Up groups to benefit from a connection with the broader Plum Village sanghas, I would suggest to begin by asking which of your Wake Up activities are key to meeting the needs particular to young people, and which do not necessarily need to be age specific. Our Wake Up organizers have taken several steps to cultivate a connection with the rest of FCM. We:

Host regular “meditations and mixers” where we invite older practitioners to spend an evening with us in meditation, deep sharing, and communing over tea.
Invite our Dharma teacher and more experienced practitioners to offer Dharma talks and answer questions about practice at our Friday Wake Up meetings every other month.
Discontinued separate Wake Up Days of Mindfulness and instead are encouraging attendance at FCM Days of Mindfulness.
Schedule fewer Wake Up only social events and are encouraging attendance at FCM social events.
Organize Wake Up hang out time after an FCM activity, such as a work meditation day, giving us the space to connect with our peers while also participating in FCM events.
Organize community involvement activities such as volunteering at a local community farm and invite the broader sangha to join us.

I encourage my fellow Wake Up organizers to consider the importance of integrating our Wake Up groups into the broader sangha for the health and well-being of the Plum Village community. Although the initial development of separate Wake Up groups has allowed the space for young adults to experiment and find their own connection to the practice and lineage, the broader sangha needs our energy, creativity, and excitement for the practice in order to continue beautifully into the future.

For practitioners from the broader Sangha who would like to support and connect with Wake Up groups, the following efforts have been fruitful in our community:

Our Dharma teacher and experienced practitioners act as close mentors in practice and sangha-building for our Wake Up organizers.
We have a monthly “Tea with the Teacher,” giving Wake Up-aged members of FCM a chance to seek Fred’s guidance in an informal setting.
Experienced practitioners in FCM lead Dharma study groups to support Wake Uppers interested in going deeper into Dharma teachings and practice.
Older members of the sangha invite Wake Uppers to dinners, teas, and other informal ways of connecting.

In general, I would also encourage all-age sanghas to understand the need of young adults to have space to support each other in the practice and experiment with how to bring the practice into their lives. I encourage giving young practitioners a chance to take on responsibility in the sangha and, when ready, to take on leadership roles. When young adults are given this opportunity, I believe they both step up to the occasion and take more ownership of the sangha.

From a personal perspective, these past five years of sangha building with Wake Up and FCM have helped me to untie many internal knots and heal emotional wounds I had developed around interacting with my peers. The act of doing something meaningful in my life while taking care of and transforming my suffering has allowed me to feel whole again. I now enjoy spending time with both younger and older people equally and have many Dharma friends of all ages. Through this experience, Fred has taught me to set aside my personal preference and to instead do what is most beneficial for the sangha, and what is most beneficial for beings. In putting aside my personal preference, I have also found a truer happiness and well-being than I could have ever found from staying in my comfort zone.

In the Dharma,

Bryan Hindert

True Legendary Opening

Fruits of the Seeds of Thay's Transmission

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 23:06:04 GMT

With gratitude to Angie Parrish for this article, which was originally published in the Plum Village publication, "the Mindfulness Bell." Please consider subscribing to the Mindfulness Bell to help support our greater Plum Village community. Visit www.mindfulnessbell.org/subscribe for more information and to subscribe.

It is summer 1994, Plum Village, France. Thay speaks the following words as he transmits the 'Lamp of Wisdom' to Fred Eppsteiner, giving him the Dharma name ‘True Energy’:

“Brother True Energy, this lamp has been transmitted to us by the Buddha himself and so many generations of teachers and ancestors. Now it’s been entrusted to you. Please practice in such a way and live your daily life in such a way that this lamp is kept alive, always shining. You have the duty to transmit it to your children and grandchildren in the blood family and in the spiritual family.”

Although Fred had been a student of Thay’s at this point for 20 years, it is with this ordination almost 25 years ago that Fred began to share the Dharma and create a sangha in Florida that would eventually become what is today the ‘Florida Community of Mindfulness.’

After the ceremony in France, Fred returned to his home in Naples, Florida, a community then untouched by the Buddha’s teachings, and began to slowly introduce the Dharma, initially through all-day introductory mindfulness workshops. Seeds were planted, and a small sangha began to blossom in Fred’s living room, meeting at first monthly, then bi-weekly, weekly and eventually twice a week.

Across Florida, others who had attended Thay’s retreats formed small sanghas and began to seek out Fred as a Dharma teacher, including individuals in Tampa Bay, Miami, and Daytona Beach. The Tampa sangha, of which I was an early member of, was fairly typical of these small groups, comprised mostly of newcomers to both mindfulness and Buddhism. At our weekly gatherings, we meditated and took turns leading discussions of books by Thay and other Buddhist teachers. Our enthusiasm was strong, although I smile when recalling how eclectic our ‘Dharma’ was in those early days; it was not unusual for our weekly discussion to sometimes meander away from the path of practice into an intellectual wasteland! Discovering Fred, an authentic Dharma teacher ordained by Thay, was just what we needed, and we began to make regular “Dharma Road Trips” to Naples for Days of Mindfulness and retreats, as did practitioners from other small sanghas across Florida.

By 2001, there were often 25-30 cars parked along Fred’s residential street in Naples for the weekly sangha gatherings in his living room. While he had happily “birthed” the sangha in his home, Fred realized that the group had matured to the point that it was time for them to take responsibility for the care of the sangha. After much discussion, they decided to incorporate as a not-for-profit religious organization and moved from Fred’s home to a rental space at a Naples yoga studio. Not everyone in the sangha was happy with this move; Why leave the easy, comfortable space in Fred’s home and have to worry about leases, money, and finding others to step forward to care for the sangha? Nonetheless, the move was made and the sangha blossomed further as many new individuals found the more public space and profile to be very accessible and welcoming.

In addition to weekly meditation and talks, Fred began to bring all the Florida groups together spiritually in a common path of practice by offering “Intensive” Buddhist study/practice programs, typically lasting three to -six months at a time. We also grew to know our sangha brothers and sisters throughout the state by coming together frequently for Days of Mindfulness and retreats.

By 2005 our Tampa living rooms were becoming very cramped. At the same time, Fred was increasing his teaching time in Tampa but with the proviso that we needed to move out of our living rooms and find a public meeting space. So we took what felt like a huge step and rented space in a local yoga studio for two hours each Thursday evening. Once again, there were a number of people who were more comfortable with the living room group, but we realized that our vision of sharing the Dharma and reducing suffering in the world called on us to step out of our comfort zones. The Tampa sangha continued to grow, as individuals seeking an alternative to their stressful and often unsatisfying “worldly” lives found us, primarily through word of mouth.

Fred’s move to Tampa in 2006 brought a much greater quality and consistency of Dharma teachings, and within a couple of years we began to look at expanding our offerings to create more doorways for those seeking change. How could we best serve this growing appetite for the Dharma? Should we offer more classes? More opportunities for meditation? More opportunities to connect as community?

Fred and a core group of about 25 members met to explore possibilities in 2010. Should we add more hours to our weekly rental arrangement? Should we rent our own space full time? We wereIt was 2010, deep into the recession and its resulting low real estate prices, and a member ventured, “Now is the time to buy a building.” Some reacted with shock and fear, some with excitement and enthusiasm., in response! What if we were able to own our own space?: What would we do with it? How would we pay for it?

With Fred offering vision and support, this core group decided to explore the purchase of a “home” for FCM. Paramount to embarking on this exploration was having an established, cohesive, and growing core group of members. Some of these core group members were newly retired or approaching retirement, and were committed to offering significant “selfless service” to support the establishment of our new center. We canvassed the larger sangha and discovered that there appeared to be strong financial support for the purchase of our own building.

With enthusiasm and perhaps some initial naivety, we began to look at properties, soon learning about the many City of Tampa code requirements for parking, occupancy, and other use factors. High prices and limited parking quickly re-directed our search away from our original target locations. One day a member who had been volunteering at a rundown and mostly abandoned church in a very poor area of town called Fred to ask that he come look at the property, which included three buildings and over 7,000 square feet of usable space. It might be available for a very low price! We visited the property, with many of us taken aback by the seriously neglected state of the buildings and overgrown grounds, as well as by the very visible “‘street business”’ that was occurring nearby. Could it be possible to make this property, in this neighborhood, into a home for FCM? Once again, Fred helped us to imagine what might be possible, and where better, he asked, than on this street of obvious suffering to create a haven of Dharma refuge and beauty?

On August 1, 2012 we closed on the purchase of our new home! Having successfully raised 100% of the funds needed to purchase it and complete the first phase of rehab, we embarked with much joyful effort on painting, plumbing, window replacement, wiring, floor refinishing, altar creation and much, much more, finding our meditation seats amidst the dust and slowly creating a beautiful home and garden for the sangha. We began to more deeply understand the meaning of ‘selfless service’ and community as we created avenues for caring for our grounds and facilities and serving our sangha through various programs.

We realized that it was easy to look like Buddhas when we came together in rented space for two hours each week. Being together much more frequently to clean the bathrooms, work in the kitchen and gardens, and otherwise serve the sangha taught us how to bring our practice more deeply into relationships, let go of our egos, and to begin anew when on occasion our speech and actions may have been unskillful. As more members embraced the practice of service to others, our Order of Interbeing sangha also grew and today numbers just over 50 ordinees and aspirants.

As we settled in, we found that having a physical ‘home’ gave us great flexibility for offering more meditation programs and Dharma teachings, classes, spiritual friends groups, a Wake-up group, family and teen programs, and more. We now also offer three concurrent Intensives for practitioners at different experience levels.

We have also found that people are very hungry for community, and that the warm and welcoming attitude of our members draws in many individuals who wish to spend meaningful time with like-minded individuals in a community that practices the way of harmony and awareness. Fred has always emphasized the importance of community, and we are very deliberate about how we engage, mentor and otherwise care for our members. We now have nearly 300 members, while many non-members also attending many our various programs.

While we have historically held three retreats a year at a nearby Catholic center, demand for the transformative experience of retreat has continued to increase, and we realized that having a residential capacity at our Tampa center would be very beneficial. Once again, Fred’s vision and leadership helped guide the Board through an exploration of the possibility of replacing our small and aging caretaker’s cottage with a new 4,000 square-foot residential building. After a lengthy petition to the City Council, our plans to construct ‘Great Cloud Refuge’ were approved and funds were raised to make this vision a reality! When completed in early 2019, we will be able to offer six to 12 retreats per year, for groups of 24-42 people.

Fred never set off to build a large community and a Dharma center, but simply took to heart his teacher Thay’s instruction to transmit the Dharma. His great wisdom, skillfulness as a teacher, and compassion for all have attracted and benefited so many beings, and the members of the Florida Community of Mindfulness are honored and deeply grateful to be on this path of transformation and service with him. We are also grateful to the other centers and Buddhist practitioners who have shared their wisdom and experience with us, and will happily share what we have learned with those who might benefit from our experience, as well.

P.S: As instructed by Thay, Fred has brought the practice to his children and grandchildren and his 100-one hundred year- old mother, Ruth, the matriarch of our community!

Going as a River: 2018 Earth Holders' Retreat at Camp Courage, Minnesota

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:55:56 GMT

With gratitude to Andrew Rock for this sharing

This past week FCM members Carol Green, Nancy Natilson and Andrew Rock were among the 140 practitioners at the Earth Holders Retreat at Camp Courage on Clear Lake, Minnesota. The retreat was organized in fruitful and generous collaboration by the Earth Holder Community’s Caretaking Council, three local Minnesota Plum Village sanghas, and monastics from Deer Park Monastery. Four monks and four nuns from Deer Park led the retreat. It was inspiring and joyful to be with the monastics, each of whom manifested their practice and happiness in her or his own unique way of speaking, singing, walking, eating, and sitting.

As with other Plum Village retreats, we spent most of our days in mindful silence, beginning in the meditation hall with sitting meditation and chanting, and guided meditations, or sutra readings. We also had a Touching of the Earth and a reading of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to Mother Earth. After breakfast we sang outdoors in a circle, followed by wonderful group meditation walks along the beautiful paths of Camp Courage, through cool green forests, along the lake and across wooden walkways over little streams. Each day my body and mind felt more peaceful and easy, each step on the earth truly a miracle.

The daily Dharma talks given by the monastics were a true continuation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings and presence, delivered with clarity, wisdom and humor. In a talk on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Brother Phap Ho spoke of how mindfulness helps us to make choices better aligned with our aspirations and to practice happiness and gratitude for the conditions we already have. If we want to address climate change and the suffering it brings, we can become more aware of the afflictive habit energies we still carry that lead to patterns of consumption that are toxic for us and for the world.

Each afternoon we met in small family groups for deep sharing and deep listening, each group facilitated by a monastic and named for a Minnesota river in keeping with the retreat’s theme, “Going as a River.” As in the retreat generally, groups were a mix of new and old practitioners, many from the Twin Cities area and the Midwest, and members of the Earth Holder Community that was founded in 2014 by lay and monastic members of the Plum Village community. We shared how our minds were gradually calming as we silently sat, walked and ate our tasty vegan meals in mindful community, and the happiness we felt as we became more attuned to the nature around and within us. We also shared about our challenges at home and in practice, our fears and even despair at the degradation of our environment and societal discourse.

As the days passed and our minds settled, we spoke more of how our practice of nurturing openness, peacefulness and compassion can contribute to our individual and collective engagement with the world in a way that is skillful and even joyful. And as the retreat progressed we saw that we were part of a kind, caring community, and that we were truly present for one another and for Mother Earth and all her children.

By the end of the retreat I felt that I had found peace with a question I had obsessively pondered and struggled with for the last few years: what does engaged Buddhism mean in the context of accelerating climate change and the suffering it brings? Is the practice of meditation and mindfulness sufficient, or should I – and other practitioners who wish to help heal Mother Earth and her children -- place equal emphasis on action?

I had understood intellectually that the answer, at least for me, is both meditation and action, that the practices of calming and opening, concentration and insight would organically lead to actions appropriate to the situation. I had heard our teacher Fred say that we could not hope to have a more peaceful world if we were not peaceful people, or a more just and kind world if we ourselves were angry and judgmental. But I nonetheless continued to resist, to feel uneasy about what I saw as an imbalance between practice in the meditation hall and action in the world.

Now I have finally realized and accepted that the real question is whether we can show up in life the way we want to, with equanimity, compassion and openness. As Fred recently said, “Life is where we practice, but the cushion is where we learn.” When we are truly present, we can see what is unfolding, and we will know how to be and what to do.

The 2018 Earth Holders Retreat ended with a beautiful and moving ceremony. Standing in a circle by the lake, the community was invited to each find a one or two word aspiration to take with us from the retreat. One by one around the circle, each of us shared our aspiration as we poured a bit of lake water from a pitcher into a big bowl. When we were finished, Brother Phap Ho carried the bowl down to the lake, and mindfully poured it in, to go as a river with the waters that would ultimately flow into the mighty Mississippi.

May our collective aspirations truly go as a river, carrying our practices of mindfulness and community, understanding and compassion, happiness and healing into our communities and our world.

Andrew Rock

True Collective Healing

Sept. 1, 2018

Touching the Peace and Ease that is Always Available: A Solitary Retreat Experience

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 13:30:38 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member David Royal for this sharing.

In late June, I was fortunate to be part of a group of FCM members who, along with our teacher Fred Eppsteiner, did a retreat at the Dorje Khyung Dzong (DKD) retreat center in rural southern Colorado. This retreat was a bit of a hybrid in that, although we travelled as a group, it was primarily a solitary retreat. DKD is rather unique in that it is truly set up for solitary retreats. It consists of 8 cabins, spread out so that you don't really see or hear your neighbors. Each cabin has a dedicated walking meditation trail, again ensuring that you can truly practice in solitude. The facility is maintained by a couple (Dan and Sheila) who have been there for a little over 5 years. We didn't see much of them, but they are wonderful hosts and really try to make sure that everything is taken care of, so that retreatants can focus on their practice.

Each day, we were asked to do at least 8 hours of formal meditation practice. I usually took a short walk after breakfast, before it got too hot, but other than that I was either in my cabin or on the meditation path outside. Each afternoon, just before dinner, we gathered as a group for an hour in the shrine room. During this time, we asked questions and shared about our experiences. This was a change from the daily one-on-one interviews that I'd done on previous solitary retreats, and I found it really beneficial. Hearing my fellow practitioners share their insights and struggles, and watching Fred guide them, was extremely instructive.

Practically speaking, days at DKD were simple. Without running water, I collected water from a nearby hydrant and I had a "mindfulness bucket" under my sink that I emptied periodically. Each cabin had its own outhouse and there was a camping toilet for use overnight. Every other day, I got icepacks from the shower house for my cabin's cooler. Since I didn't have refrigeration, I cooked single portions. DKD is also very, very dry, so drinking lots of water (w/ electrolytes) was very important. Honestly, I found all of these tasks (gathering water, emptying waste water, cooking small batches, etc.) to be truly pleasurable mindfulness practices. I was particularly struck by how much I enjoyed the details of cooking simple dishes, as cooking has always been just a means to an end for me.

In terms of the practices, we followed the text "Clarifying the Natural State" by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal. Like "Moonbeams of Mahamudra," also by Namgyal, this wonderfully clear and concise text lays out the Mahamudra path of meditation, starting with the preliminaries, then moving into shamatha (tranquility) and vipashyana (insight) meditation. Even though some of the practices were familiar to me, they felt very fresh. Following such a clear practice text in such a supportive environment was quite powerful. I felt a degree of ease and equanimity over the course of those 10 days that I have never before felt in my life. Past solitary retreats (not to mention my everyday life) have been marked by lots of ups and downs for me, periods of joy alternating with depression and anxiety. This time, to my surprise, there was none of that. Everything felt profoundly OK, moment after moment, day after day.

Every time I go on retreat, I experience more deeply concepts that I understood intellectually, and this retreat was no exception. I felt gratitude for my precious human birth more deeply than ever before, being moved to tears of joy several times on this retreat while reflecting on my good fortune at having found the dharma, a sangha, and a teacher. I also felt that I was truly able to rest in ease and equanimity, both on and off the cushion. Doing this really solidified my confidence in the effectiveness of meditation. So many of the choices I have made in my life have been driven by a desire to find lasting peace of mind. It is wonderful to see, definitively, that this is peace always here.

Another thing that struck me about the text was that, despite it having been written by a Tibetan monk in the 1500s, it was undeniable he and I were working with exactly the same mind. This, too is a source of relief and confidence for me. If we do all truly have the same underlying awareness, then the practices and wisdom that have liberated other practitioners from suffering over the past 2600 years can also work for me. I truly believe that now.

I wasn't sure what it was going to be like to come off this retreat. What would it be like being back with my family? What would it be like at work? I'm happy to report that, while in some ways it is very different being back in the world, I have found it easier to maintain a sense of balance and equanimity, regardless of what is going on. I still lose my cool some times, but at the same time, I know that whatever happens is fine, and that I don't need anything more to be OK.

Personal Transformation and Inter-being are Key to Dealing with Spiritual Climate Crisis, Panelists Say

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 23:44:51 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Carol Green for this sharing

“We don’t have an environment to fix,” Heather Lyn Mann said at a panel discussion on climate change consciousness and behavior at the Tampa Friends (Quakers) meeting house. “We ARE the environment. We inter-are; we ARE nature. We want to take care of our beloved as we want to take care of ourselves.”

Also, there is impermanence, she said. Things manifest when conditions are just so. Civilizations come and go. This thing called “climate change” is also impermanent. If we can see it is also made up of non-climate change elements, we can untie the knots and not be too discouraged. When we look deeply into root causes, we find spiritual pollution – greed, consumption, transportation of goods… When we see the path in, we also see the way out.

The interfaith panel discussion was one of several events at which Mann of Charleston, SC, a founder of the Plum Village tradition’s Earth Holders, recently led discussions about climate change, hope and resiliency. Earth Holders is an organization in Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition that sponsors retreats with Plum Village monastics during their annual U.S. tours, publishes quarterly newsletters and offers information and dharma-related insights into lessening harmful climate change. Their website, www.earthholders.org, is a resource for plant-based nutrition. Mann’s talks were sponsored by the Buddhist Climate Action Network, led by FCM’s Andrew Rock.

Multiple organizations in the Tampa Bay area are attempting to organize to deal with questions arising from climate change, but so far, they are operating mostly in silos, the panel said. A Florida Interfaith Climate Action Network has formed to attempt to coordinate efforts. Groups are exploring individual steps that can be taken through various programs. Mann recommended working with simple steps in small groups to prevent burnout.

Transformation has to happen in us so we can receive the gifts of the world, said the Rev. Russell Meyer, pastor of New Parish of Tampa/St. Paul and Faith Lutheran Churches and executive director of the Florida Council of Churches. “If you have craziness inside you, you will give craziness to the world. We take carbon out of the Earth and throw it into the air.

“Tampa Bay has risen an average of one inch a year (during the last several years). When we have a conversation about retreat, we say that’s where our tax base is – on the shoreline. The craziness inside us is related to the craziness outside us.

“Government action is usually about property rather than people,” Rev. Meyer said. “Our language is the economy, but I think we should talk in the language of love. I see a rising collective consciousness saying, ‘I don’t know where you came from, but I am related to you,’ and that is the language of love.

“I am aware of how traumatized we all are, and the biggest (government) decision makers are children of profound trauma. This leads to compassion. We need to practice it with an open heart,” he said. “We are in a profound transition in this nation from Anglo-Saxon male leadership to minority moving into the majority. It’s inevitable. There are serious issues with status loss and fear. I think it’s a temporary fever. We need to be sensitive to the fever.”

Beverly G. Ward, field secretary for earth care at the Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), said there is a moral and ethical responsibility to deal with care of the Earth. “How do I stay in a place of love?” she asked. She said she was reminded of her childhood in Alabama during the civil rights movement. “If I prepare myself and show up, I’ll be told (spiritually) what to do. I keep trying to listen, and the way opens.

Transforming climate consciousness “is a transformation we must talk about,” Ward said.

Mann said she believed transformation “at the base,” among people will be most effective. “The pendulum seems to be swinging in one direction, but I think people are getting sick of it, and it will swing back farther in the other direction than it otherwise would have.” In the meantime, she said, “none of us has to invent this from scratch. Do work in your own home and find out what else is going on.”

Unfettering the Natural Mind: The Path to Seeing Clearly

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 23:41:47 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Diana Fish for this sharing about the June 2018 FCM retreat at Southern Dharma Retreat Center, north of Asheville, NC

From the time I joined FCM five years ago, I looked forward to having an opportunity to attend the Southern Dharma retreat in NC led by our teacher. After hearing sangha members talk about it each year, it seemed to have an almost mythical significance - not to be compared to any other retreat. Why? Apparently the synchronous fireflies, the lush landscape, cool nights, and mountain views were part of it, but mainly as a backdrop for the deep teachings that went on every summer around the beginning of June. Still, it was difficult for me to justify being gone for a full seven-day retreat so soon after school let out for my son.

This year I decided to take the plunge. It was exactly what I’d heard it would be, and more. The opportunity to practice with many sangha members from our community in such a magical setting, where fireflies illuminate simultaneously after a warm-up of individual flickers, gradually coming together in a beautiful display of inter-connection. Walking up the hill after the last meditation of the evening, seeing this synchronicity amongst insects while birds sang their last songs of night, everything just made sense. Like our walking meditation, which felt like a flowing stream on the covered balcony of the meditation hall, the week flowed with meditation and deep wisdom teachings. On the second evening of retreat, sheets of rain poured down like the cascading waterfalls in the woods. The sound was almost deafening, so we meditated on the rain. As Fred told us, the rain is falling, but there is No One who is listening.

For the first several days, we contemplated Traleg Rinpoche’s writings on the Buddhas’s teachings on the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to the Dharma and Mipham Rinpoche’s The Wheel of Analysis and Meditation That Thoroughly Purifies Mental Activity. We gradually peeled away the layers of projections, created in our minds, which cloud our perception and keep us in a fog of delusion. We were being skillfully led out of this fog. Why were we in a fog of delusion? Grasping and clinging to things that are impermanent, attachments, samsara, and our inability to understand and recognize karmic cause and effect. These teachings were the backdrop for the main text of retreat, The Flight of the Garuda, by Lama Shabkar, written in 1891.

The foundational shift for me came during the fourth evening’s dharma talk. I had been carefully following Fred’s teaching on recognizing our thoughts as thoughts, not as reality, but as mental projections on our interpretation of reality. Suddenly, I could feel Shabkar’s instructions in my bones:

“This so-called “mind” thinks, and knows this and that,

And moves to and fro’.

If you pursue it, it isn’t caught, but vanishes as elusive as mist… “

By seeing clearly, without a veil of habitual preference, suddenly everything was vivid and focused. It was a choice. It was as easy as turning on a light switch, or as fireflies illuminating.

“Observed, it is primordially empty; there is nothing there to grasp.”

Looking directly at a thought, examining it closely, the thought simply vanished. It didn’t require careful examination anymore, or carefully choosing an “antidote” to an aversive emotional state. Suddenly, I could clearly see a path which flowed as naturally as the cascading waterfalls along the mountains. I could see the vast potential for unfettering my natural mind.

The pure joy of retreat is an opportunity I hope everyone will have. It’s a gift we give ourselves. Away from our usual lives, we allow the teachings to be absorbed deeply, alongside our sangha family of serious students of the dharma. We let go of our habit energies and open to a whole new realm of possibility.

Thay’s Teachings of Oneness with Mother Earth Are Embraced by Heather Lyn Mann

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 18:57:27 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Carol Green for this article

The environmental community has gone after big issues, like scientists’ reports about melting permafrost in the Arctic and rising seas, but has not brought them down to the personal level, said Heather Lyn Mann, Buddhist spiritual ecologist who spoke recently to the Florida Community of Mindfulness and other groups in the Tampa Bay area.

This big-picture reality is frightening and creates fear and division, she said. There is another, more mindful, way to look it. Yes, it is reality, but there is hope, and there are things individuals can do by taking a mindful, dharma-based approach.

Mann, of Charleston, SC, is a co-founder of Earth Holders, an organization in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition that sponsors retreats with Plum Village monastics during their annual U.S. tours, publishes quarterly newsletters and offers information and dharma-related insights into lessening harmful climate change. Their website, www.earthholders.org, also is a resource for plant-based nutrition. Mann’s visit was sponsored by the Buddhist Climate Action Network, led by FCM’s Andrew Rock.

Five million people live in 2.5 million homes less than four feet above sea level in the U.S., she said. Sea level is expected to rise two to seven feet in this century. “Notice what happens in your body when I say that,” she said. “Do you feel angry? Sad? Notice what comes up for you. Sometimes we push away, disagree with each other. This is multiplied across the world. This is what the early stage of climate discovery looks like.

“I use tonglen. I breathe in that strong emotion, and I breathe out compassion. I encourage you to stay with reality and look at the causes and conditions that brought us to this point. Deep looking requires changes. We have the delusion of separate self in our society, a separation between self and others and separation between self and the Earth. It is a dangerous dualistic form of species arrogance that we can commodify resources and exploit other people for our own benefit. We think we can tolerate harm to the climate because America will be ok and other countries won’t. But America won’t be ok. Our objectifying is grounded in other-making.

“What is our relationship to the planet? I hear environmentalists say our species is horrible, or sometimes they say we are superior. That doesn’t fit for me. Also, we are not equal to nature; we have to have an ‘other’ to be equal to it. We ARE nature. We are dependently co-arising. The inside and outside dissolves. We can embrace our reality and oneness. Carl Sagan said, ‘We are the Universe contemplating itself’.

“In Earth Holders, we approach happiness as the cure for the climate crisis, and one of the ways we can be happy is to fall in love with Mother Earth all over again.

“Falling in love with Mother Earth is equal to heaven on earth. It’s sacred all the time. When you are one with the Earth, you can see it has qualities of endurance and stability and accepts everyone without discrimination. We do not worship it; that would be to create an ‘other,’ but we can be one with it, which puts us in deep communion. Love means ‘to be one with’.”

Balancing Climate Reality and Spiritual Hope: Buddhist Ecologist Inspires Tampa Bay Audiences

Mon, 28 May 2018 00:35:04 GMT

With Gratitude to FCM Member Carol Green for this Article

Sailing the Atlantic in major gales and life-threatening disasters offered lessons in reflecting about the terror of the unknown future of climate change, said Heather Lyn Mann, spiritual ecologist and co-founder of the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition’s Earth Holders Sangha, in a recent series of presentations to the Florida Community of Mindfulness (FCM) and other groups in the Tampa Bay area.

You don’t really know you have been sailing (or confronting the desperate fear of climate change) until you have been deeply frightened, but if you can stay safely in the moment, you may be able to make a significant difference, she said. Balancing facing reality with maintaining hope, she led discussions with FCM, students and faculty at the New College in Sarasota and the Shambhala Sangha in St. Petersburg. Her talks were sponsored by the Buddhist Climate Action Network, headed by FCM’s Andrew Rock.

Earth Holders is an organization in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition that sponsors retreats with Plum Village monastics during their annual U.S. tours, publishes quarterly newsletters and offers information and dharma-related insights into lessening harmful climate change. Their website, www.earthholders.org, is a resource for plant-based nutrition.

Mann and her husband, Dave, had been dreaming of sailing for years, and when they finally had saved enough, she looked deeply at her fatigue from her work in developing conservation land trusts and knew it was time. They embarked on a journey that ultimately took them six years on the Wild Hair, a sailboat, around the “Great Atlantic Teacher,” learning lessons in mindfulness and the power of the planet that served her well as she wrote a memoir, Ocean of Insight: A Sailor’s Voyage from Despair to Hope, and now leads a spiritual ecology movement in Charleston, SC.

They made basic sailor mistakes on their voyage, yet reflected on those mistakes to extract larger teachings. Just as they survived despite their sailors’ errors, in spite of mistakes in over-consumption and thoughtless choices in using the Earth, we can still have a positive impact, she said.

“There is passive hope, where you sit and wish that things were different,” she said. “And there is active hope, where you are always listening to reality, being clear about the world you want, and, when you have the opportunity, act without weighing whether you will be successful or not.”

She described an incident in which her husband drifted away from their marooned sailboat in a dinghy without a motor or supplies, possibly never to be seen again. All she could do was issue mayday calls on their radio and wait. He survived. “In some ways, I was powerless, I had no influence, but I still had dominion over my own actions. I mobilized support. Evolution gave me awareness, volition and choice originating from within. These are superpowers.

“Even the tiniest deed sparked into action can spark a revolution,” she said. “We can just do the simple thing in front of us to do. Thich Nhat Hanh had already figured that out and he took refuge in the earth. It’s a giant Dharma door.

“The way we treat the planet and the way we exploit people happens because we forget we are interconnected,” she said.

Organizations are now attempting to translate science into an understanding that laypersons can act on. Earth Holders and its website www.earthholders.org was born with the blessing of the Plum Village monastics and now is about to expand to a larger community including other movements, such as climate justice organizations, she said. This communications and resource hub holds monthly online meetings, issues a quarterly newsletter and has a practice manual that covers many topics, including how to write “love letters” to government officials and giving tips on plant-based eating.

Mann began an organization called Higher Ground in Charleston to re-frame discussions about changing lives and policies of that city as coastal flooding encroaches. Her work frames the issue as not just an environmental/ecological crisis, but a spiritual crisis, as well, asking, How can we live lives of meaning during this challenge?

To speak to people with opposing views, Mann recommended finding ways to find common ground: talk about air pollution, flooding in shared communities, how we all care about the country we inherited, concerns about our kids’ futures, rather than “climate change.” She recommended reading the works of Katharine Hayhoe, a conservative Christian scientist who writes and speaks about why evangelicals should care about climate change.

Mann recommended that those concerned about climate change do the “inner work,” first getting clear that mindfulness is their foundation. She cautioned that we have to do “twice as much inner grounding” as outside work to maintain the equanimity required for the long haul. Then, if we decide to take action, we can tackle the matters that we can directly impact, rather than becoming frozen and despondent about the big picture. She recommended forming small groups using the book Low Carbon Diet: A 30-Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds, by David Gerson, published by the Empowerment Institute. It provides simple, everyday steps that individuals may take to reduce their carbon footprints, such as drive more slowly, don’t use clothes dryers, and take shorter showers.

We have to bring a “don’t know” mind to our ecological practice, constantly asking, “Am I sure?” Mann said, drawing a parallel to a judgment error that she and her husband made as their sailing venture drew to a close in the Bahamas, where they almost lost their lives. “We have to let go what we think we know. You can get swept into your predictions of what you think is going to happen in the future. Insight and meditation sometimes lets us absorb what is beyond our perceptions. The future is yet to be written. Scientific studies are weather reports, and many things can open up.

A Yale University study distills it:

1. Climate change is real.

2. It’s bad.

3. It’s us.

4. 97 percent of scientists agree.

5. There’s hope.

“In the next 25 years, things will be seesaw: wet and dry, hot and cold, fewer storms but more intense, flooding will occur in coastal states. Our brothers and sisters in island nations, most of Africa, polar regions, the deltas of Africa will be on the front lines. Pope Francis says we have a debt to the poor, not to wallow in guilt but to create a world with more fairness going forward. How can we breathe in the sensations of discomfort and breathe out compassion and the possibility that we can build a completely different route going forward? What simple actions can we manifest today as a life mantra, as a mindfulness practice?

“Turn to your beginner’s mind and look at reality. We must stop ourselves from leaping forward. Stay in the present moment. Notice what’s right. Let go of notions about politics -- no judgment, no blame -- empowering yourself.

“Our response to the climate challenge should not be rushed. This is the time to stop and consider how to influence things within our reach. They don’t have to be big and grand, just within our reach.”

Reflections from a Spring Retreat at the Franciscan Center

Mon, 07 May 2018 16:53:54 GMT

With gratitude to Mitch Schaefer for this sharing

As I walked along the Hillsboro River on the first evening of the Spring Retreat, I reflected upon my aspirations for the next three days. I decided they were: 1) to deepen my understanding of the four nutriments and develop a greater moment to moment awareness of what I am consuming; 2) to leave the retreat with clarity on where I am going to reduce consumption of the things that are harmful and contribute to my suffering, and where to increase those which are more wholesome; 3) to strengthen my meditation practice by increasing my ability to (more effortlessly) focus on my breath, and by becoming a more objective observer of my thoughts; and 4) to feel gratitude for the journey I have traveled since becoming an FCM member last year- for my deepening spiritual practice, my new Sangha friendships, and for the peace I am experiencing from a regular meditation practice.

The retreat gave me everything I hoped for, and more. Here are just a few of the many moments which I found valuable:

The opportunity to journal throughout the retreat was a very meaningful approach for capturing insights during the dharma talks and jotting down reflections on my patterns of consumption. I left the retreat with strong commitments of where I intended to make changes in each of the four nutriments - specifically, where I was going to reduce consumption and what I was going to replace it with.

There were several visualization exercises that were very powerful for me. One took place in the Meta Garden, where I had the opportunity to offer "meta flowers" to myself and other people in my life. The imagery and emotions associated with this exercise were filled with warmth, spaciousness and compassion. The other exercise was a visualization sitting by the river-bank, watching various boats (i.e., thoughts) float by - each with their own stories and adventures. Following this exercise, I was able to "observe" the boats go by without getting pulled onto them from the shore. Weeks after the retreat new images and metaphors continue to arise in my mind, creating a feeling of spaciousness and light-hearted moments.

The opportunity to learn from senior students who have been studying with Fred for so many years was truly a gift. Their understanding of the dharma runs very deep, yet at the same time, they shared their daily struggles on the path with honesty, humility and humor. This made the teachings feel so real and accessible, while demonstrating the self-compassion we each need to offer to ourselves on our spiritual journeys.

And then, we had the good fortune to have our venerable Zen Master (aka, Fred) lead the Dharma teachings each evening and take our understanding to new depths. We talked about the body as a vehicle to transport us through our journey in this life, and how we wish to care for it. We explored the cumulative affects consuming a constant barrage of input through our senses has on our emotional well-being. Fred challenged each of us to examine if we were truly willing to let go of our never-ending pursuit of pleasure - and commit to the possibility of simply enjoying a pleasurable experience, without attachment.

And, we discussed the importance of choosing which of the seeds that have been planted in our storehouse consciousness over the years we want to focus on watering, with the understanding that..."what we take in conditions our mind, which ultimately conditions what we take in."

As our weekend came to a close, perhaps the most practical insight we discussed was that despite our high aspirations, transformation will not occur if we do not have a clear understanding of our "employer-employee" relationship with our 'guard at the gate'. We were challenged to assess what type of employer we are, and how to ensure our guard stands mindfully by our side, alert yet with compassion, ready to help us make the right choices. And that we should not be too generous with his or her vacation time.

Though the three days passed quickly, I left the retreat with a feeling equanimity and a renewed sense of volition to make better choices. I also departed with deep gratitude to Angie, Betsy, Diane, Fred, and my fellow retreatants for the experience we shared together. And to think that the majority of our time together was spent in "noble silence".

An Auspicious Occasion

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 21:12:06 GMT

With gratitude to Jacqulyn Schuett for this sharing

Sharp sounds of the han emanating from the meditation hall’s back porch invited everyone to gather around the site of the Great Cloud Refuge, FCM’s soon-to-be-built residential home. The patch of dirt that was once the caretaker’s cottage was surrounded by colorful prayer flags and on the east side stood an altar with four clear bowls of water. Participants heard the han quicken to a flurry of piercing sounds and come to an abrupt stop. Then came the more familiar sound of the large temple bell as the ceremonial procession emerged from the meditation hall.

Incense led the way for our teacher, four monastic guests and five FCM members who followed, carrying beautiful consecration vessels. Members of the procession offered incense on behalf of the entire community as the vessels were placed on the outside altar. A prayer of gratitude acknowledged the people of the past who have used the land and expressed the aspiration to bring benefit to the ones in the future who will inhabit the grounds – that they, and the beauty of the Refuge may contribute to the harmony of the neighborhood and the world. The community joined Fred in reciting The Three Refuges – the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Using the bowls of water that had been offered on the altar and long-stemmed red roses, blessings were bestowed on the site by Brother Radiant, Brother Dharma Emptiness, Sister Flower Adornment and Sister True Practice.

While the community chanted the Heart Sutra, the monastics accompanied Angie, Betsy, Fred, Sam, Rich and Alex as the four blue treasure vessels were placed in the ground at the four corners of the future Refuge and the fifth one, larger and adorned with butterflies, was lowered into the ground at the center of the site. Inspired by the words of Patrul Rinpoche, Fred offered a most beautiful dedication prayer affirming the heartfelt intention for transformation and liberation to be realized through this Refuge and the continuing efforts of the Florida Community of Mindfulness. Then aspirations written by members of the community filled the air as they were read simultaneously from the four corners. The words ‘may we be well’ concluded the ceremony with everyone joining Tim Hamm for the Metta Song.

April 8 marked the auspicious occasion of the Great Cloud Refuge Consecration Ceremony. Our community had the good fortune to host the Board of the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation at just the time when a ceremony was planned. The lay and monastic board members provided a tangible connection to the greater Plum Village Community. The connection to the Tibetan stream of Dharma was heard as Fred read his adaptation of Patrul Rinpoche’s dedication prayer. A few people noted another, perhaps, auspicious sign when the colorful and gilded ceramic incense bowl cracked as Fred read the prayer.

Countless hours, gifts and acts of generosity led up to this beautiful ceremony. In the days preceding the ceremony many precious articles were left at the Center to be placed in the consecration vessels – small Buddhas, tiny prayer flags, precious gems and semiprecious stones. People made tiny scrolls of miniature copies of sutras and Buddha images. The aspirations shared by sangha members were sweetly calligraphed so that they would be exquisitely articulated within the vessels. On Saturday the meditation hall was cleaned and prepared. The grounds were groomed and the flags were hung. The precious objects and little scrolls were delicately placed in treasure vessels with reverence and deep aspiration.

Early Sunday the outdoor altar and its adornments were completed as the tech team positioned the sound equipment. At the same time, the vessels were beautifully sealed with copper by skilled mindful hands and brought to the altar in the meditation hall so members of the community could meditate in their presence – offering their energy and intentions for what Great Cloud will become.

During his Dharma talk just before the ceremony, Brother Radiant referred to the beloved community. All who shared in and contributed to this experience know the preciousness of ‘the beloved community.’ Deep gratitude to the Three Jewels and to our dear teacher.

The Transformative Power of Retreat

Sat, 31 Mar 2018 20:02:00 GMT

With gratitude to Chris Witrak for this sharing

The Deconstructing World of Self retreat in January was my first FCM retreat, and the experience was life-changing. I had already taken the first Deconstructing the Myth of Self intensive in the fall, and Fred’s Dharma talks during the retreat on how the self tries to claim everything really accentuated how pervasive the self can be in our lives. Seeing it this way also made it clear that day-to-day living would be much easier and less stressful if I let go of attaching to the self and not get entangled in emotionality and likes and dislikes. Thanks to the teachings and the retreat, I now have a clearer understanding of what it means to practice letting go of the self, which has brought much peace and emotional healing to my life.

Throughout the retreat, we had question-and-answer periods with Fred. These sessions provided me with some of the most important insights from the retreat. It became clear that many of us – myself included – had built up in our minds that the self was this big enemy that needed to be subdued. Fred clarified that the self is essentially just a small voice chirping in your head, which made the idea of putting down the self seem much less difficult. Another individual also asked if he should totally let go of self and everything that it claims, and Fred affirmed to just let it all go. I realized that part of the practice with non-self was simply being willing to just put the self down without overthinking. I also felt instant relief because I let go of goals and ideas that I believed I needed to be happy but just caused stress and weren’t necessary in any sense.

During one question-and-answer period, Fred provided a very brief thought exercise to show how the self has no real, permanent substance, and this brought about a light-bulb moment. We were discussing the self and its need for approval, and he asked who or what is it that cares if you walk into a room and no one notices you. He pointed out that the body doesn’t care; it’s just the self in the mind that cares. I then realized that I, me, mine is no more real than the idea of a unicorn, and like letting go of the idea of a unicorn, I can just let go of the idea of self. For thoughts such as “I like or want x, y, or z,” I had only been letting go of the x, y, or z part but not really letting go of the first half of the thought. I was trying to push away the I, me, mine, causing unnecessary drama and making things worse instead of just putting it down and coming back to the present moment.

Fred also discussed what it meant to take refuge in the Three Jewels, which I had only heard mentioned briefly before at various times. The idea of taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and trusting them as guides for life initially brought up feelings of resistance since I had negative feelings toward the religion of my upbringing. By the end of Fred’s discussion on the topic, however, I had no concerns about taking refuge. Fred pointed out that taking refuge is not some dogmatic adherence to a belief system and that we’re always taking refuge in something anyway as a guide for living our lives – which is usually the self. He also pointed out that it makes sense to take refuge in a path and teachings formulated by someone who has already found a way out of suffering rather than in the self that has caused the messes in the first place. I thought to myself, “Well, when you put it that way…” I didn’t see any need to try and reinvent the wheel either. I experienced the value of taking refuge in the Sangha in a deep way during the retreat as well. In addition to the questions asked by other brothers and sisters, also hearing about their experiences made my struggles seem less unique and less daunting. I’ve heard before that the more personal something is the more universal it is, and this proved to be true, helping me feel more connected with others.

Since the retreat ended, practicing with letting go of the self when it arises has not only made day-to-day living easier, but it has also made it easier to figure out where emotional healing work needs to be done. Anytime I continually get caught on I, me, mine and in grasping and aversion in a certain area, I look more deeply at this part of my life to try and find why I can’t let go of identifying with the self in this instance. Fred and others have helped me look at these issues and show me where or why I’m getting caught, and I’ve already let go of several unhelpful assumptions and beliefs that I had not really been conscious of before. Sometimes doing this investigating and letting go stirs up strong emotions, but knowing that the emotions and the I, me, mine that gets attached to them aren’t “me” or anything permanent has made it much easier to do the work of healing emotional wounds and letting them go.

Thank you to Fred and everyone who organized and attended the retreat for a wonderful experience and the opportunity to deepen my practice.

Bowing,

Chris

Retreat as Refuge (or: Why to Go On Retreat When the Talks are on YouTube)

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:27:10 GMT

With gratitude to Brandy Kidd for this sharing

For many years and for various reasons, I did not go on retreats. There were times when my children were younger and I didn't feel at ease being away from them; there were times (and still are) when it wasn't in my budget or when work demands made it (seemingly) impossible. When I can't go, I watch the YouTube videos that are recorded for those of us unable to attend the retreat in person. I appreciate it that this opportunity is always provided and I've been enriched by what I've learned from those videos.

That being said, I also say this: if at all possible, attend the retreat in person!

Perhaps you think I'm saying this because it's such a luxury to go on retreat. Often when friends and family members hear that I'm going on retreat, they seem to envision plush robes and steam rooms with new age music piped in from the great beyond. I hear a lot of "oh, how I would LOVE to get away from it all!"

On the other end of the spectrum are those who look upon me with an expression that ranges from squinty-eyed dismay to wide-eyed, eyebrows-raised panic: "Four days without looking at your phone or computer?? What if someone needs you?? What if something happens??" or "Four days without talking! I could never do that! I'd go crazy!"

But the real reason I say "Go!" is this: the process of being on retreat works hand-in-hand with what one learns on retreat. It's true that the talks are deeply meaningful. But for me, it's the potent alchemy that takes place when I have the privilege of learning dharma in a setting that simultaneously requires me to practice it right then and there - in a setting that requires me to let go and trust (or make myself miserable otherwise).

Because on retreat, there is nothing to control. It's a bit akin to sailing a rudder-less boat. A gong clangs when to wake up, when to head to the Meditation Hall or the Dining Hall, to yoga or outside walking meditation. The schedule is posted. The thermostat is set. The menu is chosen; the food, prepared and the mess: it's cleaned up when I'm done. The retreatant can simply go with the flow. And this is amazing - except when Self decides it's not.

And here is when it gets juicy. Because Self can use any opportunity to have a problem with anything! Self opines that the rooms are too hot or too cold; that the food is too bland or too spicy; one's fellow retreatants far superior or inferior (and all of the above can vacillate from one minute to the next). But because it's quieter and more free of distractions outside of the mind: it is crystal clear just what sort of misery-making the Self is up to, 24/7/365. Whether I'm on retreat or at home doing the dishes, Self (Ego) is doing its "thing" of evaluating, comparing, judging - generally disabling my capacity to be truly alive and aware of whatever the present moment is offering. It's just that on retreat: I am blessed with the clarity to watch it, recognize it and with practice, begin to transform it.

Advance Care Planning for End of Life Care: Lessons Learned

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 19:19:41 GMT

With gratitude to Marilyn Warlick for this sharing

If you had a serious accident or illness, would your family know what medical interventions you wanted? Would they be able to ensure that your wishes are met?

Recently FCM members gathered for a class on Advance Care Planning to address these questions and other topics that relate to our personal values and wishes for end of life care. The class was sponsored by Empath Choices for Care and led by social worker and hospice counselor, Arwyn Elden. While not a subject that normally rouses a lot of enthusiasm, it was well attended by our community in-person and on livestream and a number of our members wrote to us to let us know how valuable the class had been for them.

In the class Arwyn shared numerous examples of unexpected deaths from accidents and surprising diagnoses. Through these stories we were helped to realize that the time and means of our death is uncertain. We were reminded with kindness for ourselves and our families of the importance of filling out an Advance Care Planning Document (also called a Living Will) and establishing a Health Care Surrogate. These tools and lots of conversations (deep sharing and listening) will help prepare ourselves and loved ones for our death in regards to medical care and decisions that might need to be made if we are unable to speak for ourselves.

Four important points were presented in the class: 1- this is a process which includes assessing your values to determine our wishes at the end of life, 2- the importance of initiating the essential conversations with loved ones about quality of life and goals of care in regard to medical decision-making, 3- educating ourselves on and selecting a health-care surrogate, and 4- completing and utilizing a living will.

As a community of Buddhist practitioners we want to continue to increase our awareness of impermanence and the inevitability of death. We know how valuable it is to use available tools such as those presented in this class and to have intimate and informed conversations with each other and with our loved ones about the realities of our deaths and health care decisions that may need to be made. You will find valuable resources on the Empath Health website at https://empathhealth.org/the-gift-of-advance-care-planning/ and of course that are lots of other resources online and in our local communities.

The Profundity of Transmission

Mon, 05 Mar 2018 23:18:18 GMT

With gratitude to Marsy Mechling for this sharing

The morning of February 4th welcomed a wonderful series of Transmissions in Tampa: Transmission of the Two Promises, the Three Refuges, the Five Mindfulness Trainings, the Bodhisattva Vow, and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. I live in Charlotte, NC, and although I participate in FCM retreats, intensives, and a telephone Sangha, I had never actually been to a Sunday Sangha service in person. It was well worth the effort to travel to Tampa and to join the sangha in person to participate in these profound Transmissions.

To see the five children make the Two Promises was so very lovely. I felt such happiness for them – happiness that they have the opportunity to study the Dharma at such a young age and that they are making the promise to develop understanding and compassion. Although I have recited the Three Refuges and the Five Mindfulness Trainings many times, it was important to “officially” proclaim that I will take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha and to pledge publicly to adhere to the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Also, by receiving the Transmissions, to receive a Dharma name and to formally become part of a long line of Buddhist practitioners who have kept this path well-tended and alive for 2,600 years is very meaningful. To me, the study and practice of Buddhism is active and alive. It is not just listening to teachings or reading a book. It is looking deeply at the teachings, reflecting on and sincerely considering the teachings, and enacting the teachings in my everyday life, allowing the teachings to saturate my body, speech, and mind. Receiving the Transmission is a formal way of incorporating the Dharma into my life.

For me, the day offered another opportunity: to take the Bodhisattva Vow. Having studied Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva for the last year, taking the vow to follow that Way felt natural. How can I do anything other than to do my best to follow the directions set out so clearly by Shantideva so that I might live with compassion and wisdom for the benefit of all beings? Of course, not every day of my life unfolds as beautifully as the ceremony, and I have much, much wisdom still to gain, but I will continue to study, look deeply, and utilize the Transmissions and vows as directions along the way.

To watch as Fred transmitted the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings to the Order of Interbeing aspirants was quite profound also. I again experienced a sense of joy as I listened to the five individuals making the vows to follow the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. I felt gratitude for these fellow beings who are declaring to proceed forward in life with the fourteen trainings as the ground from which they will conduct the actions of body, speech, and mind. Great commitment was expressed by all who participated that day. I was very inspired as I listened. To participate alongside so many others receiving the wisdom and guidance of these promises, transmissions, and vows both grounded me and lifted me up with joy, gratitude, and hopefulness for the future. It was so very good to feel the support and positive energy of the community as people offered congratulations and other expressions of joy to one another.

And now as long as space endures,

As long as there are beings to be found,

May I continue likewise to remain

To drive away the sorrows of the world.

~ The Way of the Bodhisattva, chapter 10, verse 55

Advance Care Planning for End of Life Care: Lessons Learned

Mon, 05 Mar 2018 23:12:13 GMT

If you had a serious accident or illness, would your family know what medical interventions you wanted? Would they be able to ensure that your wishes are met?

Recently FCM members gathered for a class on Advance Care Planning to address these questions and other topics that relate to our personal values and wishes for end of life care. The class was sponsored by Empath Choices for Care and led by social worker and hospice counselor Arwyn Elden. While not a subject that normally rouses a lot of enthusiasm, it was well attended by our community in-person and on livestream and a number of our members wrote to us to let us know how valuable the class had been for them.

Four important points were presented in the class: 1) this is a process which includes assessing your values to determine our wishes at the end of life, 2) the importance of initiating the essential conversations with loved ones about quality of life and goals of care in regard to medical decision-making, 3) educating ourselves on and selecting a health-care surrogate, and 4) completing and utilizing a living will.

Bringing the Dharma Alive: A Weekend with the Ven Pannavati

Sat, 24 Feb 2018 20:28:40 GMT

With gratitude to Diane Powell for this sharing.

Last weekend the Dharma was brought alive by Venerable Dr. Pannavati during a non-residential retreat she lead at our Tampa Practice Center. Venerable Pannavati is a Buddhist monk and teacher based in North Carolina who travels throughout the United States and internationally to preach the Dharma. “Preach” is an apt word both because she is a former Christian minister and also because her animated, expressive presentation was imbued with a quiet but absolute conviction and passion for the truths of the Dharma.

Like our teacher, Fred, Venerable Pannavati has studied and practiced in multiple Buddhist traditions, and her teachings drew upon her broad and deep knowledge of the Dharma as well as her own experiences of transformation and realization. In one moment she would share a story from ancient Zen or Tibetan teachings to demonstrate a point. Then in the next moment she could break into a burst of hearty laughter-- preceding a story she was telling on herself, an example illustrating how she had to learn a truth of Dharma the hard way: an open sharing of her own personal history and past struggles, all for our benefit.

The topic Sister Pannavati chose for the retreat was a familiar one to many of us--Non-Self, which was the focus of the FCM January Retreat and is also the theme of our current Dharma Path Intensive. The teachings she brought to us on this topic could have come straight from the Intensive: that the self is a core source of our suffering, that we need to know the self before we can be free of it, and that understanding the true nature of the self is the way to our liberation. Her presentation was a wonderful combination of wisdom teachings—that we must understand deeply the illusive nature of self, and the concrete and practical-- that only through mindfulness can we begin to know the self and the reminder that the self can endlessly justify its afflictive reactions.

The retreat topic and teachings were familiar, but the form in which they were presented was completely unique and fresh. The Dharma flowing through Ven Pannavati was joyful, authentic and radiated both love of the Dharma and love for all of us who were there absorbing her presence and teachings.

Building Collective Consciousness - Wisdom from Earth Holders Retreat

Sun, 18 Feb 2018 13:47:20 GMT

MONASTICS STRESS BUILDING COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

AT EARTH HOLDERS RETREAT

With gratitude to FCM member Carol Green for this sharing

When we look into our own bodily formation, we see Mother Earth inside us, and so the whole universe is inside us, too. Once we have this insight of interbeing, it is possible to have real communication, real communion, with the Earth. This is the highest possible form of prayer.

To express our reverence for the Earth is not to deify her or believe she is any more sacred than ourselves. It is to love her, to take care of her and to take refuge in her. When we suffer, the Earth embraces us, accepts us, and restores our energy, making us strong and stable again. The relief that we seek is right under our feet and all around us. Much of our suffering can be healed if we realize this. If we understand our deep connection and relationship with the Earth, we will have enough love, strength, and awakening to look after ourselves and the Earth so that we both can thrive. – Love Letter to Mother Earth (Thich Naht Hanh)

A mindful approach in building a strong, loving collective consciousness is the best path to resilience and to effective action in addressing catastrophic climate change, Buddhist monastics at this past fall’s Earth Holders “In the Arms of Mother Earth” retreat in Abiquiu, NM told about 200 participants.

Ten monks and nuns from several monasteries in the Plum Village tradition on their 2017 Awakening Together Monastic Tour spent four days at the Ghost Ranch Conference Center teaching Thich Naht Hanh’s approach to deepening love of Mother Earth and working together to strengthen collective consciousness of ecological vulnerability. The monastics sang, walked, played and radiated love and understanding as they offered guidance to attendees from across the country, most of whom expressed deep suffering because of concern about climate change and the U.S. political response to its threats.

Practitioners were urged to first return to basics to deal with their emotional suffering and unconscious ways of living -- to stabilize themselves by returning to fundamental dharma teachings and by practicing mindfulness, then to turn inward and examine their own consumerism -- before trying to reform or challenge others.

Looking inside leads to wise engagement, reduces the likelihood of becoming overwhelmed and reminds us to re-examine depth of our personal commitment, said Sister The Nghiem (True Vow), abbess of White Crane Hamlet at Blue Cliff Monastery in Pine Bush, NY. As we do so, we can then step forward to encounter suffering with awareness, right intention and right action and use suffering as a magnifying glass to see what the suffering holds: Ignorance, craving, hatred and fear. As we see clearly and with equanimity and non-judgmentally, clarity arises as to what has to be done. This leads to openness, no fighting, just understanding.

She told participants that as we look at ourselves, we realize that we can leave a smaller imprint on the Earth by consuming less, sharing our resources and de-cluttering. This is Grounded Radicalism, she said.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings are instructive as guides. The “elephant in the room is how we consume.” There is a need for a radical shift, especially among Americans, she said. She urged us to question whether we need five TV sets, three cars and an overflowing closet. She said consumer boycotts have targeted some large corporations, showing that reduced demand for certain goods can lead to reduced output by manufacturers. Individual action, which becomes collective action, does count, she said. It is grass roots and has an immediate way of effecting change.

What are we consuming and how much? she asked. There is a wisdom in simplifying, de-cluttering and sharing our resources, and we should not be afraid to be radical in this way, she said.

“Simplify your living,” she said. “Enough is enough.” If you are too cluttered in material things, your mind is also cluttered, and you are stressed, and you can’t focus on your mind or body. You can see more clearly what’s important if you de-clutter. She suggested moderation, but not abstinence.

Sister Man Ngheim (Sister Brightness), of Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, CA, stressed that individual mental formations contribute to collective consciousness. She said if we adopt separateness, right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, in our views, we create war collectively. When we create dualism, it builds to a collective level. Teach the dharma through how you live, she urged. Together we can do a lot. That’s how all great change happens -- when the individual contributes to the collective.

Brother Phap Luu (Brother Dharma Stream) of Dharma Cloud Monastery in Plum Village, described how he became so committed to environmentalism that he wrote a proposal to mandate that all practice centers fill out a form each year to evaluate their ecological practices. He nervously presented his plan to Thay and “got the hammer.” Thay asked: “What are you going to do with that? Have you learned to live together? If not, what is the point?”

And so, he learned from Thay, a master community builder, an important lesson – that imposing a restriction on a group causes suffering, while leading by example so that others commit of their own free will builds a strong and lasting following and community.

He asked: In what ways can we honor our deep love and commitment to the planet that gives us life and amazes us and also have peace and harmony in the family? Do you know how to live together in harmony? It is the key to happiness and to our survival. Building a brother/sisterhood in a solid way is very important to take care of our pain, he said.

He said Thay was in despair about what happened to his village in Vietnam. As he watched it being destroyed during the Vietnam War, he turned to his monks and said, I have to work with American soldiers. To do so, he had to manage his emotions. Thay discovered that walking meditation helped him deal with his pain. He walked slowly and mindfully, counting his steps with in and out breaths, and it led to a deep transformation and to his life-long love for Mother Earth.

We are looking deeply at catastrophic climate change, Brother Stream said. He invited attendees to look deeply at interbeing and to cultivate compassion for people, plants, animals and minerals.

He said the mark of true practitioners is to cultivate joy wherever they are. If you see a piece of trash being thrown on Mother Earth, you can transform the resulting anger into compassion. The act generates anger from seeds in the unconscious, but mindfulness teaches you to pause and transform the anger into compassion and understanding: “Yes, I was unskillful once and threw trash on the road.” Before you allow it to overwhelm your consciousness, you move it aside while it is still an acorn, before it becomes full-blown anger. Compassion is soft, but strong. It allows you to approach the person who threw the trash and build a relationship with him, opening the door to change.

Can we have compassion when the Environmental Protection Agency is being dismantled? Can we look at President Trump through the eyes of practice? We have to be careful not to fall into despair (and give up), he said.

He said Trump is a manifestation of the collective consciousness as it stood in 2016, and we don’t yet have enough understanding with our brothers and sisters to have built a stronger collective consciousness (than the one that elected Trump). We have to go into places where there is poverty, opioid addiction and other problems and help suffering people transform their minds, not seek to transform only their political platforms, he said. As their minds transform, Americans have the possibility to wake up and see the beauty and healing power of nature, and we can help them do that, he said.

Brother Phap Ho (Brother Dharma Protector) of Deer Park Monastery, a native of Stockholm, Sweden, urged using time, presence and the support of sangha to create collective consciousness. Our presence is the greatest gift we can give someone, he said. How do we cultivate the capacity to be there for someone? Where are we spending our time and energy? Is it coming from our intention or from our habit energy? What do we prioritize?

When we are challenged, isn’t that the time to go to sangha? We can recharge, put our burdens down. If you are hesitating, that means you should not think about it. Just go.

Are we avoiding what needs to be done? Are we talking to people? Why or why not? What is most important? Do we heal friction? How do we reach people and heal? Become calm and see what is really going on, he urged.

How can we avoid confusion and despair in a world of too much news? Watching the news brings emotions. We’re taking it in without giving ourselves enough time to digest it. Take the news in small bites, then spend the time to go inside yourself before you take in any more, he suggested. Deep looking is an art. It’s different from figuring something out. Deep looking requires becoming calm, stopping and relaxing body and mind.

Being born in this time gives us the responsibility to care for more people. What we have is not mine; it belongs to everyone. When we look into the idea of Self, we should think, What about other people? Humans have awareness and abstract thinking, plus they can collaborate. How do we use our ability to collaborate in a responsible, loving way?

How can I organize my life and practice so I can grow so I can benefit many others?

True virtues are understanding and love (Love is possible when you understand someone) and cutting off afflictions (which make us busy and use up our energy).

We don’t come from nowhere. We were a fetus. We have parents. We need oxygen, water, plants, animals. Our ancestors continue in us. We have some say over our actions that affect plants, animals and the Earth. He read from the Three Touchings of the Earth:

Touching the Earth, I connect with ancestors and descendants of both my spiritual and my blood families.
Touching the Earth, I connect with all people and all species that are alive at this moment in this world with me.
Touching the Earth, I let go of my idea that I am this body and my life span is limited.

I am one with all. I am present everywhere on this planet, in the past and in the future.

How do we fall in love with Mother Earth and stay in love? Hiking and other outdoor activities are not enough. We need a space where we feel safe. The Earth Holders group is trying to bring insight, understanding and love into the existing climate movement, not trying to create a separate movement.

He suggested joining EcoSattva training with One Earth Sangha (whose training started recently; contact Andrew Rock in Tampa to enroll), Buddhist Climate Action Network, Buddhist Global Network, Arise for Social Justice or Wake Up! He urged listeners to use their experience to lift up others, including the next generation. Bodhisattvas don’t discriminate between givers and receivers, he said.

________________

Recommended reading: Two books by Thich Naht Hanh: The World We Have and Love Letter to Mother Earth.

EARTH HOLDER SANGHA NEW BEGINNINGS

Begin with gratitude for the earth. Without the Earth there would be nothing.

Exercises:

Discuss your points of gratitude for the Earth.
Discuss your beneficial regrets, without judgment or self-blame. What acts have you done that you would do differently in the future?
Make amends and re-commit.

The six commitments of the Earth Holder Sangha:

Study, observe and practice the 5 or 14 Mindfulness Trainings.

Move in the direction of more simple and compassionate living by signing onto the Earth Peace Treaty and committing to transform three unwholesome habits.
Eat a plant-based diet at least one day per week.
Participate in at least one Earth Holder “Global Call to Action” per year.
Introduce at least one “Earth Holder Guideline” to my individual or local sangha practice.
Attend semi-annual Earth Holder conference calls and participate in sangha decision-making.

True Transformation is Possible in the Three Jewels

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 22:23:55 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Jaima Shore, Source of True Tranformation, for sharing her journey

Last week I took part in the transmission ceremony; Little did I know that over 5 years ago my journey towards this day began. When Angie asked me to share my experience I began reflecting and couldn’t help but reflect on what led up to the day as well as the actual day. A bit over 5 years ago I was pregnant with my first child; my childbirth instructor asked us to find some soothing music or a guided meditation to begin using to help us become more in touch with our bodies and the changes that were occurring. I stumbled onto the Great Bell Chant. I remember vividly the first time I heard it (I had no idea who Thich Nhat Hanh was), the tears fell down my face like a waterfall and a sense of safety and calmness penetrated my heart. When Thay said, “Following the sound of the bell my breath brings me back to the safe island of mindfulness,” it was my first taste of refuge.

Fast Forward 3 years and I found myself in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class with Angie and Stephanie seeking more of what I found in that short meditation. And again, I found a bit more of that refuge. I then started attending sangha regularly and it felt like home. It felt like a place I could find the true home inside myself, another place of refuge. When the opportunity to take part in the transmission ceremony arose, I felt a tug, a pull, a wisdom speaking to me from inside myself to do it. For me it was a chance to publicly express what inwardly I had been discovering. I’ve always been someone who loved the ceremony, the ritual, and the tradition of special moments like this, as it helps clarify my intention and helps with a sort of accountability that this is indeed my path.

During the class and live stream meetings leading up to the ceremony, I found myself being most struck by that idea of refuge again. It was a word that I thought I knew, but I didn’t. For me The Buddha, The Dharma, and The Sangha are the first place in my life where I have discovered true refuge. The actual ceremony was so beautiful and moving for me. I was incredibly serious and devoted to my aspiration and took in each moment, from the opening sutra verse, to doing prostrations with my fellow Dharma sisters and brothers, to receiving my Dharma name, to bowing to the community who has welcomed me with open arms. I am enormously thankful for the opportunity to take refuge, to be part of a community, to have a teacher, and a place inside myself where this is possible. It is with great humility and appreciation that I share that Fred gave me the name Source of True Transformation. For the first time in my life I know that this true transformation is possible in the Three Jewels.

Re-establishing Connection to Life Through the Dharma

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 07:57:33 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Bill Mac Millen for this sharing.

I first became a student of the dharma in 2013 after attending a six-week class, held at the Center and taught by Fred, titled “The Basics of Buddhism.” Up until that time I had no background in Buddhism, mindfulness, or meditation. Although my exterior life was unfolding quite well by appearances - work, family, friendships, comfortable living conditions – it felt as though something important was missing, which led me to this class. At the time I didn’t know what that missing “thing” was, but I’ve come to realize that it was a dis-connection with my fellow beings, a sense of separateness.

I came to the class as a skeptic; prepared to dismiss the teachings and the teacher as, at best, well-meaning but out of touch with “reality,” or worse, another version of “self help” lacking in real substance and/or with ulterior motives to “convert” me to a dogmatic way of thinking. However, by the end of the second class I was convinced there was something significant to be found in the teachings and Fred appeared to be not only wise and knowledgeable, but more importantly for me, authentic in his belief that the dharma was true and beneficial to all.

I began attending Sunday Sangha at the conclusion of the classes and have not missed one Sunday since unless I was out of town or sick, such has been its effect on me. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, I entered the practice with an aversion to dogma and the clear thought that I would never say I believed any teaching unless I personally found it to be true, and I would never say I understood a teaching when I did not. While I don’t claim to have understood all dharma, I have never found it to be dissonant with my experience, and have always found it to be beneficial in leading to happiness and peace.

During these past 4+ years of exposure to the teachings, the teacher, and the community, I’ve become a significantly more present and aware person. In a very practical fashion I’ve learned, and continue to learn, of the conditioned nature of my views and how my false sense of self leads to a myriad of suffering and feelings of dis-ease in my life. This has led to a much calmer and present mind-state and the coincident generation of healthy and beneficial behaviors, leading to much happier relationships and life.

I continue to feel that the teachings remind me of what I’ve always known, but had forgotten, and that it is essential that I am continually reminded to remember; otherwise I forget. The constant support from being with people who believe there is a way to be in the world that is not based on hatred, greed, and anger, but on loving kindness, generosity, and patience has re-established my connection to life.

With gratitude,

Bill Mac Millen

New Friday Morning Selfless Service Opportunity

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 13:16:56 GMT

Selfless service is a service which is performed without any expectation of result or award for the person performing it. Maria Sgambati is the Coordinator of Selfless Service and under her leadership we have begun devoting one Saturday morning a month where we collectively gather for selfless service. That effort has been so successful in deepening our practice of mindfulness, building our community and maintaining our facility that we have decided to expand it to a weekly Friday mornings (except for the first Friday because we will have the monthly meeting on that Saturday). On the other Friday mornings we will complete the tasks that need to happen weekly (e.g., cleaning the kitchen and the education building). There is no expectation of result or award in selfless service but many of us have found that it is always a joyful effort.

We will begin Friday morning selfless service on January 12th and the general schedule will be:

7:00 – 8:00 am	Sitting at Sunrise Meditation
8:00 – 8:30	Light Breakfast
8:30 – 8:50	Short sitting to resettle everyone and guidance on tasks
8:50 – 10:15	Work meditation
10:15 – 10:30	Closing Circle

You can attend all or any part of the morning. You might not be an early riser and would rather come in time for breakfast at 8:00 and work meditation at 8:50 or you might want to leave earlier than 10:30. You can come for sitting meditation for the full hour or 30 minutes or 15 minutes. No registration is necessary. We want this to work for your schedule so you are free to make any necessary adjustments.

This is an opportunity for the maintenance and care of our practice center so that all who come might find peace and beauty there. However, we are not in such a hurry to get the work done that we forget to maintain our practice of mindfulness. In fact, most of us have found that the more we concentrate on mindfulness, the more energized and happy we are in the work. I was surprised the first time we did Saturday morning selfless service that when I went home I still had plenty of energy to spend the afternoon doing yard work.

The Plum Village website says, “Working meditation links us to our everyday life, both here and when we return home. As we are working at out computer or preparing dinner for our family or teaching a class, we can practice stopping, calming and refreshing ourselves with our conscious breathing. We can relax and smile at our co-workers and pace ourselves to maintain a light and serene state of being.”

Selfless service is also an opportunity to connect with others in the FCM community. It is wonderful to be part of this community and to be on the path with other Sangha brothers and sisters. We recognize our interdependence with them and it is with gratitude that we serve each other in this important way. It opens our hearts to practice the Buddhist teachings on compassion and being of benefit to all human beings.

Some of the comments made during closing circle on the first monthly selfless service morning of 2018 were:

Rich Brown – “I am grateful to the 27 people who got out of bed when it was 40 degrees to ensure that this work gets done. We need people’s help.”
Liz Stepp – “I am deeply grateful to work with people to take care of this place we love.”
Maria Sgambati – “Many hands make light work.”
Pat Lucas – “By far, the most peaceful and nurturing time I’ve had this week.”
Diane Powell – “This embodied a community practicing together in harmony and awareness.”
Brian Stepp – “[Quoting Woody Allen] “Ninety percent of success is just showing up. Selfless Service is like that and it is nice to see so many people just showing up.”

Chanting as Practice

Mon, 11 Dec 2017 19:35:51 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Maria Teresa Jaureguizar for this sharing about her practice

I, like others, was asked to share a personal experience with transformation. I put this email aside with the idea that if something came to mind, I would jot it down; then one day at tea the topic of chanting came up and I spoke of my experience in a natural and unscripted manner. A sangha sister said, “you know, you should write about that and send that in to Mindfulness Matters.” So here it is, thank you sister.

Chanting is defined as rhythmic speaking and that is why at first, I accepted that even I could do it. Singing is freeing, and music is transcending, I have no training, just an ear for beauty and an open heart. I believe I knew that through chanting I may begin to touch a voice in me that I had buried out of fear, a voice of living freely, expressing myself freely, and loving freely.

I began to practice the morning chant, over and over until it was memorized. I learned it like you do a favorite song, listening to it and reading the words until you hear it in your sleep. I only shared my aspiration of chanting with a few, but apparently, word got out, and one Sunday at sangha, we were without a chanter.

The bell master said “hey, I heard you have been practicing, we need a chanter today, will you please do it?” These words cut right to the fear inside but then I remembered Fred’s teaching on being a big fool and what’s the worst that could happen? You see, at this point, it was still all about me. So, thanks to my dharma brother, public chanting was born. (smiling)

Through time, I have learned all the chants in the FCM chanting book, except Trust in Mind, still learning that one, and Thay’s 2014 version of the Heart Sutra. The chants are practice, study, and reflection not just words to “sing”.

I remember Fred saying once that the words should become us, when we speak them we speak them wholeheartedly. I’m not sure when this happened, but today when I chant, it’s not about me, it’s about all of us. My intention is not that I don’t flub it, it’s twofold, one is to offer instruction in whatever we are about to do, i.e. begin meditation practice, touching the earth practice, and the greater is the desire that one of us and all of us awaken at the this very moment and be free of all suffering.

Chanting is practice, study and reflection.

In gratitude,

Maria Teresa

Reflections from a Recently Ordained Member of the Order of Interbeing

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 21:30:26 GMT

With gratitude to Katy Shields for sharing about her recent experience at the Magnolia Grove Monastery, where she and her fellow FCM member Carol Meyer were ordained into Thich Nhat Hanh's Order of Interbeing.

Being an aspirant in Thich Naht Hahn's Order of Interbeing, I knew that ordination at Magnolia Grove Monastery retreat would be very moving. I just didn't know in what way.

Leading up to the retreat I felt a strong connection to my teacher and the line carried down from our Bodhisattva ancestors including Master Linji and Thay. Thay's continuation day marked the beginning of the retreat which made his connection and presents very real. During our daily OI family small groups sister Dang Nghiem helped prepare us for ordination spiritually and logistically. Each day I felt more and more the embodiment of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings and the OI family collective. Sister "D" made it clear that Ordination and our vows were not an end result but just a beginning.

The beauty of Magnolia Grove, the wonderful vegan meals, deep relaxation, walking meditation and practicing joyfully together, nourished deeply. Through the daily Dharma talks and panels given by the monks and nuns, it was made very clear that the Dharma, Thays lineage, his teachings as well as his wisdom and compassion are in good hands and will continue beautifully.

I experienced most of the monks and nuns as being very present, wise and compassionate. They embody Thay in their action of body speech and mind. Someone in our group called it "Thayhood".

The Ordination Ceremony began at predawn on the 4th day of retreat. The dimly lit meditation hall was filled with retreatants, family members, monks and nuns. The monks and nuns sat nobly, clothed in there very best ceremonial attire. This moved me so much. This was a sacred day for them also.

When my legs were shaking nervously as I got up to receive my transmission certificate, I looked at them sitting so solidly holding space for us that I was able to continue walking peacefully.

Some final words of the ceremony were given by sister Anabelle Laity. "Do not think you know all there is to know about the 14 Mindfulness Trainings. It takes many lifetimes to understand these trainings".

Everyone says that something happens to you at ordination. It's true and very hard to explain so I won’t. But if in any way you are called to this path, all I can say is that I highly recommend it. This is the most meaningful thing I have ever done by far.

I believe what Sister Annebelle says about the many lifetimes. May I not waist a moment. May I transform unwholesome seeds, see things as they are and may I be of benefit.

Practicing

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 15:28:08 GMT

Thank you FCM for developing and continuing to teach ATTUNE: The Practice of Mindful Dialogue workshop.

Like many, I was introduced to theories and practice of communication skills through academic courses, work related experiences and personal and couples counseling. Having retained bits and pieces of these skills over the years, attending Angie's workshop woke me up to how Buddhist practice can really inform communication skills. Mindfulness, practiced during daily interactions, enhances our communications with all people.

Although this workshop covered many areas, I would like to share a few that were particularly meaningful to me:

Use of mindfulness in dialogue enhances deep listening and speaking. Pausing and being in the present helps us stay non-reactive and brings up feelings of empathy and compassion. The practice of mindfulness nourishes greater calm, clarity and awareness so that everyone involved benefits.
Using mindfulness when our old nemesis of “dealing with difficult relationships” crops up is a powerful teaching. Through practice we can learn to recognize that all beings want to be happy and take the time to understand the suffering of the other. Having an open heart for all and not judging or comparing helps our mind stay open and spacious.
And finally, when we need to speak to someone about a difficult situation, being mindful and present is particularly important. First, consider if this is the right time and place. When speaking be honest and do so with affection. Be aware and consider if what I have to say is a benefit to all.

Dialogue permeates our daily lives. Through our Buddhist practice we learn to enhance these skills in a way that becomes a part of who we are and how we behave. This workshop helped me be more awake to that. I am grateful for FCM’s continual teachings on mindfulness and mindful dialogue. We certainly need it during these tumultuous times.

Ahimsaka Behind Bars

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 20:38:58 GMT

With gratitude to FCM's Prison Dharma Program Facilitator Chris Gahles for his service and for contributing this article

A few nights ago I was leisurely leafing through books in the prison library. I was happy to see they had a copy of “Old Path, White Clouds” one of my long time favorites by Thich Nhat Hanh. I thought that our small sangha, which would be practicing in a few minutes, might enjoy hearing and conversing about one of the chapters that Thay had so mindfully written.

After our meditation and recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings I read the chapter titled “Angulimala”. This story is about the most feared serial killer during the Buddha’s time, Agulimala, which translates as finger-neckless. Every time Agulimala would murder someone he would take one of their fingers and add it to the mala he wore around his neck. In the climax of the story Angulimala chases down the Buddha and orders him to, “Stop monk! Stop!” Even though the Buddha hears the bandit he continued to walk. It seemed like it took a very long time for the bandit to catch up to the Buddha even though he was running and the Blessed One was walking. But finally he stepped in front of the Buddha and shouted, “Monk, I told you to stop. Why did you not stop?” The Buddha replied, “Angulimala, I stopped a long time ago. You are the one that continues (down the path of unwholesomeness)”.

The Buddha’s gaze was filled with such compassion and wisdom that the remorseful bandit was overcome. Angulimala broke free of his misperception that it was too late to lead a wholesome life. He asked the Buddha to be accepted into the sangha and was immediately ordained. He was given the monastic name Ahimsaka, which coincidently was the birth name his father gave him. It means, “The harmless one”. Ahimsaka become one of the most respected monks in the sangha due to his self-transformative efforts.

After the story we talked about its teaching… no matter how messed up we can get, there is always a path to forgiveness, compassion and understanding. Our small sangha in the prison chapel was energized by this topic. The discussion was filled with mindful participation. Someone asked the reflective question, “Why is this story known as the story of Angulimala and not the story of Ahimsaka? The room was filled with joyfulness and hope which streamed through the barred windows and doors of the chapel. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, just as unwholesome thoughts cannot exist in the presence of wholesome thoughts.

Embodying Fierce Compassion At The Peoples Climate March In Washington DC

Tue, 02 May 2017 21:05:19 GMT

With gratitude to FCM Member Andrew Rock for this Sharing.

Several members of FCM were among the estimated 200,000 marchers in Washington DC on Saturday, April 29th for the Peoples Climate Mobilization. So were six monastics from Blue Cliff monastery and many others in Thay’s Plum Village traditions, together with hundreds of other Buddhists from various lineages and traditions.

Fittingly, April 29th set new seasonal heat records for Washington DC: 92 degrees and high humidity. But the marchers remained cheerful, peaceful, exuberant and determined as we gathered on the Mall, marched down Pennsylvania Ave. to surround the White House and then rested on the grass around the Washington Monument.

Earlier in the morning about 250 Buddhists gathered in a park near the Capitol to practice together before joining the march. Organized by One Earth Sangha, the group included teachers and practitioners from many lineages and traditions. A Tibetan nun, Sister Ani Losang Tendrol, read us a poem about our connectedness with the earth and our responsibility for how we relate with all living beings, written by the Dalai Lama. Then Adam Lobel, a senior acharya (teacher) with Shambhala International, led us in a practice to raise windhorse, the power and energy of the sacred warriors who rise up in times of great need. Next Sister Ocean, from Blue Cliff Monastery, called on all her Plum Village sangha to join her, and together we led the entire group in singing “We are all the leaves of one tree.” We closed the morning program with a metta meditation led by Amy Smith, a teacher in the Washington insight Meditation community.

From Upper Senate Park, the monastics led us on a silent, mindful, joyful walk to the Capitol end of the Mall, where the faith contingent was gathering to line up for the march. Organized by the multifaith climate action group Greenfaith, there were Catholics from the Franciscan Climate Network, Muslims, Hindus, Episcopalians, Jews, Quakers, Unitarian Universalists and many other faiths, all united by the perception that our crises of climate change, inequality and injustice at root are spiritual and ethical problems, and therefore require spiritual and ethical reformation and leadership.

Then an hour of sweltering heat and close packed (but high-spirited) crowds, as people gathered and waited for the step-off of the march, sharing signs, banners, music and enthusiasm. Once we started moving, around 12:45 pm, the crowd spread out and our FCM group kept together (Diane Powell, Patrick Bendure and his daughter, Dan Tisch, Patty Meyers, Nancy Natilson and me, and also Sue Brandon and her friend Sandy from Shambhala St. Petersburg and the Florida EcoSattva Group). We held our signs and banners high as we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue. Soon after, we came to the White House, and the march spread out to surround it.

At 2 pm, we all sat down where we were on the streets around the White House, for a few minutes of silence, and then we began a powerful heartbeat rhythm as we all gently tapped our chests in unison. And then we all stood as one, in our tens of thousands, and we roared, yelled, and cried out, with determination and intensity, to demand a sensible climate policy in cooperation with the rest of the planet.

April 29th was chosen for the march precisely because it was the 100th day of the climate-denying Trump presidency. The EPA’s environmental programs had already been gutted, scientific research on climate change defunded, dismantled and ignored, permits hastily issued for new oil and gas pipelines and offshore oil wells. A decision is expected from the Administration within days whether to withdraw the US from its commitments under the Paris accord to roll back carbon emissions and accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources. We know Trump and his fossil fuel friends would like to scrap the Paris agreement, but he fears the reaction from the public and the more progressive elements of the business community. Trump himself had fled from Washington for the day, to rally with some 7,000 of his remaining supporters in Harrisburg, PA, and the streets of Washington belonged to the people.

From the White House it was a short distance to the very welcome green space around the Washington Monument, where we lay in the shade of the big trees, rehydrated our sweaty bodies, and rested. Tired, happy marchers were everywhere, some heading for the Metro system and home – how wonderful to be in a city with an efficient light rail system! – and some staying around for a few more hours of music, speeches and movement building activities around the Washington Monument.

The organizers intentionally called the April 29th gathering a people’s mobilization, not just a march, because this is not a one day event, it is a movement that must continue to grow in strength, wisdom and impact. It is particularly important that practitioners of mindfulness and the Dharma bring to this mobilization our practices of understanding, compassion, non-attachment and love. As our root teacher Thich Nhat Hanh wrote many years ago: “Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what's the use of seeing?”

It was our group’s privilege through the day to carry three of One Earth Sangha’s beautiful banners, emblazoned with the image of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin and the words “Embody Fierce Compassion.” We are happy to report that Fierce Compassion was indeed embodied in our nation’s capital on April 29th and held high for the Peoples Climate Mobilization.

Reflections from the 2017 Mahasangha Member Gathering

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:51:55 GMT

The 2017 FCM Mahasangha Member Gathering was held in Tampa the weekend of March 24th to celebrate and deepen our connection as a sangha body. During the weekend we explored "American Buddhism," and in particular how our greater "Maha" sangha manifests our Buddhist values in community and in the world. We also celebrated our lineage together through both beautiful formal ceremonies and many casual and joyful moments of connection. We asked a diverse group of members, from "long-timers" to brand new, from early 30s to more "mature", to share their reflections of what the weekend meant to them. With much gratitude to our members, below, for these sharings.

Betsy Arizu, Tampa (FCM Board President)

As we chanted the Evening Chant together on the first night of the Mahasangha I was filled with awe and inspiration, hearing our voices joined so beautifully together as we honored the Buddha. I could feel an energy and power in the Dharma Hall filled with old friends, new friends, local friends, friends from afar, all brothers and sisters acknowledging our capacity and commitment to awaken, individually and collectively. What a joy and honor to experience being part of a sangha, especially a mahasangha.

I thoroughly enjoyed our weekend discussions on Buddhism in America. I find it fascinating how Buddhism spread from India throughout Asia in such a peaceful and organic way while taking on unique and distinctive flavors and forms in each region and culture it traveled to. And now as Buddhism takes root in America I see how profound and relevant the teachings are to this time and place in history and how it is unfolding in its own rich and unique way in our culture. As we discussed with Fred FCM’s vision, mission, and core values, he told the story of FCM and how it started in his living room in Naples. Later came the purchase of property on Nebraska Avenue and now the next step is to build a retreat center of our own to bring more and affordable retreat opportunities to our sangha. We are so fortunate to be part of the Florida Community of Mindfulness on this path of awakening.

Other highlights of the Mahasangha were the small group discussions, the mindful work groups, the neighborhood clean up, the delicious meals, and the uplifting and meaningful ceremonies. I thank Fred for his vision and leadership during the Mahasangha and for recognizing how valuable and renewing it is for our community to come together yearly in this fashion.

Carly Johnston, Tampa (New Member)

My immediate refection about the Mahasangha Gathering was of special moments where I felt part of a community of loving and kind people. Although I knew very few, I felt the welcoming energy of all of those around me. I watched people from afar at times and rejoiced in their closeness while other times I saw many who wandered through the weekend with an openness of invitation for meeting others. I think what felt most comfortable for me was the genuine positive attitude that I experienced. People were willing to share and express their feelings on various topics that were being discussed and invited others to their circle of conversation. This provided me with good resources and opened up opportunity for questions which encouraged more communication. I felt a warm and caring nature from the group.

I was most surprised and awed with the professional approach for coordinating the entire weekend…from program to food preparation and delivery in a timely fashion. Watching how fluid everything seemed to flow was quite impressive. Having been a professional meeting planner, I appreciate the time, work and effort of many people coming together to make such an event look flawless and successful. I realized I was part of a group of dedicated and talented people who took pride in their work —- all coming together for the good of the Community. I’m very proud to be part of FCM and look to the future to contribute what I am able.

And, not to be forgotten…… “thank you” for the generous opportunity to experience a very special weekend.

Christopher Lee Nguyen (Naples, WakeUp Leader for Southwest Florida)

Yesterday my friend and coworker died unexpectedly in his sleep. He was around my age, and had been supportive friend in my career training. He helped me get past many obstacles on the job, and my computer is full of notes I received from him. We often get busy in life and never take the time to be together and get to know each other deeply until it is too late.

The Mahagathering is a great opportunity to insure we don’t have any regrets by being able to practice being together. It’s a chance for us to realize that we are not alone; never were alone; and never will be. That is a wonderful thing. I think Liễu Quán expresses it very beautifully in his gatha from the early 1700s, “The fruit of transcendent wisdom, can be realized by being wonderfully together.”

Coming together in openness to practice deep sharing and deep listening is a very profound practice. It creates a space where my Buddha-nature can unfold and shine brightly. Being able to meet new people and be inspired by their aspirations and the resounding sound of the sangha echoing out “same, not different” is a precious jewel when you live far away from the center.

Whether singing together, sitting together, or even picking up trash outside together, it is not a matter of what we are doing but that we are together as a living sangha creating a refuge and open space for all sangha members to be nourished by the collective energy of togetherness and actualize coming together “as a river”.

I offer gratitude and thanks to all my sangha brothers and sister, near and far away, for everything they do and for helping to create a sangha where I have the opportunity to be nourished by the fruit of transcendent wisdom by being wonderfully together.

Fran Reilly, Naples (Longtime Mindful Yoga Leader for FCM)

Dear Tampa Sangha,

I wanted to write a note of appreciation to all of you for your hospitality, sharing, teachings, feeding us on so many levels and opening our hearts and minds. The Mahasangha weekend was truly a gathering of spiritual friends and cultivated a deeper appreciation of our Sangha community for me and I’m sure for others as well.

The food was amazing and nourishing; the opportunity to interact and support each other in work groups and small group interactions and the overall attitude of support and community was pervasive and nourishing as well. The planning and thoughtfulness of all of your hard work was evident and your welcoming attitude was heartwarming. I felt greeted as a dear friend and all of the hugs and smiles brought a smile to my own heart.

The dharma talks were enriching and the ceremony on Saturday evening , with the beautiful cello, chanting, the readings, the fire, all under the stars in the beautiful garden setting was especially inspiring.

The whole weekend opened my heart and inspired my practice.

in gratitude,

Fran Reilly

Kerri Vantreese (Tampa, New Member)

For me, the mahasangha weekend was filled with opportunity to take yummy bites to satiate not only the physical, but also the emotional and spiritual appetite... deepening the sense of what community actually IS and how vital its heartbeat is in support of FCM's commitment to flow like a gentle dharma river.

The joy of exploring relationship in such a wide variety of ways was exceptional... from blissfully fun selfless service, shared meals at FCM, shared home space thanks to our B n B program, as well as multitudes of other fantabulous moments in small group discussions, the vibrant, palpable essence of the collective sangha and the special energy of sharing one-on-one time with old and new friends alike!

bowing in deep gratitude,

One Heart!

Maria Sgambati, Tampa (Our Mahasangha Gathering Noble Coordinator)

What a joy it was to practice together with the community during the MahaSangha gathering. Although I’ve been an FCM member at a distance for 4 years, I began practicing in the Plum Village tradition about 12 years ago. I was happy to have been asked to be gathering coordinator, since having moved to Tampa in February, it gave me a wonderful opportunity to both support the sangha through self-less service and get to know my dharma brothers and sisters more deeply.

For me, every moment of the gathering became a moment of practice, in which I asked, what is needed right now? I always tried to return to my breathing, to keep my steps and voice calm and compassionate, to really slow down and take my time to listen and be with what was, even when toilets overflowed! The whole weekend was such a rich experience, but in particular the series of talks on Buddhism gave me a deeper sense of the historical foundation of the practice path. I am grateful to all who made this weekend possible.

Reflections and Gratitude as Noah Transitions to Teen Program

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 15:06:51 GMT

With much gratitude and metta to Noah Stepp for this heartfelt sharing about his experience in the FCM Family Program and recent transition to the Teen Program

Almost 4 years ago my mom started going to FCM. At first I wanted nothing to do with the Center. I had never enjoyed any of the other Sunday schools I had attended and didn’t want to go to another one. One weekend a family gathering was led by Diane Powell. I made my first mindfulness jar! When we were driving home I realized it wasn’t as I thought it was going to be. Then the Family Program started. I was one of the first kids to go and I was excited! I made a commitment to myself that day that as long as mom went to the Center I would go to the Family Program.

These are just a few of the many things I have learned:

How to ring the bell
How and why to bow
Mindful eating
How to notice your emotions
Using a mindfulness jar
Feeling where feelings are in my body
Life of Buddha
Lineage of Buddhism and how Fred connects us to it all
Thich Nhah Hanh
How to use the breathing ball
Mindful walking
Yoga
The Two Promises
Given my Dharma name
Songs from Plum Village
What mindfulness really means to me

I turned 13 in February and have now moved into the Teen Program. I attended the Mindful Teen Half Day Retreat and one Sunday Teen Program. It has been a great transition for me. I want to thank everyone for guiding me along this path. A special thanks to Betsy, Suzy and Karuna for being my Dharma teachers. You all have taught me a lot and I always felt supported by you. I also want to thank the sangha. You have listened to me “check-in” about what we have done and learned while attending the Family Program. Your supportive listening, kindness and laughter is so appreciated. I would look out at everyone smiling at me and it always made me feel so good!

Deeply bowing,

Noah

Source of All Goodness

Reflections from 2017 Gainesville Retreat

Mon, 06 Mar 2017 10:44:33 GMT

Fred recently led a three-day retreat for the Gainesville Sangha. We are grateful to Sangha member Mark Burlingame for sharing these reflections about the retreat.

I have attended several retreats where Fred was Dharma Teacher, the first at Chinsegut Hill Retreat Center in Brooksville, Florida in the year 2000. But I hadn’t attended a retreat where Fred was Teacher since the year 2008. So this was a “coming home” for me in a way. Here I was, in this moment, connecting once again with Fred and his skillful continuation of the stream of Dharma transmission of Thich Nhat Hanh. In this moment, surrounded by my beloved Sangha in my beloved town of Gainesville. And in this moment, practicing with my beloved wife who was on her very first meditation retreat.

At the start of retreat is the flurry of activity upon arrival. Getting oriented to being with others in silence for three days. But then the community is soon flowing like a river. The retreat begins and there is the start of awareness and settling into the activities, sounds, thoughts, and physical sensations of retreat. And then, with gentle encouragement, awareness and settling into the space. Resting and relaxing the awareness into the space between activities, sounds, objects, and even thoughts.

During these retreats, I am often challenged to look more deeply at my motivations on this path. On retreat in 2002, I had written a note to myself following one of Fred’s Dharma talks; “The door to the cage is open. What is keeping me from stepping out?” So here I am in 2017. Fifteen years later. Once again, I was challenged to stop and really, really look. “Do I believe there is a path to remove suffering? If so, am I willing to take the path?”

During the retreat, as in life, there were moments of suffering. The suffering of physical discomfort associated with sitting for long periods and the body protesting. And the suffering resulting from being carried away by thoughts. There were also moments of great lightness. Like the moment when looking out a window of the meditation hall and seeing Betsy diligently and mindfully running down the hill to gather in a retreatant who had wandered off and was late for the next session!

But then at some point, miraculously, there is this heart opening. Pure Love in the Pure Land! The wish for well being for myself and for others comes pouring out. Heart Opening. And I am reminded of Thay’s words from The Great Bell Chant:

“One single drop of this compassionate water is enough
To bring back the refreshing spring to our mountains and rivers.”

Dear Sisters and Brothers, on the in breath I am aware you are there. On the out breath I smile. May I remember to share the fruit with all beings.

Keeping Quiet, by Pablo Neruda

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 17:01:26 GMT

With gratitude to Anda Peterson for sharing this lovely poem by Pablo Neruda during a recent FCM mindfulness in nature walk.

Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Wisdom Finding Her Self

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 11:43:48 GMT

With gratitude to Judy Rosemarin for sharing these reflections after the FCM 2017 Winter Retreat.

She stood in front of me, face to face. Small, deep in the center of her chest I saw it, as if an archeological dig had discovered it, I saw a small cube and it almost took my breath away. I knew what it was immediately.

She had been feeling lonely with many recent losses in her life. I saw her looking at me. I saw all that she was, though she never saw very much of it due to her continual frantic-running-tumbling-forward way of living. Never knew what she was running towards or from, but in that instant as we looked at each other, silently I said and I know she heard me, “You have it all. You are not alone. You don’t have to do this. I love you.” Then, we wept together, bound together, breathing together. No one reached out, no hands, hugs or anything customary when such deep recognition and reconnection occur. We just came together in a place, on a plane, on a level description-defying. I could see her and she finally saw me, as I had waited a very long time for this moment.

I could feel her energies and knew that they drove her ( and others, sometimes, to distraction) and most of all she was distracted from herself making it impossible for her to see her heart, her caring, her resilience, her fears, her intelligence, her creativity, her love. Too fast, she ran trying to accomplish everything, but this time, this unbelievable moment, she stood still, quiet in front of me allowing herself to be seen by someone who has always loved her but she had been looking in all the wrong places, wrong faces, spinning here and there. I could never get her to stand still, slow down until now.

As I looked at her, I saw the little cube in her chest turn into a diamond. I said, wordlessly, “ I was always there and you were always enough.” And for a brief moment, the words seem to be carried to her on angels’ wings and echo in a canyon, offered in sweet silence while a smile placed itself on both of our faces and a sweet song of caring hummed in our hearts. We made a new friendship, one that we both were longing for.

She never thought that people actually liked her just so. She had to do something, produce something make others happy and never stopping until this moment she stopped, was unafraid, not restless or scared as she seemed to recognize me now and it felt like she had come home to me and let me see her, which I had been longing for for decades.

“Who will love me, who can I share with” she had asked countless times in her life and I think she sensed my response, “I have, I do and am here always.”

Mindful Leadership Summit

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 15:17:00 GMT

FCM Member Nancy Natilson attended a three-day conference on Mindful Leadership in Washington, DC in November 2016. Her interest stemmed specifically from her current role as Director of FCM’s Mindfulness Institute. Following is Nancy’s summary of her experience at the summit.

How meaningful to be part of a gathering of 800 people from 27 countries who came together to explore what it means to be a mindful leader and how being a mindful leader can make the world a better place! I stayed an extra day to take the workshop, “Search Inside Yourself” created at Google to bring mindfulness and emotional intelligence to the workplace, to improve collaboration, engagement, well-being, resilience, and effectiveness.

What makes leadership mindful? One of the co-founders of this third annual event stated, “Mindful leadership is leadership in service to others with compassion and authenticity.” Other definitions included: the ability to connect with others and skillfully initiate and guide change; and interaction (emotional loyalty) instead of transaction (material loyalty).

Characteristics of mindful leadership included: listening more than speaking; questioning more than answering; creating space for others to speak and act; opening your heart and your mind; and making people feel special and loved. Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said and forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Deep sharing and deep listening are basic values of mindful leadership; how fortunate that we have the opportunity to practice this method of connecting and understanding so often at FCM.

The presenters ranged from creative entrepreneurs to Ivy League neuroscientists; most had authored one or more books; only a handful stated they were committed Buddhist practitioners. I felt a deep connection with one speaker, Marc Lesser, who used the Dharma to explain the principles/values of mindful leadership. He was one of the co-founders of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, and had spent many years practicing Buddhism at the San Francisco Zen Center, including managing the kitchen at the Tassajara Center. His experience of introducing mindfulness into the corporate world was very inspiring. Also, the Chief Mindfulness Officer at Aetna Insurance shared with us how he converted a conference room into a mindfulness center at Aetna’s headquarters and supported the creation of a culture of self-awareness and well-being because the CEO practiced yoga and meditation to successfully manage pain after a serious ski accident.

What would the world be like if people acted selflessly and with compassion and authenticity? if leaders emerged from openheartedness and the aspiration to benefit others? if we were all present and awake? This is possible, and it begins with each of us! Being mindful is the most authentic and effective leadership style to show others how to be peaceful, loving, and happy.

Broken Apart Yet Unafraid

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 22:12:27 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Judy Rosemarin for sharing her experience from the FCM Fall 2016 Retreat.

Broken Apart Yet Unafraid

There I was, on the third day at the FCM Fall Retreat in Tampa, sitting on my cushion, and the question was posed, “What is a thought?”

Silently, in my snarky style, I said to myself, “brain secretions” and felt cool. But that ended quickly when I was invited, by Fred, to look at thought directly. I wasn’t really sure what that meant. I knew how to watch thoughts go by. Easy. I knew that we feed them and they grow so I try not to do that as often as I can.

“Find a thought and just look at that thought directly,” Fred said. Easy. I can do that and I conjured up a hot fiery one that I called “anger” and yes, I “saw” it and could feel it but I quickly learned that I wasn’t looking directly at the thought “anger” but instead, I was looking at the things I had imbued into the thought.

I had put in color ( red) and I put in body sensations ( chest tight, throat breathing, heart pounding) which felt strongly. So the combination of attributes of red and body sensations were then categorized and labeled “anger.” But I wasn’t yet looking directly at the thought itself. Oh, rest assured, I was sure I had but with Fred’s careful and caring guidance, and not accepting my first response, he suggested I look again at “just the thought” and, shockingly, I saw nothing.

Now that sounds a bit strange because it sure felt like something before I just “looked.” It felt real and even powerful. But then, when prompted to locate it, to see if I could find its dimensions, shape and size, it was nowhere to be found. And when I discovered that the thought had nothing to it, like air, it evaporated and disappeared, leaving not a trace of feelings other than surprise and delight.

But it didn’t end there. I was then asked to do the same thing with my name: Judy. Now before I continue, I need to share with you that I prided myself in intellectually understanding a lot of what we study, I have a decent daily practice and have even “taught” a bit of mindful awareness to others. Also, based on my psychological training, I know about the ego’s fear of annihilation. And all that jazz. But what I discovered, in this experience, was something way beyond intellect and basically beyond language. However, in an attempt to approximate this seminal experience, I will do my best to share that next step.

If I had been asked to look at “Judy” under other circumstances, I might have been fearful but based on the deliberate mind training build up of two days, with focused meditation on top of meditation, and with no time to think I wasn’t in the least bit afraid. I was, instead, wildly curious, a bit contrary with an inner hope that this may be interesting yet I head myself saying to myself “Ok, you can’t be making ‘Judy’ disappear!”

What fun to be wrong! I looked at the name directly, having already been made aware of how to look at thoughts directly and all I saw were letters spelling J U D Y. There was nothing else. No image of a body, or image of feelings in any direction and, well, nothing was there but unhooked letters that spelled out what we call a name, or in some other cases, a label. Worse even -an “identity!” It all broke apart in tiny pieces and disappeared.

Now, from the outside that might be a bit scary. To have yourself disappear but that was the magic of it. Not only did I not disappear, because there is no stable “I” but the sense of fresh air, possibilities, opportunities and energies almost overcame me.

There was nothing to be found, so nothing felt lost! I shed some tears in exquisite wonder at the magic of the experience. Not only that, but I found, in that moment, I could not find my “mind” either. Again, no fear, just this indescribable wide open spaciousness which seemed endless. Yet I didn’t feel lost at all. I didn’t feel scared. I didn’t feel worried, other than my urge-tendencies to ask, “Wow! Now what do I do with this?”

A wise part of me said, “Take it in and see.”

“But I want to immediately integrate it, apply it, use it.”

“Maybe what you want to do is keep practicing and deepen your understanding.”

So, I have done just that since the retreat ended three days ago and what has now come up for me is that if thoughts are empty and they are fleeting as well as numerous 15-20,000 a day, perhaps it might be wise to slow down, really slow down. Then, I can choose my own thoughts, knowing what they truly are, and make them of benefit to myself and to others. I’ll take that ‘broken apart’ any day over what I used to think was me. Oh, the possibilities!

Judy Rosemarin

Mindfulness in Daily Life (Giacomo Mattei)

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:50:56 GMT

With gratitude to Giacomo Mattei for sharing this college application essay from 2014, when he was 17 years old)

“How is this even happening to me?” I thought, bewildered. I was at my piano recital last summer, when I fell short of my own expectations and experienced the excruciating pain of failure. This was not my first time performing in public. Yet, that day I felt extremely nervous. I definitely wanted to be seen as a competent pianist by my peers and their families.

Forty-some people were sitting in the stuffy living room that served as the music hall. The old air conditioner was droning loudly, making me all the more edgy. Being one of the last students to perform, I recall how unnerving it was to sit still on that naked, straight-backed chair and wait for my turn to play. As I finally sat down behind the large Steinway, I noticed my breath coming unevenly into my lungs. I started playing. The blood was pounding in my ears, making it difficult to play musically and regulate the loudness of the notes. Halfway through my sonatina, my fingers fumbled on the keys. And I lost my place on the music sheet. Rationally, I knew that the adrenaline rush, caused by my stage fright, made my close-up vision fail: an evolutionary survival mechanism that enables the enhanced long-distance vision to take over in order to spot danger. Yet, what I needed most in that moment was to be able to read the notes that had turned from a beautiful sequence of music into a chaotic blur of meaningless little black dots. Unable to continue, I simply lifted my hands off the keyboard and stared at the page. My heart sank, since the possibility of such complete failure had never crossed my mind.

“Why is this happening to me?” I wondered to myself. “I always give 100% at everything I do. I always practice and apply myself to excel.” I realized I had expected to succeed, not only because I consistently do my best, but also because I usually even exceed my own expectations. A thousand thoughts were rushing through my mind. “How can I make myself such a public embarrassment?” All of a sudden, I had flashbacks of past successes: I first saw myself graciously playing the piano in church on Christmas Eve and then standing tall besides my Karate teacher while being inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame. “Have I deceived myself into unrealistic expectations of myself?” I was inundated by self-defeating thoughts.

Suddenly, I remembered to take three deep breaths as to return into my body and to present moment awareness. I had learned that skill at the insight meditation retreats I have been attending for years. Breathing mindfully cleared my vision just enough to start playing again. I halfheartedly finished the piece maintaining an awareness of my fingers touching the keys.

I was unusually cross the rest of that day. My parents jokingly said they were happy to finally have the opportunity to demonstrate that their love for me is unconditional.

That week, I mindfully attended to my thoughts. Initially, I noticed myself resisting the memory of the event and certain self-depreciating thoughts. Later, whenever I had negative thoughts about the occurrence or myself, I would observe them and let them go, knowing that they are not who I really am and that following them would only lead to more suffering. Fortunately, I have trained my mind to relate to events and my reactions to them with non-judgmental presence.

“My self-esteem has taken a blow,” I thought. “I have allowed it to completely depend on my ability to perform, to be externally evaluated as competent.” Then, shifting my focus internally on mindful self-awareness, I observed my mind’s workings. I accepted my “failure” as an opportunity for self-understanding and growth rather than as an attack on my ego. I now know that I sometimes pressure myself unduly. I also trust that I can mindfully bounce back.

The Practice of Beginning Anew

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 20:05:46 GMT

With gratitude to Susan Ghosh for sharing these reflections of Fred's July 23, 2016 Beginning Anew workshop for FCM members.

Last Saturday Fred offered a workshop on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Beginning Anew Ceremony to the FCM community. Of Thay’s many creative dharma practices Fred said that Beginning Anew is one of his favorites. It’s a practice that enables us to keep our relationships fresh and loving and keeps small resentments, hurts and disappointments from growing and festering.

He explained that many of us try to practice the ceremony but our efforts are unsuccessful because Beginning Anew is not a technique. It can’t be applied as a “fix”. If we rush into the ceremony with our anger or resentment still fresh and alive in us we are not really practicing “Beginning Anew.” It’s important that we take care of our own “hot” feelings first before speaking about them, or our offering will create a mess, not a new beginning.

There are 3 steps to Beginning Anew and another place where our efforts go off the rails is that we want to start with step 3, sharing our hurts and resentments. Rather, we start with watering the seeds of partner’s positive qualities or for specific actions. “I really appreciate the care you took in cleaning the kitchen yesterday.” Or, “ I really appreciate what a good listener you are when you listen to me and to others.” Fred encouraged us to practice watering the positive seeds of others in the room. Generously watering the positive seeds in others and listening to and learning the way others were doing it, we began to feel very happy. There were smiles all around the room. Of course, we also felt wonderful when our own positive actions and qualities were seen and appreciated.

In Step 2 we offered our regrets for the ways we may have caused suffering for our partner. In talking about this Fred smiled at us. “We love being right,” he said. “We like to blame the other person.” Instead we must first reflect on and then share our regrets for our own unskillful actions. We are not perfect. We, too, are only human. “Darling, I am sorry that when you were talking to me yesterday I didn’t listen to your ideas.” This step diminishes the negative seed of self-righteousness in us. By the time we conclude with Step 2 we or may not want to go on to Step 3.

If we go on to step 3 we practice deep sharing of our negative thoughts and feelings. We know that ours is not the only possible view of this situation. What we need is to be deeply heard and understood. While we share, our partner says nothing, simply listening deeply, and then bowing to us respectfully. This is why we soothe and calm our own feelings before beginning the process! Otherwise our self-justifications and blaming may spill right out of our mouths. If a conversation is needed about what was shared during the Beginning Anew Ceremony this happens at another time.

Before we even attempt the entire ceremony Fred counseled us to simply water each other’s positive seeds. We need to build up our bank account before we make withdrawals. He also told us that this wonderful ceremony can be used by families, parents and children, or in the workplace. If you wish to learn about Beginning Anew Thich Nhat Hanh writes about it in many of his books, including Love and Happiness.

Reflections on the Winter/Spring 2016 Dharma Path Intensive

Mon, 18 Jul 2016 16:08:46 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Tammy Klein for sharing these reflections on the FCM winter/spring 2016 Dharma Path Intensive, "Training the Mind Utilizing Key Buddhist Slogans"

"You're not going to wash that?!" My neighbor Ross* asked me incredulously at the end of a dinner party my husband and I hosted for them and some other neighbors. I had been cleaning up and preparing food for everyone to take home when Ross approached me with a combination of irritation and indignation. "When you came over for Easter we washed your dish and gave it back to you before you even left!" He waited for an answer, but I was speechless. Finally, after what seemed like two hours, I said slowly, "I thought you'd like to take home your leftovers, because you have quite a bit left." "Yeah," he said, "but you could have put it in a smaller dish!"

"Well, I still can if you like," I said. "It's really no problem." "Nevermind!" Ross said angrily. I was speechless again and I was deer-in-the-headlights stunned. Silently, I looked at Ross. Seriously, are we really doing this over a dish? We're really doing this? Seriously? Then, my thoughts turned defensive and a little irritated as well. I could've put put their leftovers in a small dish. But it's dumb! Dumb, I say! Then we're washing one of their dishes, they still have to wash one of ours and we're exchanging dishes. It just didn't seem efficient.

I next remembered that I was practicing Buddhism. Oh right. And that I was in an intensive. Right again. And that the intensive centered around developing bodichitta, wisdom and compassion. Right, right, right. But as Ross stood there expectantly and still annoyed, the mental fog rolled in. I clambered around in my mind trying to recall teachings that I had been studying every day for six months. I sputtered around mentally as jumbles of words burbled up. I couldn't think of what I was supposed to say and do and practice next. Tong-whaa?? Something about blames and victories? I had nothing. As I was mentally sputtering, Ross proceeded to complain to the wife of our other neighbors. My husband then walked into the kitchen unaware of what had transpired and helpfully (not!) added, "Yeah, why didn't you wash the dish?" I glared at him, giving him the wifely stink eye. Our guests left for the evening and I laughed with my husband about it. "Can you believe he got so upset over a dish?" We shook our heads.

But the next morning, I woke up irritated. I did metta for Ross in meditation but I came up short in both wisdom and compassion about the situation. I spent several days reflecting on the incident and my reaction to it. I could have just laughed it off and left it at that. True, I wouldn't have described my neighbor as the paragon of grace in that instant, but who cares? It was just a bowl. Wasn't it? There was more to it and it involved the self. This self did NOT like the fact that she put a lovely dinner party together and not only didn't receive an Academy Award for it, she got chastised over a dumb bowl on top of that. The proverbial turd in the punch bowl.

Any number of slogans would apply to this situation, but I went with "give up all hope for results":

"Give up the hope of subduing gods and demons by meditating on mind training, or the hope that you will be considered a good person when you try to help someone who has hurt you. These are hypocritical attitudes. In a word, give up all hope for any result that concerns your own welfare, such as the desire for fame, respect, happieness and comfort in this life, the happieness experienced in the human or god realms in future lives, or the attainment of nirvana for yourself."

As I reflected further, I realized I expect results in just about everything in life but I especially expect results from myself. I watched it for a week when Fred assigned this slogan for practice and reflection and I could hardly list a thing I did in a day that did not have some kind of result attached to it! As a matter of fact, I could say I was born and bred to get results. Getting results was how I shined in life until recently. I was very, very good at it. Having been raised in an abusive and chaotic environment, that was the stability I could create for myself, and I excelled it. Sad and painful, but all true.

And thus I won the spelling bee(s), hit the home runs, made the dean's list, won the debate championship, got the scholarships, graduated at the top of my class, etc., etc. I got this and did that and went here and there in the world meeting this and that person and doing this and that. Some of it was pretty awesome. If I couldn't achieve an expected result, I mostly didn't bother with whatever the activity was unless I had to, hence my graveyard of barely-started or half-done projects. Not important, I told myself. Even my attitude to Buddhism in the beginning was..."Look, I got stuff to do, so let's get this Enlightenment thing done so I can be on my way. Let's do this people, snippity snap!" I could not be bothered to break even for the Buddha!

It was helpful to see and become aware of how deep my need for results runs and how it is connected to the self. The intensive really gave me an opportunity to work on this. There's no way to break free of this kind of deep conditioning until one becomes aware of it and sees it for what it is. Fred challenged during one of our group calls, can you simply do the things in front of you with excellence but without expecting a result? I committed to try my best and to begin detangling myself from this conditioning. I was able to do tonglen (the alchemical exchange) for myself. And then I was able to consider my neighbor more compassionately. For me, that's key. When I withhold compassion from myself, I notice I am less compassionate to others.

A few days later, I was walking toward my house with my dog. Ross was in his front yard. My first thought was to turn around and sprint the other way before he saw me! And then I thought, is my practice really not strong enough for Ross? Is that what I'm saying here? So I kept walking and greeted him. He proceeded to tell me how this wasn't right, that wasn't working, this was wrong. It was all negative. His negativity was well known in the neighborhood and drove our other neighbors nuts, causing them to dive for an escape hatch whenever they saw him ("I'm sick, the dog is sick, I need to wash my hair..."). I considered the same strategy for a second - after all, it was dinnertime and I could come up with something legit, but the dog and I ultimately stood there and listened to him quietly for some time.

As he talked, I considered "the bowl incident" it from Ross' perspective. His life was changing. He was chronically and seriously ill, having battled cancer several times already. I looked at him and he was thin and very frail. He was much taller than me, but I was sure I could bench press him. He was hanging on to life by a thread. His dream was to retire on Marco Island, and now he and his wife were having to sell the house. They simply couldn't maintain it with Ross' shaky health. He had recently retired, but had never really gotten a chance to enjoy the house. Their dream was not to be, and to add insult to injury, nothing else had in retirement had worked out the way they planned it. They had not gotten their result.

And now they were selling their house and traffic had been worrisomely slow, creating even more stress and anxiety. He was packing up and preparing to leave his dream behind. It was tough for him. I felt his deep suffering as he unloaded and I did tonglen for him while he talked and talked. Yet, he could not say, I am sad. I am scared. I am overwhelmed. I am sick. I am anxious. He couldn't name any of it. I could see that it was safer to shelter in negativity, and I Iet him, not saying a thing beyond an occasional head nod. As I stood there, I quickly forgot about the bowl incident and all defensiveness and irritation at Ross melted. I wished only for the bestest best for my neighbor and I silently gave him every bit of bodichitta I could scrape up. He needed it.

"The answer is that all our misery comes from mental fixation and viewing phenomena as dreamlike will help us to relinquish our fixation on the world. If we don’t put some effort into gradually weaning ourselves from this fixation on “self” and “other” as real, we will never succeed in being compassionate and will continue to invite pain and suffering into our lives." - Traleg Rinpoche, The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training the Mind

*Name changed to protect identity.

Vulture Peak Gathering at Plum Village, 2016

Sun, 10 Jul 2016 20:15:54 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Betsy Arizu for sharing these reflections.

I heard one of the monks call this gathering legendary. For me it was extraordinary, traveling to Plum Village in France with our teacher, Fred and fellow FCM members, Diane, Angie, Anne, Beth, and Rosaria. We gathered with people from around the world to celebrate 50 years of the Order of Interbeing, to connect with others, and touch life deeply in the present moment with the wonderful teachings and practices developed over the years at Plum Village. Gathered were many lay Dharma teachers (like Fred) from Vietnam, Thailand, Botswana, Israel, India, Italy, France, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland and Canada. A number of the original Vietnamese students from the School for Youth for Social Services organized by Thay and Sister Chan Khong in the 1960's traveled to Plum Village especially for this event. Thay, the teachings of the Buddha and the fourfold sangha (women, men, lay and monastic) were joyfully present.

Thay's presence and continuation were clearly felt throughout the retreat. On the second day during the Dharma talk at Upper Hamlet Thay was wheeled in by two attendants through a side door. Raising his left forefinger to his lips in the gesture of silence, he remained deeply present with all for the next 10 minutes as the Dharma talk continued. After the talk we gathered at the bell tower for walking meditation. Thay joined us in a circle as we sang, Happiness and other songs as we prepared to walk. Thay, pushed by his attendants, led the group in mindful walking meditation just like he had done so many times before, first through the plum trees and then up a very steep hill overlooking magnificent green hills and countryside. We sat down on the grass around Thay, quietly, peacefully in the wonder of the moment. Thay deftly used his left hand to drink his tea, to push back his brown cap back from his forehead and to signal to his attendant that he wanted another cup of tea. He slowly turned his head from side to side as he gazed at us, his eyes indicating such presence and deep awareness.

The day reserved for the 50 years of the Order of Interbeing celebration was quite festive. Fred and Shantum Seth, from India were the facilitators. Fred shared about his early visits to Plum Village and conversations with Thay about the Order of Interbeing. A delicious cake was offered and performances included a beautiful instrumental piece composed by Brother Phap Linh, a moving play performed by Vietnamese OI members commemorating the immolation of Nhat Chi Mai as a profound cry for peace during the Vietnam War, and a skit by young monastic aspirants. The skit was colorful and entertaining. From the dry ice mists of the stage a young monk was revealed sitting in meditation. The narrator began describing what this young Thay had seen--discrimination, fanaticism, intolerance, and how he had implored great bodhisattvas to come forth into the world. To the grace and rhythm of Pachelbel's Canon, one by one the aspirants with colorful face paint and creative costume came forth as bodhisattvas onto the stage. Each one represented one of the essences of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings: openness, nonattachment to views, free thinking, embracing suffering, compassion and healing, embracing anger, dwelling happily in the present moment, community and communication, loving speech, protecting and nourishing the sangha, right livelihood and protecting our environment, reverence for life and the insight of interbeing, generosity and nonexploitation, and true love. In this delightful depiction Thay's brilliance and profound contribution to the world was evident. The rich meaning of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings and the compass they provide for living one's life, building and caring for community and engaging with compassion in the word were real and alive for me, and my aspiration to live a life of awakening and service to others was deeply nourished. The celebration continued. Three flowering trees were presented and offered in gratitude on this auspicious occasion--one to Thay, one to Sister Chan Khong and one to Fred. There are now over 2,000 OI members since Thay ordained the first 6 in Vietnam in 1966. Fred was the 11th to be ordained and the first Westerner. Fred wrote the introduction and as editor helped Thay put the OI Charter and 14 Mindfulness Trainings into the book, Interbeing. Fred was acknowledged for having brought the Order of Interbeing to the West. I was very moved at this presentation. How fortunate we are to have such a bodhisattva as a teacher.

During the retreat we savored the quiet stillness during meals, working mediation and walking meditation, and listened with quiet wonder and openness to the deep and profound Dharma talks. Much of the rest of the time was playful and meaningful interchange between people, deep sharing and listening, and for me long conversations with others about sangha building, family programs, death and dying, mindfulness in education and creativity in the arts. I jokingly told our FCM group as we did a circle of sharing on the last day at Upper Hamlet that I had never talked so much in my life. There were affinity groups, panels, and presentations on topics of engaged Buddhism. Fred, with true energy and inspiration, shared about our urban practice center on Nebraska Avenue in Tampa. He and Angie led a workshop on sangha building. Connection and relationship were so rich and meaningful for me at this retreat.

When we said goodbye at the end of the retreat it was with deep gratitude and a sense of no coming and going. As the little green plums continue to form on the trees, and the monastics end one retreat and prepare for the next, it is clear that Thay and these beautiful teachings of the Buddha continue in the world.

Reflections on the Recent Mindful Living Path Intensive

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:53:01 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Libby Dunn for sharing these reflections on her recent experience in the Mindful Living Path Intensive.

I’m a new member of FCM and I joined the community just in time to participate in the recent Mindful Living Path Intensive, called “Foundational Practices for Healing and Transforming Emotional Afflictions”. Over a period of 12 weeks, we followed a very systematic approach toward identifying our patterns of emotional afflictions, learning how to stay present with difficult feelings, and building new tools and insights to transform the way we experience emotional challenges. There was plenty of hard work and it was sometimes uncomfortable, but the benefits I gained were well worth the time I invested and the challenges I experienced.

Every two weeks we received an email to let us know what chapters to read in our book and what practices to follow. An important early assignment was to maintain a written log, adding entries every time we experienced disturbing emotions. I think people handled this assignment in different ways. What I did was to print up blank tables and keep them handy on a clipboard. I was really surprised at how many times I reached for the clipboard to jot down a negative emotion, how it felt in my body and the thoughts and circumstances related to it. Pretty soon I had pages of entries, which made it easy to spot recurring patterns. Using the entries as raw material, I was able to identify entry points for challenging habitual thoughts and reactions that were keeping me stuck.

The intensive included several personalized resources to create a supportive and encouraging environment for personal growth. Each of us had a mentor to help us interpret the instructions and to gently guide us back on course when we needed it. Fred provided a monthly Dharma talk that placed what we were doing in a broader context and gave us a chance to ask questions. In addition, we were each assigned to a small support group that met to share insights, successes, and challenges. My group met by telephone, since we were spread all over the place. At first I was not too sure that a telephone support group would be helpful, but I ended up learning a lot from the other group members. It was also reassuring to know that many of us were experiencing some of the same obstacles. For example, several of us felt a bit discouraged in the beginning, when our logs revealed how often negative emotions were affecting our minds and bodies. Between the support group meetings, the personal mentoring and Fred’s Dharma talks, I think we were able to accomplish much more than would have been possible by working alone, using only a book and written instructions.

Based on this first experience, I will definitely participate in another intensive. It is really surprising to me how much progress we made in such a short time. As the intensive was drawing to a close, I noticed that my negative emotions were less frequent and less intense. Now I am more aware when emotional reactivity is arising and it is easier for me to be receptive and stay present to what I am feeling. As a result of participating in the intensive, I have greater confidence in my ability to handle emotionally challenging situations in the future and I feel better prepared to transform difficult emotions into gentle compassion toward myself and others.

The Fifth Precept: Mindful Consumption

Sun, 29 May 2016 18:15:58 GMT

THE FIFTH PRECEPT: DIET FOR A MINDFUL SOCIETY

by Thich Nhat Hanh (Commentary from "For a Future to be Possible")

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

Whenever we take a bath or a shower, we can look at our body and see that it is a gift from our parents and their parents. Even though many of us do not want to have much to do with our parents--they may have hurt us so much--when we look deeply, we see that we cannot drop all identification with them. As we wash each part of our body, we can ask ourselves, "To whom does this body belong? Who has transmitted this body to me? What has been transmitted?" Meditating this way, we will discover that there are three components: the transmitter, that which is transmitted, and the one who receives the transmission. The transmitter is our parents. We are the continuation of our parents and their ancestors. The object of transmission is our body itself. And the one who receives the transmission is us. If we continue to meditate on this, we will see clearly that the transmitter, the object transmitted, and the receiver are one. All three are present in our body. When we are deeply in touch with the present moment, we can see that all our ancestors and all future generations are present in us. Seeing this, we will know what to do and what not to do—for ourselves, our ancestors, our children, and their children.

At first, when you look at your father, you probably do not see that you and your father are one. You may be angry at him for many things. But the moment you understand and love your father, you realize the emptiness of transmission. You realize that to love yourself is to love your father, and to love your father is to love yourself. To keep your body and your consciousness healthy is to do it for your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. You do it for your society and for everyone, not just yourself. The first thing you have to bear in mind is that you are not practicing this as a separate entity. Whatever you ingest, you are doing it for everyone. All of your ancestors and all future generations are ingesting it with you. That is the true meaning of the emptiness of the transmission. The Fifth Precept should be practiced in this spirit.

There are people who drink alcohol and get drunk, who destroy their bodies, their families, their society. They should refrain from drinking. But you who have been having a glass of wine every week during the last thirty years without doing any harm to yourself, why should you stop that? What is the use of practicing this precept if drinking alcohol does not harm you or other people? Although you have not harmed yourself during the last thirty years by drinking just one or two glasses of wine every week, the fact is that it may have an effect on your children, your grandchildren, and your society. We only need to look deeply in order to see it. You are practicing not for yourself alone, but for everyone.

Your children might have a propensity for alcoholism and, seeing you drinking wine every week, one of them may become alcoholic in the future. If you abandon your two glasses of wine, it is to show your children, your friends, and your society that your life is not only for yourself. Your life is for your ancestors, future generations, and also your society. To stop drinking two glasses of wine every week is a very deep practice, even if it has not brought you any harm. That is the insight of a bodhisattva who knows that everything she does is done for all her ancestors and future generations. The emptiness of transmission is the basis of the Fifth Precept. The use of drugs by so many young people should also be stopped with the same kind of insight.

In modern life, people think that their body belongs to them and they can do anything they want to it. "We have the right to live our own lives." When you make such a declaration, the law supports you. This is one of the manifestations of individualism. But, according to the teaching of emptiness, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all the other living beings. All of them have come together to bring about the presence of this body--the trees, clouds, everything.

Keeping your body healthy is to express gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray the future generations. We practice this precept for the whole cosmos, the whole society. If we are healthy, everyone can benefit from it—not only everyone in the society of men and women, but everyone in the society of animals, plants, and minerals. This is a bodhisattva precept. When we practice the Five Precepts we are already on the path of a bodhisattva.

When we are able to get out of the shell of our small self and see that we are interrelated to everyone and everything, we see that our every act is linked with the whole of humankind, the whole cosmos. To keep yourself healthy is to be kind to your ancestors, your parents, the future generations, and also your society. Health is not only bodily health, but also mental health. The Fifth Precept is about health and healing. "Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society..." Because you are not doing it only for yourself, to stop drinking one or two glasses of wine a week is truly an act of a bodhisattva. You do it everyone. At a reception, when someone offers you a glass of wine, you can smile and decline, "No, thank you. I do not drink alcohol. I would be grateful if you would bring me a glass of juice or water." You do it gently, with a smile. This is very helpful. You set an example for many friends, including many children who are present. Although that can be done in a very polite, quiet way, it is truly the act of a bodhisattva, setting an example by your own life.

Everything a mother eats, drinks, worries about, or fears will have an effect on the fetus inside her. Even when the child inside is still tiny, everything is in it. If the young mother is not aware of the nature of interbeing, she may cause damage to both herself and her child at the same time. If she drinks alcohol, she will destroy, to some extent, the brain cells in her fetus. Modern research has proven this. Mindful consumption is the object of this precept. We are what we consume. If we look deeply into the items that we consume every day, we will come to know our own nature very well. We have to eat, drink, consume, but if we do it unmindfully, we may destroy our bodies and our consciousness, showing ingratitude toward our ancestors, our parents, and future generations.

When we eat mindfully we are in close touch with the food. The food we eat comes to us from nature, from living beings, and from the cosmos. To touch it with our mindfulness is to show our gratitude. Eating in mindfulness can be a great joy. We pick up our food with our fork, look at it for a second before putting it into our mouth, and then chew it carefully and mindfully, at least fifty times. If we practice this, we will be in touch with the entire cosmos.

Being in touch also means knowing whether toxins are present in the food. We can recognize food as healthy or not thanks to our mindfulness. Before eating, members of a family can practice breathing in and out and looking at the food on the table. One person can pronounce the name of each dish, "potatoes," "salad," and so on. Calling something by its name helps us touch it deeply and see its true nature. At the same time, mindfulness reveals to us the presence or absence of toxins in each dish. Children enjoy doing this if we show them how. Mindful eating is a good education. If you practice this way for some time, you will find that you will eat more carefully, and your practice of mindful eating will be an example for others. It is an art to eat in a way that brings mindfulness into our life.

We can have a careful diet for our body, and we can also have a careful diet for our consciousness, our mental health. We need to refrain from ingesting the kinds of intellectual "food" that bring toxins into our consciousness. Some TV programs, for example, educate us and help us to lead a healthier life, and we should make time to watch programs like these. But other programs bring us toxins, and we need to refrain from watching them. This can be a practice for everyone in the family. We know hat smoking cigarettes is not good for our health. We have worked hard to get the manufacturers to print a line on a pack of cigarettes: "WARNING, SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH." That is a strong statement, but it was necessary because advertisements to promote smoking are very convincing. They give young people the idea that if they don't smoke, they are not really alive. These advertisements link smoking with nature, springtime, expensive cars, beautiful men and women, and high standards of living. One could believe that if you don't smoke or drink alcohol, you will not have any happiness at all in this life. This kind of advertising is dangerous; it penetrates into our unconscious. There are so many wonderful and healthy things to eat and drink. We have to show how this kind of propaganda misleads people.

The warning on cigarette packs is not enough. We have to stand up, write articles, and do whatever we can to step up campaigns against smoking and drinking alcohol. We are going in the right direction. At last it is possible to take an airplane flight without suffering from cigarette smoke. We have to make more effort in these directions.

I know that drinking wine runs deep in Western culture. In the ceremony of the Eucharist and the Passover seder, wine is an important element. But I have spoken to priests and rabbis about this, and they have told me it is possible to substitute grape juice for the wine. Even if we don't drink at all, we can still get killed on the streets by a drunk driver. To persuade one person to refrain from drinking is to make the world safer for us all. Sometimes we don't need to eat or drink as much as we do, but it has become a kind of addiction. We feel so lonely. Loneliness is one of the afflictions of modern life. It is similar to the Third and Fourth Precepts--we feel lonely, so we engage in conversation, or even in a sexual relationship, hoping that the feeling of loneliness will go away.

Drinking and eating can also be the result of loneliness. You want to drink or overeat in order to forget your loneliness, but what you eat may bring toxins into your body. When you are lonely, you open the refrigerator, watch TV, read magazines or novels, or pick up the telephone to talk. But unmindful consumption always makes things worse. There may be a lot of violence, hatred, and fear in a film. If we spend one hour looking at that film, we will water the seeds of violence, hatred, and fear in us. We do that, and we let our children do that, too. Therefore we should have a family meeting to discuss an intelligent policy concerning television watching. We may have to label our TV sets the same way we have labelled cigarettes: "WARNING: WATCHING TELEVISION CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH." That is the truth. Some children have joined gangs, and many more are very violent, partly because they have seen a lot of violence on television. We must have an intelligent policy concerning the use of television in our family.

We should arrange our schedules so that our family has time to benefit from the many healthy and beautiful programs on TV. We do not have to destroy our television set; we only have to use it with wisdom and mindfulness. This can be discussed among the family and the community. There are a number of things we can do, such as asking the TV stations to establish healthier programming, or suggesting to manufacturers to offer television sets that receive only stations that broadcast healthy, educational programs, like PBS. During the war in Vietnam, the American army dropped hundreds of thousands of radio sets in the jungles that could receive only one station, the one that made propaganda for the anticommunist side. This is not psychological warfare, but I think many families would welcome a TV set that would allow us to see only healthy programs. I hope you will write to TV manufacturers and TV stations to express your ideas about this.

We need to be protected because the toxins are overwhelming. They are destroying our society, our families, and ourselves. We have to use everything in our power to protect ourselves. Discussions on this subject will bring about important ideas, such as to how to protect ourselves from destructive television broadcasts. We also have to discuss in our families and communities which magazines that we and our children enjoy reading, and we should boycott those magazines that spill toxins into our society. Not only should we refrain from reading them, but we should also make an effort to warn people of the danger of reading and consuming these kinds of products. The same is true of books and conversations. Because we are lonely, we want to have conversations, but our conversations can also bring about a lot of toxins. From time to time, after speaking with someone, we feel paralyzed by what we have just heard. Mindfulness will allow us to stop having the kinds of conversations that bring us more toxins.

Psychotherapists are those who listen deeply to the sufferings of their clients. If they do not know how to practice to neutralize and transform the pain and sorrow in themselves, they will not be able to remain fresh and healthy in order to sustain themselves for a long time. The exercise I propose has three points: First, look deeply into your body and your consciousness and identify the kinds of toxins that are already in you.

We each have to be our own doctor not only for our bodies, but also for our minds. After we identify these toxins, we can try to expel them. One way is to drink a lot of water. Another is to practice massage, to encourage the blood to come to the spot where the toxins are, so the blood can wash them away. A third is to breathe deeply air that is fresh and clean. This brings more oxygen into the blood and helps it expel the toxins in our bodies. There are mechanisms in our bodies that try to neutralize and expel these substances, but our bodies may be too weak to do the job by themselves. While doing these things, we have to stop ingesting more toxins.

At the same time, we look into our consciousness to see what kinds of toxins are already in there. We have a lot of anger, despair, fear, hatred, craving, and jealousy--all these things were described by the Buddha as poisons. The Buddha spoke of the three basic poisons as anger, hatred, and delusion. There are many more than that, and we have to recognize their presence in us. Our happiness depends on our ability to transform them. We have not practiced, and so we have been carried away by our unmindful lifestyles.

The quality of our life depends very much on the amount of peace and joy that can be found in our bodies and consciousness. If there are too many poisons in our bodies and consciousness, the peace and joy in us will not be strong enough to make us happy. So the first step is to identify and recognize the poisons that are already in us.

The second step of the practice is to be mindful of what we are ingesting into our bodies and consciousness. What kind of toxins am I putting into my body today? What films am I watching today? What book am I reading? What magazine am I looking at? What kind of conversations am I having? Try to recognize the toxins.

The third part of the practice is to prescribe for yourself a kind of diet. Aware of the fact that there are this many toxins in my body and consciousness, aware of the fact that I am ingesting this and that toxin into my body and consciousness every day, making myself sick and causing suffering to my beloved ones, I am determined to prescribe for myself a proper diet. I vow to ingest only items that preserve well-being, peace, and joy in my body and my consciousness. I am determined not to ingest more toxins into my body and consciousness.

Therefore, I will refrain from ingesting into my body and consciousness these things, and I will make a list of them. We know that there are many items that are nutritious, healthy, and delightful that we can consume every day. When we refrain from drinking alcohol, there are so many delicious and wholesome alternatives: fruit juices, teas, mineral waters. We don't have to deprive ourselves of the joys of living, not at all. There are many beautiful, informative, and entertaining programs on television. There are many excellent books and magazines to read. There are many wonderful people and many healthy subjects to talk about. By vowing to consume only items that preserve our well-being, peace, and joy, and the well-being, peace, and joy of our family and society, we need not deprive ourselves of the joys of living. Practicing this third exercise brings us deep peace and joy.

Practicing a diet is the essence of this precept. Wars and bombs are the products of our consciousness individually and collectively. Our collective consciousness has so much violence, fear, craving, and hatred in it, it can manifest in wars and bombs. The bombs are the product of our fear. Because others have powerful bombs, we try to make bombs even more powerful. Then the other nations hear that we have powerful bombs, and they try to make even more powerful bombs. Removing the bombs is not enough. Even if we could transport all the bombs to a distant planet, we would still not be safe, because the roots of the wars and the bombs are still intact in our collective consciousness. Transforming the toxins in our collective consciousness is the true way to uproot war.

When we saw the video of Rodney King being beaten on the streets of Los Angeles, we did not understand why the five policemen had to beat a defenseless person like that again and again. We saw the violence, hatred, and fear in the policemen. But it is not the problem of the five policemen alone. Their act was the manifestation of our collective consciousness. They are not the only ones who are violent and full of hatred and fear. Most of us are like that. There is so much violence in all big cities, not only Los Angeles, but also San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Tokyo, Paris, and elsewhere. Every morning, when going to work, policemen say, "I have to be careful or I may be killed. I will be unable to return to my family." A policeman practices fear every day, and because of that, he may do things that are quite unwise.

Sometimes there is no real danger, but because he suspects he may be shot, he takes his gun and shoots first. He may shoot a child playing with a toy gun. One week before Rodney King was beaten, a policewoman in Los Angeles was shot in the face and killed. It is natural that the police in the area became angry when they heard this, and they all went to the funeral to demonstrate their anger and hatred to society and to the administration for not providing them with enough safety. The government is not safe either--presidents and prime ministers get assassinated. Because society is like this, policemen and policewomen are like that. "This is, because that is. This is like this, because that is like that." A violent society creates violent policemen. A fearful society creates fearful policemen. Putting the policemen in jail does not solve the problem. We have to change the society from its roots, which is our collective consciousness, where the rootenergies of fear, anger, greed, and hatred lie.

We cannot abolish war with angry demonstrations. We have to practice a diet for ourselves, our families, and our society. We have to do it with everyone else. In order to have healthy TV programs, we have to work with artists, writers, filmmakers, lawyers, and legislators. We have to step up the struggle.

Meditation should not be a drug to make us oblivious to our real problems. It should produce awareness in us, and also in our families and in our society. Enlightenment has to be collective for us to achieve results. We have to stop the kinds of consuming that poison our collective consciousness.

I do not see any other way than the practice of these bodhisattva precepts. We have to practice them as a society in order to produce the dramatic changes we need. To practice as a society will be possible only if each of us vows to practice as a bodhisattva. The problem is great. It concerns our survival and the survival of our species and our planet. It is not a matter of enjoying one glass of wine. If you stop drinking your glass of wine, you do it for the whole society. We know that the Fifth Precept is exactly like the first one. When you practice non-killing and you know how to protect the lives of even small animals, you realize that eating less meat has do with the practice of the precept. If you are not able to entirely stop eating meat, at least make an effort to reduce eating meat. If you reduce eating meat and drinking alcohol by fifty percent, you will already be performing a miracle; that alone can solve the problem of hunger in the Third World. Practicing the precepts is to make progress every day. That is why during the precept recitation ceremony, we always answer the question of whether we have made an effort to study and practice the precept by deep breathing. That is the best answer. Deep breathing means that I have made some effort, but I can do better.

The Fifth Precept can be like that, too. If you are unable to completely stop drinking, then stop four-fifths, or three-fourths. The difference between the First and the Fifth Precept is that alcohol is not the same as meat. Alcohol is addictive. One drop brings about another. That is why you are encouraged to stop even one glass of wine. One glass can bring about a second glass. Although the spirit is the same as the First Precept, you are strongly recommended not to take the first glass of wine. When you see that we are in great danger, refraining from the first glass of wine is a manifestation of your enlightenment. You do it for all of us. We have to set an example for our children and our friends. On French television they say, "One glass is all right,but three glasses will bring about destruction." (Un verre ça va; trois verres bonjour les dégâts.) They do not say that the first glass brings about the second, and the second brings about the third. They don't say that, because they belong to a civilization of wine. Here in Plum Village, in the Bordeaux region of France, we are surrounded by wine. Many of our neighbors are surprised that we don't profit from being in this area, but we are a pocket of resistance. Please help us.

When I was a novice, I learned that from time to time we had to use alcohol in preparing medicines. There are many kinds of roots and herbs that have to be macerated in alcohol to have an effect. In these instances, alcohol is allowed. When the herbs have been prepared, we put the mixture in a pot and boil them. Then they no longer have an intoxicating effect. If you use some alcohol in cooking, the result may be the same. After the food is cooked, the alcohol in it will not have an intoxicating nature. We should not be narrow-minded about this. No one can practice the precepts perfectly, including the Buddha. The vegetarian dishes that were offered to him were not entirely vegetarian. Boiled vegetables contain dead bacteria. We cannot practice the First Precept or any of the precepts perfectly. But because of the real danger in our society--alcoholism has destroyed so many families and has brought about much unhappiness--we have to do something. We have to live in a way that will eradicate that kind of damage. That is why even if you can be very healthy with one glass of wine every week, I still urge you with all my strength to abandon that glass of wine.

I would also like to say something about not using drugs. As alcohol has been the plague of one generation, drugs are the plague of another. One young girl in Australia told me that she did not know anyone in her age group who does not take drugs of one kind or another. Often young people who have taken drugs come to meditation centers to deal with the problem of facing life as it is. They are often talented and sensitive people--painters, poets and writers--and by becoming addicted to drugs they have, to a small or large extent, destroyed some brain cells. It means that they now have little stability or staying power, and are prone to sleeplessness and nightmares. We do what we can to encourage them to stay for a course of training in the meditation center, but because they are easily disillusioned, they tend to leave when things become difficult.

Those who have been addicted to drugs need discipline. I am not sure that a meditation center like Plum Village is the best place to cure victims of drug addiction. I think that experts and specialists in this field are better equipped than we are. A meditation center should be able to receive educators and specialists in drug addiction as well as the victims of drug addiction for short courses in meditation to make its resources available where they are truly needed.

The practice that we offer is that of the Fifth Precept, to prevent someone from becoming involved with drugs in the first place. Parents especially need to know what spiritual food to give their children. So often, children feel spiritually starved by the wholly materialistic outlook of their parents. The parents are unable to transmit to the children the values of their spiritual heritage, and so the children try to find fulfillment in drugs. Drugs seem to be the only solution when teachers and parents are spiritually barren. Young people need to touch the feeling of deep-seated well-being within themselves without having to take drugs, and it is the task of educators to help them find spiritual nourishment and wellbeing. But if educators have not yet discovered for themselves a source of spiritual nourishment, how can they demonstrate to young people how that nourishment may be found?

The Fifth Precept tells us to find wholesome, spiritual nourishment, not only for ourselves but also for our children and future generations. Wholesome, spiritual nourishment can be found in the moon, the spring blossoms, or the eyes of a child. The most basic meditation practices of becoming aware of our bodies, our minds, and our world can lead us into a far more rich and fulfilling state than drugs could ever do. We can celebrate the joys that are available in the simplest pleasures.

The use of alcohol and drugs is causing great damage to our societies and families. Governments work hard to stop the traffic of drugs. They use airplanes, guns, and armies to do so. Most people know how destructive the use of drugs is but they cannot resist, because there is so much pain and loneliness inside them, and the use of alcohol and drugs helps them to forget for a while their deep malaise. Once people get addicted to alcohol and drugs, they might do anything to get the drugs they need--lie, steal, rob, or even kill. To stop the drug traffic is not the best way to prevent people from using drugs. The best way is to practice the Fifth Precept and to help others practice.

Consuming mindfully is the intelligent way to stop ingesting toxins into our consciousness and prevent the malaise from becoming overwhelming. Learning the art of touching and ingesting refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements is the way to restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us. To do this, we have to practice together. The practice of mindful

consuming should become a national policy. It should be considered true peace education. Parents, teachers, educators, physicians, therapists, lawyers, novelists, reporters, filmmakers, economists, and legislators have to practice together. There must be ways of organizing this kind of practice.

The practice of mindfulness helps us be aware of what is going on. Once we are able to see deeply the suffering and the roots of the suffering, we will be motivated to act, to practice. The energy we need is not fear or anger; it is the energy of understanding and compassion. There is no need to blame or condemn. Those who are destroying themselves, their families, and their society by intoxicating themselves are not doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us. The practice of the Five Wonderful Precepts is the practice of mindfulness and compassion. For a future to be possible for our children and their children, we have to practice.

The Fourth Precept: Deep Listening and Loving Speech

Sun, 29 May 2016 18:10:17 GMT

THE FOURTH PRECEPT: DEEP LISTENING AND LOVING SPEECH

by Thich Nhat Hanh (Commentary from "For a Future to be Possible")

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

There is a saying in Vietnamese, ``It doesn't cost anything to have loving speech.'' We only need to choose our words carefully, and we can make other people happy. To use words mindfully, with loving kindness, is to practice generosity. Therefore this precept is linked directly to the Second Precept. We can make many people happy just by practicing loving speech. Again, we see the interbeing nature of the Five Precepts.

Many people think they will be able to practice generosity only after they have accumulated a small fortune. I know young people who dream of getting rich so they can bring happiness to others: ``I want to become a doctor or the president of a big company so I can make a lot of money and help many people.'' They do not realize that it is often more difficult to practice generosity after you are wealthy. If you are motivated by loving kindness and compassion, there are many ways to bring happiness to others right now, starting with kind speech. The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment. Mindful speaking is a deep practice. Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is a person who has learned the art of listening and speaking deeply in order to help people let go of their fear, misery, and despair. He is the model of this practice, and the door he opens is called the ``universal door.'' If we practice listening and speaking according to Avalokitesvara, we too will be able to open the universal door and bring joy, peace, and happiness to many people and alleviate their suffering.

The universal door manifests itself in the voice of the rolling tide. Hearing and practicing it, we become a child, born from the heart of a lotus, fresh, pure, and happy, capable of speaking and listening in accord with the universal door. With only one drop of the water of compassion from the branch of the willow, spring returns to the great Earth.

I learned this beautiful poem when I studied the Lotus Sutra at age sixteen. When you hear ``the voice of the rolling tide,'' which is Avalokitesvara's practice, symbolizing the universal door, you are transformed into a child born in the heart of a lotus. With only one drop of the water of compassion from the willow branch of the bodhisattva, spring returns to our dry Earth. The dry Earth means the world of suffering and misery. The drop of compassionate water is the practice of loving kindness, symbolized by the water on the willow branch. Avalokitesvara is described by the Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese as the person holding the willow branch. He dips the branch into the water of compassion of his heart, and wherever he sprinkles that water, everything is reborn. When he sprinkles it on dry, dead branches, they turn green. Dead branches also symbolize suffering and despair, and green vegetation symbolizes the return of peace and happiness. With only one drop of that water, spring returns to our great Earth.

In the ``Universal Door'' chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Avalokitesvara's voice is described in five ways: the wondrous voice, the voice of the world regarded, the brahma voice, the voice of the rising tide, and the voice of world surpassing. We should always keep these five voices in mind. First, there is the wondrous voice. This is the kind of speaking that will open the universal door and make everything possible again. This voice is pleasant to hear. It is refreshing and brings calm, comfort, and healing to our soul. Its essence is compassion.

Second, there is the voice of the world regarded. The meaning of the word Avalokitesvara is ``the one who looks deeply into the world and hears the cries of the world.'' This voice relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less.

Third, here is the brahma voice. Brahma means noble -- not just the ordinary voice of people, but the noble speech that springs forth from the willingness to bring happiness and remove suffering. Love, compassion, joy, and impartiality are the Four Brahmaviharas, noble dwellings of buddhas and bodhisattvas. If we want to live with buddhas and bodhisattvas, we can dwell in these mansions.

During the time of the Buddha, the aim of the practice of many people was to be born and to live together with Brahma. It was similar to the Christian practice of wanting to go to Heaven to be with God. ``In my Father's house there are many mansions,'' and you want to live in one of these mansions. For those who wanted to be with Brahma, the Buddha said, ``Practice the four noble dwellings: love, compassion, joy, and impartiality.'' If we want to share one teaching of the Buddha with our Christian friends, it would be the same: ``God is love, compassion, joy, and impartiality.'' If you want to be with God, practice these four dwellings. If you don't practice these four, no matter how much you pray or talk about being with God, going to Heaven will not be possible.

Fourth, the voice of the rising tide is the voice of the Buddhadharma. It is a powerful voice, the kind of voice that silences all wrong views and speculations. It is the lion's roar that brings absolute silence to the mountain and brings about transformation and healing. Fifth, the voice of the world surpassing is the voice with which nothing can be compared. This voice does not aim at fame, profit, or a competitive edge. It is the thundering silence that shatters all notions and concepts.

The wondrous voice, the voice of the world regarded, the brahma voice, the voice of the rising tide, and the voice of the world surpassing are the voices we are to be mindful of. If we contemplate these five kinds of voices, we assist Avalokitesvara in opening the universal door, the door of real listening and real speaking. Because he lives a mindful life, always contemplating the world, and because he is the world regarder, Avalokitesvara notices a lot of suffering. He knows that much suffering is born from unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others; therefore he practices mindful, loving speech and listening deeply. Avalokitesvara can be described as the one who teaches us the best way to practice the Fourth Precept.

``Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech, and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering.'' This is exactly the universal door practiced by Avalokitesvara.

Never in the history of humankind have we had so many means of communication -- television, telecommunications, telephones, fax machines, wireless radios, hot lines, and red lines -- but we still remain islands. There is so little communication between the members of one family, between the individuals in society, and between nations. We suffer from so many wars and conflicts. We surely have not cultivated the arts of listening and speaking. We do not know how to listen to each other. We have little ability to hold an intelligent or meaningful conversation. The universal door of communication has to be opened again. When we cannot communicate, we get sick, and as our sickness increases, we suffer and spill our suffering on other people. We purchase the services of psychotherapists to listen to our suffering, but if psychotherapists do not practice the universal door, they will not succeed.

Psychotherapists are human beings who are subject to suffering like the rest of us. They might have problems with their spouses, children, friends, and society. They also have internal formations. They may have a lot of suffering that cannot be communicated to even the most beloved person in their life. How can they sit there and listen to our suffering, and understand our suffering? Psychotherapists have to practice the universal door, the Fourth Precept -- deep listening and mindful speech.

Unless we look deeply into ourselves, this practice will not be easy. If there is a lot of suffering in you, it is difficult to listen to other people or to say nice things to them. First you have to look deeply into the nature of your anger, despair, and suffering to free yourself, so you can be available to others. Suppose your husband said something unkind on Monday and it hurt you. He used unmindful speech and does not have the ability to listen. If you reply right away out of your anger and suffering, you risk hurting him and making his suffering deeper. What should you do? If you suppress your anger or remain silent, that can hurt you, because if you try to suppress the anger in you, you are suppressing yourself. You will suffer later, and your suffering will bring more suffering to your partner.

The best immediate practice is to breathe in and out in order to calm your anger, to calm the pain: ``Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I calm my feeling of anger.'' Just by breathing deeply on your anger, you will calm it. You are being mindful of your anger, not suppressing it. When you are calm enough, you may be able to use mindful speech. In a loving and mindful way, you can say, ``Darling, I would like you to know that I am angry. What you just said hurt me a lot, and I want you to know that.'' Just saying that, mindfully and calmly, will give you some relief. Breathing mindfully to calm your anger, you will be able to tell the other person that you are suffering. During that moment, you are living your anger, touching it with the energy of mindfulness. You are not denying it at all.

When I speak about this to psychotherapists, I have some difficulty. When I say that anger makes us suffer, they take it to mean that anger is something negative to be removed. But I always say that anger is an organic thing, like love. Anger can become love. Our compost can become a rose. If we know how to take care of our compost, we can transform it into a rose. Should we call the garbage negative or positive? It can be positive, if we know how to handle it. Anger is the same. It can be negative when we do not know how to handle it, but if we know how to handle our anger, it can be very positive. We do not need to throw anything away.

After you breathe in and out a number of times to recover your calmness, even if your anger is still there, you are mindful of it, and you can tell the other person that you are angry. You can also tell him that you would like to look deeply into it, and you would like him to look deeply into it also. Then you can make an appointment for Friday evening to look at it together. One person looking at the roots of your suffering is good, two people looking at it is better, and two people looking together is best. I propose Friday evening for two reasons. First, you are still angry, and if you begin discussing it now, it may be too risky. You might say things that will make the situation worse. From now until Friday evening, you can practice looking deeply into the nature of your anger, and the other person can also.

While driving the car, he might ask himself, ``What is so serious? Why did she get so upset? There must be a reason.'' While driving, you will also have a chance to look deeply into it. Before Friday night, one or both of you may see the root of the problem and be able to tell the other and apologize. Then on Friday night, you can have a cup of tea together and enjoy each other. If you make an appointment, you will both have time to calm down and look deeply.

This is the practice of meditation. Meditation is to calm ourselves and to look deeply into the nature of our suffering. When Friday night comes, if the suffering has not been transformed, you will be able to practice the art of Avalokitesvara. You sit together and practice deep listening -- one person expressing herself, while the other person listens deeply. When you speak, you tell the deepest kind of truth, and you practice loving speech. Only by using that kind of speech will there be a chance for the other person to understand and accept. While listening, you know that only with deep listening can you relieve the suffering of the other person. If you listen with just half an ear, you cannot do it. Your presence must be deep and real. Your listening must be of a good quality in order to relieve the other person of his suffering. This is the practice of the Fourth Precept.

The second reason for waiting until Friday is that when you neutralize that feeling on Friday evening, you have Saturday and Sunday to enjoy being together. Suppose you have some kind of internal formation regarding a member of your family or community, and you don't feel joyful being with that person. You can talk to her about simple things, but you don't feel comfortable talking with her about anything deep. Then one day, while doing housework, you notice that the other person is not doing anything at all, is not sharing the work that needs to be done, and you begin to feel uneasy. ``Why am I doing so much and she isn't doing anything? She should be working.'' Because of this comparison, you lose your happiness. But instead of telling the other person, ``Please, Sister, come and help with the work,'' you say to yourself, ``She is an adult. Why should I have to say something to her? She should be more responsible!'' You think that way because you already have some internal formation about the other person. The shortest way is always the direct way. ``B'' can go to ``A'' and say, ``Sister, please come and help.'' But you do not do that. You keep it to yourself and blame the other person.

The next time the same thing happens, your feeling is even more intense. Your internal formation grows little by little, until you suffer so much that you need to talk about it with a third person. You are looking for sympathy in order to share the suffering. So, instead of talking directly to ``A,'' you talk to ``C.'' You look for ``C'' because you think that ``C'' is an ally who will agree that ``A'' is not behaving well at all.

If you are ``C,'' what should you do? If you already have some internal formations concerning ``A,'' you will probably be glad to hear that someone else feels the same. Talking to each other may make you feel better. You are becoming allies -- ``B'' and ``C'' against ``A.'' Suddenly ``B'' and ``C'' feel close to each other, and both of you feel some distance from ``A.'' ``A'' will notice that. ``A'' may be very nice. She would be capable of responding directly to ``B'' if ``B'' could express her feelings to her. But ``A'' does not know about ``B's'' resentment. She just feels some kind of cooling down between herself and ``B,'' without knowing why. She notices that ``B'' and ``C'' are becoming close, while both of them look at her coldly. So she thinks, ``If they don't want me, I don't need them.'' She steps farther back from them, and the situation worsens. A triangle has been set up.

If I were ``C,'' first of all, I would listen to ``B'' attentively, understanding that ``B'' needs to share her suffering. Knowing that the direct way is the shortest way, I would encourage ``B'' to speak directly to ``A.'' If ``B'' is unable to do this, I would offer to speak to ``A'' on ``B's'' behalf, either with ``B'' present, or alone. But, most important, I would not transmit to anyone else what ``B'' tells me in confidence. If I am not mindful, I may tell others what I now know about ``B's'' feelings, and soon the family or the community will be a mess. If I do these things -- encourage ``B'' to speak directly with ``A'' or speak with ``A'' on ``B's'' behalf, and not tell anyone else what ``B'' has told me -- I will be able to break the triangle. This may help solve the problem, and bring peace and joy back into the family, the community, and the society.

If, in the community, you see that someone is having difficulty with someone else, you have to help right away. The longer things drag on, the more difficult they are to solve. The best way to help is to practice mindful speech and deep listening. The Fourth Precept can bring peace, understanding, and happiness to people. The universal door is a wonderful door. You will be reborn in a lotus flower and help others, including your family, your community, and your society, be born there also.

Speech can be constructive or destructive. Mindful speaking can bring real happiness; unmindful speech can kill. When someone tells us something that makes us healthy and happy, that is the greatest gift he or she can give. Sometimes, someone says something to us that is so cruel and distressing that we want to go and commit suicide; we lose all hope, all our joie de vivre.

People kill because of speech. When you fanatically advocate an ideology, saying that this way of thinking or organizing society is the best, then if anyone stands in your way, you have to suppress or eliminate him. This is very much linked with the First Precept -- that kind of speech can kill not only one person, but many. When you believe in something that strongly, you can put millions of people into gas chambers. When you use speech to promote an ideology, urging people to kill in order to protect and promote your ideology, you can kill many millions.

The First and Fourth of the Five Wonderful Precepts inter-are. The Fourth Precept is also linked to the Second Precept, on stealing. Just as there is a ``sex industry,'' there is also a ``lying industry.'' Many people have to lie in order to succeed as politicians, or salespersons. A corporate director of communications told me that if he were allowed to tell the truth about his company's products, people would not buy them. He says positive things about the products that he knows are not true, and he refrains from speaking about the negative effects of the products. He knows he is lying, and he feels terrible about it. So many people are caught in similar situations. In politics also, people lie to get votes. That is why we can speak of a ``lying industry.''

This precept is also linked with the Third Precept. When someone says, ``I love you,'' it may be a lie. It may just be an expression of desire. And so much advertising is linked with sex. In the Buddhist tradition, the Fourth Precept is always described as refraining from these four actions:

1. Not telling the truth. If it's black, you say it's white.

2. Exaggerating. You make something up, or

describe something as more beautiful than it actually is, or as ugly when it is not so ugly.

3. Forked tongue. You go to one person and say one thing and then you go to another person and say the opposite.

4. Filthy language. You insult or abuse people. ``I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self- confidence, joy, and hope.'' This must be practiced with children. If you tell children they are good-for-nothing, they will suffer in the future. Always emphasize the positive, hopeful things with your children, and also with your spouse. ``I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.''

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family. This is the work of a bodhisattva. In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening, and you also have to master the art of loving speech. You have to refrain from aligning yourself with one party so that you are able to understand both parties. This is a difficult practice.

During the war in Vietnam, we tried to practice this. We tried not to align ourselves with either of the warring parties, the communists or the anticommunists. You will be able to help only if you stand above the conflict and see both the good and the bad aspects of both sides. Doing this, you put yourself in a dangerous situation, because you may be hated by both sides. One side suspects that you are an instrument of the other side, and the other side suspects you are an instrument of the first side.

You may be killed by both sides at the same time. That is exactly what many Buddhists in Vietnam suffered during the war. We did not align ourselves with the communists, but we did not align ourselves with the pro-American side either. We just wanted to be ourselves. We did not want any killing; we only wanted reconciliation. One side said that you cannot reconcile with the pro-Americans. The other side said that you cannot reconcile with the communists.

If we had listened to both sides it would have been impossible to reconcile with anyone. We trained social workers to go into the rural areas to help with health, economic, and educational problems, and we were suspected by both sides. Our work of reconciliation was not just the work of speaking, but also of acting. We tried to help the peasants find hope. We helped many refugees settle in new villages. We helped sponsor more than ten thousand orphans. We helped the peasants rebuild their destroyed villages. The work of reconciliation is not just diplomatic; it is concrete. At the same time, we were voicing the peace in our hearts. We said the people in one family must look upon each other as brothers and sisters and accept each other. They should not kill each other because of any ideology. That message was not at all popular in the situation of war.

My writings were censored by both sides. My poetry was seized by both sides. My friends printed one of my poetry books underground because the Saigon government would not allow its publication. Then the communist side attacked it on the radio saying that it was harmful to the struggle, probably motivated by the CIA. Nationalist policemen went into bookshops and confiscated the poems. In Hue, one kind policeman went into a Buddhist bookshop and said that this book should not be displayed; it should be hidden and given out only when someone asked for it. We were suppressed not only in our attempts to voice our concerns and propose ways to settle the problems between brothers and sisters, we were also suppressed in our attempts to help people.

Many of our social workers were killed and kidnapped by both sides. Each side suspected we were working for the other side. Some of our workers were assassinated by fanatic Catholics who suspected us of working for the communists, and some of our workers were taken away by the communist side. Our workers were quite popular in the countryside. They were very dedicated young men and women, including many young monks and nuns. They did not have salaries; they just wanted to serve and to practice Buddhism. In the situation of war, they brought their loving kindness, compassion, and good work, and received a small stipend to live. They went to the countryside without hoping for anything in return.

I remember a young man named An who specialized in helping peasants learn modern methods of raising chickens. He taught them disease prevention techniques. He was asked by a farmer, ``How much do you earn from the government each month?'' An said, ``We don't earn anything from the government. In fact we are not from the government, we are from

the temple. We are sent by the Buddhist temple to help you.'' An did not tell the farmer, who was not so sophisticated, that he was associated with the School of Youth for Social Service, founded by the Department of Social Work of the Unified Buddhist Church. That was too complicated, so he only said that he was sent by the temple.

``Why have you come here from the temple?''An said, ``We are performing merit.'' This is a very popular term in Buddhism. The farmer was surprised. He said, ``I have learned that in order to perform merit people go to the temple. Now why are you performing merit here?'' The young man said, ``You know, my Uncle, during these times the people suffer so much that even the Buddha has to come out here to help. We students of the Buddha are performing merit right here, where you suffer.'' That statement became the ground of our philosophy of social service, engaged Buddhism.

The Buddha has to be in society. He cannot remain in the temple any longer, because people are suffering too much. In a few years, we became very popular in the countryside of Vietnam. We did not have a lot of money, but because we worked in the way of performing merit, we were loved by the people. The communist side knew that and did not want us to be there, so they came to us during the night and asked us who had given us permission to work there. Our workers said that we did not have permission from either the government or the communist side. We were just performing merit here. One time the communists gave the order for our social workers to evacuate an area, saying, ``We will not be responsible for your safety if you stay beyond twenty-four hours.'' Another time, some fanatics came from the government, unofficially, and asked our social workers if they were really social workers from the Buddhist community. Then they brought five of the students to the riverbank, and, after checking once more to be sure that they were Buddhist social workers, said, ``We are sorry, but we have to kill you.'' They shot all five of them. We were suppressed by both sides during the night. They

knew that if they suppressed us during the day, the peasants in the countryside would disapprove.

One grenade thrown into my room was deflected by a curtain. Another night, many grenades were thrown into our School's dormitories, killing two young workers, and injuring many others. One young man was paralyzed, and later treated in Germany. One young lady got more than 1,000 pieces of shrapnel in her body. She lost a lot of blood, and was saved by a Japanese friend who was helping us. Later, we were able to bring her to Japan for surgery. They tried to remove the small metal pieces, but 300 pieces that could not be taken out were left in her body.

One day when I was in Paris as representative of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation, to be present at the Paris Peace Talks, I received a phone message from Saigon telling me that four social workers had just been shot and killed. I cried. It was I who had asked them to come and be trained as social workers. A friend who was there with me, said, ``Thây, you are a kind of general leading a nonviolent army, and when your army is working for love and reconciliation, there surely will be casualties. There is no need to cry.'' I said, ``I am not a general. I am a human being. I need to cry.'' I wrote a play six months later about the deaths of these students, entitled, The Path of Return Continues the Journey. [see Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1993)].

The work of reconciliation is not diplomatic work alone. It is not because you travel and meet with dozens of foreign ministers that you do the work of reconciliation. You have to use your body, your time, and your life to do the work of reconciliation. You do it in many ways, and you can be suppressed by the people you are trying to help. You have to listen and understand the suffering of one side, and then go and listen to the suffering of the other side. Then you will be able to tell each side, in turn, about the suffering being endured by the other side. That kind of work is crucial, and it takes courage. We need many people who have the capacity of listening, in South Africa, in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

The Fourth Precept is a bodhisattva precept. We need deep study to be able to practice it well, within ourselves, our families, our communities, our society, and the world.

The Third Precept: Sexual Responsibility

Sun, 29 May 2016 18:04:41 GMT

THE THIRD PRECEPT: SEXUAL RESPONSIBILITY

by Thich Nhat Hanh (Commentary from "For a Future to be Possible)

"Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I undertake to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long- term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct."

So many individuals, children, couples, and families have been destroyed by sexual misconduct. To practice the Third Precept is to heal ourselves and heal our society. This is mindful living.

The Fifth Precept -- not to consume alcohol, toxins, or drugs -- and the Third Precept are linked. Both concern destructive and destabilizing behavior.

These precepts are the right medicine to heal us. We need only to observe ourselves and those around us to see the truth. Our stability and the stability of our families and society cannot be obtained without the practice of these two precepts. If you look at individuals and families who are unstable and unhappy, you will see that many of them do not practice these precepts. You can make the diagnosis by yourself and then know that the medicine is there. Practicing these precepts is the best way to restore stability in the family and in society. For many people, this precept is easy to practice, but for others, it is quite difficult. It is important for these people to come together and share their experiences.

In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of body and mind. Whatever happens to the body also happens to the mind. The sanity of they body is the sanity of the mind; the violation of the body is the violation of the mind. When we are angry, we may think that we are angry in our feelings, not in our body, but that is not true. When we love someone, we want to be close to him or her physically, but when we are angry at someone, we don't want to touch or be touched by that person. We cannot say that body and mind are separate.

A sexual relationship is an act of communion between body and spirit. This is a very important encounter, not to be done in a casual manner. You

know that in your soul there are certain areas -- memories, pain, and secrets -- that are private, that you would only share with the person you love and trust the most. You do not open your heart and show it to just anyone. In the imperial city, there is a zone you cannot approach called the Forbidden City; only the king and his family are permitted to circulate there. There is a place like that in your soul that you do not allow anyone to approach except the one you trust and love the most.

The same is true of our body. Our bodies have areas that we do not want anyone to touch or approach unless he or she is the one we respect, trust, and love the most. When we are approached casually or carelessly, with an attitude that is less than tender, we feel insulted in our body and soul.

Someone who approaches us with respect, tenderness, and utmost care is offering us deep communication, deep communion. It is only in that case that we will not feel hurt, misused, or abused, even a little. This cannot be attained unless there is true love and commitment. Casual sex cannot be described as love. Love is deep, beautiful, and whole.

True love contains respect. In my tradition, husband and wife are expected to respect each other like guests, and when you practice this kind of respect, your love and happiness will continue for a long time. In sexual relationships, respect is one of the most important elements. Sexual communion should be like a rite, a ritual performed in mindfulness with great respect, care, and love. If you are motivated by some desire, that is not love. Desire is not love. Love is something much more responsible. It has care in it.

We have to restore the meaning of the word "love." We have been using it in a careless way. When we say, "I love hamburgers," we are not talking about love. We are talking about our appetite, our desire for hamburgers. We should not dramatize our speech and misuse words like that. We make words like "love" sick that way. We have to make an effort to heal our language by using words carefully. The word "love" is a beautiful word. We have to restore its meaning.

"I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment." If the word "love" is understood in the deepest way, why do we need to say "long-term commitment"? If love is real, we do not need long or short-term commitments, or even a wedding ceremony. True love includes the sense of responsibility, accepting the other person as he is, with all his strengths and weaknesses. If we like only the best things in the person, that is not love. We have to accept his weaknesses and bring our patience, understanding, and energy to help him transform. Love is maitri, the capacity to bring joy and happiness, and karuna, the capacity to transform pain and suffering. This kind of love can only be good for people. It cannot be described as negative or destructive. It is safe. It guarantees everything.

Should we cross out the phrase "long-term commitment" or change it to "short-term commitment"? "Short-term commitment" means that we can be together for a few days and after that the relationship will end. That cannot be described as love. If we have that kind of relationship with another person, we cannot say that the relationship comes out of love and care. The expression "long-term commitment" helps people understand the word love. In the context of real love, commitment can only be long-term. "I want to love you. I want to help you. I want to care for you. I want you to be happy. I want to work for happiness. But just for a few days."

Does this make sense? You are afraid to make a commitment -- to the precepts, to your partner, to anything. You want freedom. But remember, you have to make a long term commitment to love your son deeply and help him through the journey of life as long as you are alive. You cannot just say, "I don't love you anymore." When you have a good friend, you also make a long-term commitment. You need her. How much more so with someone who wants to share your life, your soul, and your body. The phrase "long-term commitment" cannot express the depth of love, but we have to say something so that people understand.

A long-term commitment between two people is only a beginning. We also need the support of friends and other people. That is why, in our society, we have a wedding ceremony. The two families join together with other friends to witness the fact that you have come together to live as a couple. The priest and the marriage license are just symbols.

What is important is that your commitment is witnessed by many friends and both of your families. Now you will be supported by them. A long-term commitment is stronger and more long-lasting if made in the context of a Sangha. Your strong feelings for each other are very important, but they are not enough to sustain your happiness. Without other elements, what you describe as love may turn into something sour rather soon. The support of friends and family coming together weaves a kind of web. The strength of your feelings is only one of the strands of that web.

Supported by many elements, the couple will be solid, like a tree. If a tree wants to be strong, it needs a number of roots sent deep into the soil. If a tree has only one root, it may be blown over by the wind. The life of a couple also needs to be supported by many elements -- families, friends, ideals, practice, and Sangha.

In Plum Village, the practice community where I live in France, every time we have a wedding ceremony, we invite the whole community to celebrate and bring support to the couple. After the ceremony, on every full moon day, the couple recites the Five Awarenesses together, remembering that friends everywhere are supporting their relationship to be stable, long-lasting, and happy. Whether or not your relationship is bound by law, it will be stronger and more long-lasting if made in the presence of a Sangha -- friends who love you and want to support you in the spirit of understanding and loving kindness.

Love can be a kind of sickness. In the West and in Asia, we have the word "lovesick." What makes us sick is attachment. Although it is a sweet internal formation, this kind of love with attachment is like a drug. It makes us feel wonderful, but once we are addicted, we cannot have peace. We cannot study, do our daily work, or sleep. We only think of the object of our love. We are sick with love. This kind of love is linked to our willingness to possess and monopolize. We want the object of our love to be entirely ours and only for us. It is totalitarian. We do not want anyone to prevent us from a prison, where we lock up our beloved and create only suffering for him or her. The one who is loved is deprived of freedom -- of the right to be him or herself and enjoy life.

This kind of love cannot be described as maître or karuna. It is only the willingness to make use of the other person in order to satisfy our own needs.

When you have sexual energy that makes you feel unhappy, as though you are losing your inner peace, you should know how to practice so that you do not do things that will bring suffering to other people or yourself. We have to learn about this. In Asia, we say there are three sources of energy -- sexual, breath, and spirit. Tinh, sexual energy, is the first. When you have more sexual energy than you need, there will be an imbalance in your body and in your being. You need to know how to reestablish the balance, or you may act irresponsibly.

According to Taoism and Buddhism, there are practices to help reestablish that balance, such as meditation or martial arts. You can learn the ways to channel your sexual energy into deep realizations in the domains of art and meditation.

The second source of energy is khi, breath energy. Life can be described as a process of burning. In order to burn, every cell in our body needs nutrition and oxygen. In his Fire Sermon, the Buddha said, "The eyes are burning, the nose is burning, the body is burning." In our daily lives, we have to cultivate our energy by practicing proper breathing. We benefit from the air and its oxygen, so we have to be sure that non-polluted air is available to us. Some people cultivate their khi by refraining from smoking and talking a lot. When you speak, take the time to breathe. At Plum Village, every time we hear the bell of mindfulness, everyone stops what they are doing and breathes consciously three times. We practice this way to cultivate and preserve our khi energy.

The third source of energy is than, spirit energy. When you don't sleep at night, you lose some of this kind of energy. Your nervous system becomes exhausted and you cannot study or practice meditation well, or make good decisions. You don't have a clear mind because lack of sleep or from worrying too much. Worry and anxiety drain this source of energy. So don't worry. Don't stay up too late. Keep your nervous system healthy. Prevent anxiety. These kinds of practices cultivate the third source of energy. You need this source of energy to practice meditation well. A spiritual breakthrough requires the power of your spirit energy, which comes about through concentration and knowing how to preserve

this source of energy. When you have strong spirit energy, you only have to focus it on an object, and you will have a breakthrough. If you don't have than, the light of your concentration will not shine brightly, because the light emitted is very weak.

According to Asian medicine, the power of than is linked to the power of tinh. When we expend our sexual energy, it takes time to restore it. In Chinese medicine, when you want to have a strong spirit and concentration, you are advised to refrain from having sexual relationships or overeating. You will be given herbs, roots, and medicine to enrich your source of than, and during the time you are taking this medicine, you are asked to refrain from sexual relationships. If your source of spirit is weak and you continue to have sexual relations, it is said that you cannot recover your spirit energy. Those who practice meditation should try to preserve their sexual energy, because they need it during meditation. If you are an artist, you may wish to practice channeling your sexual energy together with your spirit energy into your art.

During his struggle against the British, Gandhi undertook many hunger strikes, and he recommended to his friends who joined him on these fasts not to have sexual intercourse. When you fast for many days, if you have sexual relations, you may die; you have to preserve your energies. Thich Tri Quang, my friend who fasted for one hundred days in the hospital in Saigon in 1966, knew very well that not having sexual intercourse was very basic. Of course, as a monk, he did not have any problem with that. He also knew that speaking is an energy drain, so he refrained from speaking. If he needed something, he said it in one or two words or wrote it down. Writing, speaking, or making too many movements draws from these three sources of energy. So, the best thing is to lie down on your back and practice deep breathing.

This brings into you the vitality that you need to survive a hundred-day hunger strike. If you don't eat, you cannot replenish this energy. If you refrain from studying, doing research, or worrying, you can preserve these resources. These three sources of energy are linked to each other. By practicing one, you help the other. That is why anapanasati, the practice of conscious breathing, is so important for our spiritual life. It helps with all of our sources of energy.

Monks and nuns do not engage in sexual relationships because they want to devote their energy to having a breakthrough in meditation. They learn to channel their sexual energy to strengthen their spirit energy for the breakthrough. They also practice deep breathing to increase the spirit energy. Since they live alone, without a family, they can devote most of their time to meditation and teaching, helping the people who provide them with food, shelter, and so on.

They have contact with the population in the village in order to share the Dharma. Since they do not have a house or a family to care for, they have the time and space to do the things they like the most -- walking, sitting, breathing, and helping fellow monks, nuns, and laypeople -- and to realize what they want. Monks and nuns don't marry in order to preserve their time and energy for the practice.

"Responsibility" is the key word in the Third Precept. In a community of practice, if there is no sexual misconduct, if the community practices this precept well, there will be stability and peace. This precept should be practiced by everyone. You respect, support, and protect each other as Dharma brothers and sisters. If you don't practice this precept, you may become irresponsible and create trouble in the community at large. We have all seen this. If a teacher cannot refrain from sleeping with one of his or her students, he or she will destroy everything, possibly for several generations. We need mindfulness in order to have that sense of responsibility. We refrain from sexual misconduct because we are responsible for the well-being of so many people. If we are irresponsible, we can destroy everything. By practicing this precept, we keep the Sangha beautiful.

In sexual relationships, people can get wounded. Practicing this precept is to prevent ourselves and others from being wounded. Often we think it is the woman who receives the wound, but men also get deeply wounded. We have to be very careful, especially in short-term commitments. The practice of the Third Precept is a very strong way of restoring stability and peace in ourselves, our family, and our society. We should take the time to discuss problems relating to the practice of this precept, like loneliness, advertising, and even the sex industry.

The feeling of loneliness is universal in our society. There is no communication between ourselves and other people, even in the family, and our feeling of loneliness pushes us into having sexual relationship will make us feel less lonely, but it isn't true. When there is not enough communication with another person on the level of the heart and spirit, a sexual relationship will only widen the gap and destroy us both. Our relationship will be stormy, and we will make each other suffer. The belief that having a sexual relationship will help us feel lonely is a kind of superstition. We should not be fooled by it. In fact, we will feel more lonely afterwards. The union of the two bodies can only be positive when there is understanding and communion on the level of the heart and the spirit. Even between husband and wife, if the communion on the level of the heart and spirit does not exist, the coming together of the two bodies will only separate you further. When that is the case, I recommend that you refrain from having sexual relationships and first try to make a breakthrough in communication.

There are two Vietnamese words, tinh and nghia, that are difficult to translate into English. They both mean something like love. In tinh, you find elements of passion. It can be very deep, absorbing the whole of your being. Nghia is a kind of continuation of tinh. With Nghia you feel much calmer, more understanding, more willing to sacrifice to make the other person happy, and more faithful. You are not as passionate as in tinh, but your love is deeper and more solid. Nghia will keep you and the other person together for a long time. It is the result of living together and sharing difficulties and joy over time.

You begin with passion, but, living with each other, you encounter difficulties, and as you learn to deal with them, your love deepens. Although the passion diminishes, nghia increases all the time. Nghia is a deeper love, with more wisdom, more interbeing, more unity. You understand the other person better. You and that person become one reality. Nghia is like a fruit that is already ripe. It does not taste sour anymore; it is only sweet. In nghia, you feel gratitude for the other person. "Thank you for having chosen me. Thank you for being my husband or my wife. There are so many people in society, why have you chosen me? I am very thankful." That is the beginning of nghia, the sense of thankfulness for your having chosen me as your companion to share the best things in yourself, as well as your suffering and your happiness.

When we live together, we support each other. We begin to understand each other's feelings and difficulties. When the other person has shown his or her understanding of our problems, difficulties, and deep aspirations, we feel thankful for that understanding. When you feel understood by someone, you stop being unhappy. Happiness is, first of all, feeling understood. "I am grateful because you have proved that you understand me. While I was having difficulty and remained awake deep into the night, you took care of me. You showed me that my well-being is your own well-being. You did the impossible in order to bring about my well-being.

You took care of me in a way that no one else in this world could have. For that I am grateful to you." If the couple lives with each other for a long time, "until our hair becomes white and our teeth fall out," it is because of nghia, and not because of tinh. Tinh is passionate love. Nghia is the kind of love that has a lot of understanding and gratitude in it.

All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness -- the tendency to possess – will diminish, and the elements of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring. With nghia, you are very sure that the other person will take care of you and will love you until your teeth fall out and your hair becomes white. Nothing will assure you that the person will be with you for a long time except nghia. Nghia is built by both of you in your daily life.

To meditate is to look into the nature of our love to see the kind of elements that are in it. We cannot call our love just tinh or nghia, possessive love or altruistic love, because there may be elements of both in it. It may be ninety percent possessive love, three percent altruistic love, two percent gratitude, and so on. Look deeply into the nature of your love and find out. The happiness of the other person and your own happiness depend on the nature of your love. Of course you have love in you, but what is important is the nature of that love. If you realize that there is a lot of maitri and karuna in your love, that will be very reassuring. Nghia will be strong in it.

Children, if they observe deeply, will see that what keeps their parents together is nghia and not passionate love. If their parents take good care of each other, look after each other with calmness, tenderness, and care, nghia is the foundation of that are. That is the kind of love we really need for our family and for our society.

In practicing the Third Precept, we should always look into the nature of our love in order to see and not be fooled by our feelings. Sometimes we feel that we have love for the other person, but maybe that love is only an attempt to satisfy our own egoistic needs. Maybe we have not looked deeply enough to see the needs of the other person, including the need to be safe, protected. If we have that kind of breakthrough, we will realize that the other person needs our protection, and therefore we cannot look upon him or her just as an object of our desire. The other person should not be looked upon as a kind of commercial item.

Sex is used in our society as a means for selling products. We also have the sex industry. If we don't look at the other person as a human being, with the capacity of becoming a Buddha, we risk transgressing this precept. Therefore the practice of looking deeply into the nature of our love has a lot to do with the practice of the Third Precept. "I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct." Adults who were molested as children continue to suffer very much. Everything they think, do, and say bears the mark of that wound. They want to transform themselves and heal their wound, and the best way to do this is to observe the Third Precept. Because of their own experience, they can say, "As a victim of sexual abuse, I undertake to protect all children and adults from sexual abuse." Our suffering becomes a kind of positive energy that will help us become a bodhisattva. We undertake to protect all children and other people. And we also undertake to help those who abuse children sexually, because they are sick and need our help. The ones who made us suffer become the object of our love and protection. We see that until the sick are protected and helped, children are going to continue to be abused sexually.

We undertake to help these people so that they will not molest children any longer. At the same time, we undertake to help children. We take not only the side of children who are being molested, but the other side also. These molesters are sick, the products of an unstable society. They may be an uncle, an aunt, a grandparent, or a parent. They need to be observed, helped, and, if possible, healed. When we are determined to observe this precept, the energy that is born helps us to transform into a bodhisattva, and that transformation may heal us even before we begin to practice. The best way for anyone who was molested as a child to heal is to take this precept and undertake to protect children and adults who may be sick, who may be repeating the kind of destructive actions that will cause a child to be wounded for the rest of his or her life.

The Second Precept: Generosity

Tue, 24 May 2016 13:43:11 GMT

THE SECOND PRECEPT: GENEROSITY

by Thich Nhat Hanh (commentary from "For a Future to Be Possible")

"Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I undertake to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I undertake to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth."

Exploitation, social injustice, and stealing come in many forms. Oppression is one form of stealing that causes much suffering both here and in the Third World. The moment we undertake to cultivate loving kindness, loving kindness is born in us, and we make every effort to stop exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression.

In the First Precept, we found the word "compassion." Here, we find the words "loving kindness." Compassion and loving kindness are the two aspects of love taught by the Buddha.

Compassion, karuna in Sanskrit and Pali, is the intention and capacity to relieve the suffering of another person or living being. Loving kindness, maitri in Sanskrit, metta in Pali, is the intention and capacity to bring joy and happiness to another person or living being. It was predicted by Shakyamuni Buddha that the next Buddha will bear the name Maitreya, the Buddha of Love.

"Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I undertake to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants and minerals." Even with maitri as a source of energy in ourselves, we still need to learn to look deeply in order to find ways to express it. We do it as individuals, and we learn ways to do it as a nation.

To promote the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals, we have to come together as a community and examine our situation, exercising our intelligence and our ability to look deeply so that we can discover appropriate ways to express our maître in the midst of real problems.

Suppose you want to help those who are suffering under a dictatorship. In the past you may have tried sending in troops to overthrow their government, but you have learned that when doing that, you cause the deaths of many innocent people, and even then, you might not overthrow the dictator. If you practice looking more deeply, with loving kindness, to find a better way to help these people without causing suffering, you may realize that the best time to help is before the country falls into the hands of a dictator. If you offer the young people of that country the opportunity to learn your democratic ways of governing by giving them scholarships to come to your country, that would be a good investment for peace in the future. If you had done that thirty years ago, the other country might be democratic now, and you would not have to bomb them or send in troops to "liberate" them. This is just one example of how looking deeply and learning can help us find ways to do things that are more in line with loving kindness.

If we wait until the situation gets bad, it may be too late. If we practice the precepts together with politicians, soldiers, businessmen, lawyers, legislators, artists, writers, and teachers, we can find the best ways to practice compassion, loving kindness, and understanding. It requires time to practice generosity. We may want to help those who are hungry, but we are caught in the problems of our own daily lives. Sometimes, one pill or a little rice could save the life of a child, but we do not take the time to help, because we think we do not have the time. In Ho Chi Minh City, for example, there are street children who call themselves "the dust of life." They are homeless, and they wander the streets by day and sleep under trees at night. They scavenge in garbage heaps to find things like plastic bags they can sell for one or two cents per pound. The nuns and monks in Ho Chi Minh City have opened their temples to these children, and if the children agree to stay four hours in the morning -- learning to read and write and playing with the monks and nuns -- they are offered a vegetarian lunch.

Then they can go to the Buddha hall for a nap. (In Vietnam, we always take naps after lunch; it is so hot. When the Americans came, they brought their practice of working eight hours, from nine to five. Many of us tried, but we could not do it. We desperately need our naps after lunch.) Then at two o'clock, there is more teaching and playing with the children, and the children who stay for the afternoon receive dinner. The temple does not have a place for them to sleep overnight. In our community in France, we have been supporting these nuns and monks. It costs only twenty cents for a child to have both lunch and dinner, and it will keep him from being out on the streets, where he might steal cigarettes, smoke, use delinquent language, and learn the worst behavior. By encouraging the children to go to the temple, we help prevent them from becoming delinquent and entering prison later on. It takes time to help these children, not much money. There are so many simple things like this we can do to help people, but because we cannot free ourselves from our situation and our lifestyle, we do nothing at all. We need to come together as a community, and, looking deeply, find ways to free ourselves so we can practice the Second Precept.

"I undertake to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need." This sentence is clear. The feeling of generosity and the capacity for being generous are not enough. We also need to express our generosity. We may feel that we don't have the time to make people happy - we say, "Time is money," but time is more than money. Life is for more than using time to make money. Time is for being alive, for sharing joy and happiness with others. The wealthy are often the least able to make others happy. Only those with time can do so.

I know a man named Bac Sieu in Thua Thien Province in Vietnam, who has been practicing generosity for fifty years; he is a living bodhisattva. With only a bicycle, he visits villages of thirteen provinces, bringing something for this family and something for that family. When I met him in 1965, I was a little too proud of our School of Youth for Social Service. We had begun to train three hundred workers, including monks and nuns, to go out to rural villages to help people rebuild homes and modernize local economies, health-care systems, and education. Eventually we had ten thousand workers throughout the country. As I was telling Bac Sieu about our projects, I was looking at his bicycle and thinking that with a bicycle he could help only a few people. But when the communists took over and closed our School, Bac Sieu continued, because his way of working was formless. Our orphanages, dispensaries, schools, and resettlement centers were all shut down or taken by the government.

Thousands of our workers had to stop their work and hide. But Bac Sieu had nothing to take. He was a truly a bodhisattva, working for the well-being of others. I feel more humble now concerning the ways of practicing generosity.

The war created many thousands of orphans. Instead of raising money to build orphanages, we sought people in the West to sponsor a child. We found families in the villages to each take care of one orphan, then we sent $6 every month to that family to feed the child and send him or her to school. Whenever possible, we tried to place the child in the family of an aunt, an uncle, or a grandparent. With just $6, the child was fed and sent to school, and the rest of the children in the family were also helped. Children benefit from growing up in a family. Being in an orphanage can be like being in the army -- children do not grow up naturally. If we look for and learn ways to practice generosity, we will improve all the time.

"I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth." When you practice one precept deeply, you will discover that you are practicing all five. The First Precept is about taking life, which is a form of stealing -- stealing the most precious thing someone has, his or her life. When we meditate on the Second Precept, we see that stealing, in the forms of exploitation, social injustice, and oppression, are acts of killing -- killing slowly by exploitation, by maintaining social injustice, and by political and economic oppression. Therefore, the Second Precept has much to do with the precept of not killing. We see the "interbeing" nature of the first two precepts. This is true of all Five Precepts. Some people formally receive just one or two precepts. I didn't mind, because if you practice one or two precepts deeply, all Five Precepts will be observed.

The Second Precept is not to steal. Instead of stealing, exploiting, or oppressing, we practice generosity. In Buddhism, we say there are three kinds of gifts. The first is the gift of material resources. The second is to help people rely on themselves, to offer them the technology and knowhow to stand on their own feet. Helping people with the Dharma so they can transform their fear, anger, and depression belongs to the second kind of gift.

The third is the gift of non-fear. We are afraid of many things. We feel insecure, afraid of being alone, afraid of sickness and dying. To help people not be destroyed by their fears, we practice the third kind of gift-giving.

The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is someone who practices this extremely well. In the Heart Sutra, he teaches us the way to transform and transcend fear and ride on the waves of birth and death, smiling. He says that there is no production, no destruction, no being, no nonbeing, no increasing, and no decreasing. Hearing this helps us look deeply into the nature of reality to see that birth and death, being and nonbeing, coming and going, increasing and decreasing are all just ideas that we ascribe to reality, while reality transcends all concepts. When we realize the interbeing nature of all things – that even birth and death are just concepts – we transcend fear.

In 1991, I visited a friend in New York who was dying, Alfred Hassler. We had worked together in the peace movement for almost thirty years. Alfred looked as though he had been waiting for me to come before dying, and he died only a few hours after our visit. I went with my closest colleague, Sister Chan Khong (True Emptiness).

Alfred was not awake when we arrived. His daughter Laura tried to wake him up, but she couldn't. So I asked Sister Chan Khong to sing Alfred the Song of No Coming and No Going: "These eyes are not me, I am not caught by these eyes. This body is not me, I am not caught by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, I will never die."

The idea is taken from the Samyutta Nikaya. She sang so beautifully, and I saw streams of tears running down the faces of Alfred's wife and children. They were tears of understanding, and they were very healing. Suddenly, Alfred came back to himself. Sister Chan Khong began to practice what she had learned from studying the sutra The Teaching Given to the Sick. She said, "Alfred, do you remember the times we worked together?" She evoked many happy memories we had shared together, and Alfred was able to remember each of them. Although he was obviously in pain, he smiled. This practice brought results right away. When a person is suffering from so much physical pain, we sometimes can alleviate his suffering by watering the seeds of happiness that are in him. A kind of balance is restored, and he will feel less pain.

All the while, I was practicing massage on his feet, and I asked him whether he felt my hand on his body. When you are dying, areas of your body become numb, and you feel as if you have lost those parts of your body. Doing massage in mindfulness, gently, gives the dying person the feeling that he is alive and being cared for. He knows that love is there. Alfred nodded, and his eyes seemed to say, "Yes, I feel your hands. I know my foot is there."

Sister Chan Khong asked, "Do you know we learned a lot from you when we lived and worked together? The work you began, many of us are continuing to do. Please don't worry about anything." She told him many things like that, and he seemed to suffer less. At one point, he opened his mouth and said, "Wonderful, wonderful." Then, he sank back to sleep.

Before we left, we encouraged the family to continue these practices. The next day I learned that Alfred passed away just five hours after our visit. This was a kind of gift that belongs to the third category. If you can help people feel safe, less afraid of life, people, and death, you are practicing the third kind of gift. During my meditation, I had a wonderful image – the shape of a wave, its beginning and its end. When conditions are sufficient, we perceive the wave, and when conditions are no longer sufficient, we do not perceive the wave. Waves are only made of water.

We cannot label the wave as existing or nonexisting. After what we call the death of the wave, nothing is gone, nothing is lost. The wave has been absorbed into other waves, and somehow, time will bring the wave back again. There is no increasing, decreasing, birth, or death. When we are dying, if we think that everyone else is alive and we are the only person dying, our feeling of loneliness may be unbearable. But if we are able to visualize hundreds of thousands of people dying with us, our dying may become serene and even joyful. "I am dying in community. Millions of living beings are also dying in this very moment. I see myself together with millions of other living beings; we die in the Sangha. At the same time, millions of beings are coming to life. All of us are doing this together. I have been born, I am dying. We participate in the whole event as a Sangha." That is what I saw in my meditation. In the Heart Sutra, Avalokitesvara shares this kind of insight and helps us transcend fear, sorrow, and pain. The gift of non-fear brings about a transformation in us.

The Second Precept is a deep practice. We speak of time, energy, and material resources, but time is not only for energy and material resources. Time is for being with others -- being with a dying person or with someone who is suffering. Being really present for even five minutes can be a very important gift. Time is not just to make money. It is to produce the gift of Dharma and the gift of non-fear.

The First Precept: Reverence for Life

Tue, 17 May 2016 14:04:28 GMT

THE FIRST PRECEPT: REVERENCE FOR LIFE

by Thich Nhat Hanh (commentary from "For a Future to Be Possible")

"Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I undertake to cultivate compassion and learn 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 condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life."

Life is precious. It is everywhere, inside us and all around us; it has so many forms. The First Precept is born from the awareness that lives everywhere are being destroyed. We see the suffering caused by the destruction of life, and we undertake to cultivate compassion and use it as a source of energy for the protection of people,

animals, plants, and minerals. The First Precept is a precept of compassion, karuna -- the ability to remove suffering and transform it. When we see suffering, compassion is born in us.

It is important for us to stay in touch with the suffering of the world. We need to nourish that awareness through many means -- sounds, images, direct contact, visits, and so on -- in order to keep compassion alive in us. But we must be careful not to take in too much. Any remedy must be taken in the proper dosage. We need to stay in touch with suffering only to the extent that we will not forget, so that compassion will flow within us and be a source of energy for our actions. If we use anger at injustice as the source for our energy, we may do something harmful, something that we will later regret.

According to Buddhism, compassion is the only source of energy that is useful and safe. With compassion, your energy is born from insight; it is not blind energy. We humans are made entirely of non-human elements, such as plants, minerals, earth, clouds, and sunshine. For our practice to be deep and true, we must include the ecosystem. If the environment is destroyed, humans will be destroyed, too. Protecting human life is not possible without also protecting the lives of animals, plants, and minerals.

The Diamond Sutra teaches us that it is impossible to distinguish between sentient and non-sentient beings. This is one of many ancient Buddhist texts that teach deep ecology. Every Buddhist practitioner should be a protector of the environment. Minerals have their own lives, too. In Buddhist monasteries, we chant, "Both sentient and non- sentient beings will realize full enlightenment." The First Precept is the practice of protecting all lives, including the lives of minerals.

"I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life."

We cannot support any act of killing; no killing can be justified. But not to kill is not enough. We must also learn ways to prevent others from killing. We cannot say, "I am not responsible. They did it. My hands are clean." If you were in Germany during the time of the Nazis, you could not say, "They did it. I did not." If, during the Gulf War, you did not say or do anything to try to stop the killing, you were not practicing this precept. Even if what you said or did failed to stop the war, what is important is that you tried, using your insight and compassion. It is not just by not killing with your body that you observe the First Precept. If in your thinking you allow the killing to go on, you also break this precept. We must be determined not to condone killing, even in our minds. According to the Buddha, the mind is the base of all actions. It is most

dangerous to kill in the mind. When you believe, for example, that yours is the only way for humankind and that everyone who follows another way is your enemy, millions of people could be killed because of that idea.

Thinking is at the base of everything. It is important for us to put an eye of awareness into each of our thoughts. Without a correct understanding of a situation or a person, our thoughts can be misleading and create confusion, despair, anger, or hatred. Our most important task is to develop correct insight. If we see deeply into the nature of

interbeing, that all things "inter-are," we will stop blaming, arguing, and killing, and we will become friends with everyone. To practice nonviolence, we must first of all learn ways to deal peacefully with ourselves. If we create true harmony within ourselves, we will know how to deal with family, friends, and associates.

When we protest against a war, for example, we may assume that we are a peaceful person, a representative of peace, but this might not be true. If we look deeply, we will observe that the roots of war are in the unmindful ways we have been living. We

have not sown enough seeds of peace and understanding in ourselves and others, therefore we are co-responsible: "Because I have been like this, they are like that." A more holistic approach is the way of "interbeing": "This is like this, because that is like that." This is the way of understanding and love.

With this insight, we can see clearly and help our government see clearly. Then we can go to a demonstration and say, "This war is unjust, destructive, and not worthy of our great nation." This is far more effective than angrily condemning others. Anger always accelerates the damage. All of us, even pacifists, have pain inside. We feel

angry and frustrated, and we need to find someone willing to listen to us who is capable of understanding our suffering. In Buddhist iconography, there is a bodhisattva named Avalokitesvara who has one thousand arms and one thousand hands, and has an eye in the palm of each hand. One thousand hands represent action, and the eye in each hand represents understanding.

When you understand a situation or a person, any action you do will help and will not cause more suffering. When you have an eye in your hand, you will know how to practice true nonviolence.

To practice nonviolence, first of all we have to practice it within ourselves. In each of us, there is a certain amount of violence and a certain amount of nonviolence. Depending on our state of being, our response to things will be more or less nonviolent.

Even if we take pride in being vegetarian, for example, we have to acknowledge that the water in which we boil our vegetables contains many tiny microorganisms. We cannot be completely nonviolent, but by being vegetarian, we are going in the direction of nonviolence. If we want to head north, we can use the North Star to guide us, but it is impossible to arrive at the North Star. Our effort is only to proceed in that direction.

Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even army generals. They may, for example, conduct their operations in ways that avoid killing innocent people. To help soldiers move in the nonviolent direction, we have to be in touch with them. If we divide reality into two camps -- the violent and the nonviolent -- and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves

and also work with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.

It never helps to draw a line and dismiss some people as enemies, even those who act violently. We have to approach them with love in our hearts and do our best to help them move in a direction of nonviolence. If we work for peace out of anger, we will never succeed. Peace is not an end. It can never come about through non-peaceful means.

Most important is to become nonviolence, so that when a situation presents itself, we will not create more suffering. To practice nonviolence, we need gentleness, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity directed to our bodies, our feelings, and other people. With mindfulness -- the practice of peace -- we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves. There are techniques for doing this. Conscious breathing is one. Every time we feel upset, we can stop what we are doing, refrain from saying anything, and breathe in and out several times, aware of each in-breath and each out-breath. If we are still upset, we can go for walking meditation, mindful of each slow step and each breath we take. By cultivating peace within, we bring about peace in society. It depends on us. To practice peace in ourselves is to minimize the numbers of wars between this and that feeling, or this and that perception, and we can then have real peace with others as well, including the members of our own family.

I am often asked, "What if you are practicing nonviolence and someone breaks into your house and tries to kidnap your daughter or kill your husband? What should you do? Should you still act in a nonviolent way?" The answer depends on your state of being. If you are prepared, you may react calmly and intelligently, in the most nonviolent way possible. But to be ready to react with intelligence and nonviolence, you have to train yourself in advance. It may take ten years, or longer. If you wait until the time of crisis to ask the question, it will be too late. A this-or-that kind of answer would be superficial. At that crucial moment, even if you know that nonviolence is better than violence, if your understanding is only intellectual and not in your whole being, you will not act nonviolently. The fear and anger in you will prevent you from acting in the most nonviolent way.

We have to look deeply every day to practice this precept well. Every time we buy or consume something, we may be condoning some form of killing.

While practicing the protection of humans, animals, plants, and minerals, we know that we are protecting ourselves. We feel in permanent and loving touch with all species on Earth. We are protected by the mindfulness and the loving kindness of the Buddha and many generations of Sanghas who also practice this precept. This energy of loving kindness brings us the feeling of safety, health, and joy, and this becomes real the moment we make the decision to receive and practice the First Precept.

Feeling compassion is not enough. We have to learn to express it. That is why love must go together with understanding. Understanding and insight show us how to act.

Our real enemy is forgetfulness. If we nourish mindfulness every day and water the seeds of peace in ourselves and those around us, we become alive, and we can help ourselves and others realize peace and compassion.

Life is so precious, yet in our daily lives we are usually carried away by our forgetfulness, anger, and worries, lost in the past, unable to touch life in the present moment. When we are truly alive, everything we do or touch is a miracle. To practice

mindfulness is to return to life in the present moment. The practice of the First Precept is a celebration of reverence for life. When we appreciate and honor the beauty of life, we will do everything in our power to protect all life.

Cultivating the Compassionate Heart

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 02:31:23 GMT

We come to the Dharma through many doors. Some of us come seeking stress reduction or emotional healing, while others may be looking for greater clarity, connection, wisdom, and/or deeper insights into the purpose of our life.

We sit down on the cushion and find that even in silence our brilliant minds can fill the space with planning, rumination, anxiety and more. However, with diligent and consistent practice, we soon begin to notice some settling of the mind, a little space between the in breath and the out breath, a small gap between thoughts.

As the dust settles and the mind becomes more clear, our natural wisdom and clarity begin to emerge. We come to understand that by practicing mindfulness we can learn to stop, look deeply, and respond wisely to life, rather than automatically reacting in our conditioned ways. We develop equanimity so that the many ups and downs that occur with the unfolding of life are accepted with more ease, enabling us to eliminate so much self-created suffering. Yet, the small voice of "self" still remains in the background (or foreground!), continuing to create suffering by making it all about "me."

The Buddha taught that just as a bird needs two wings to fly, the cultivation of an enlightened mind requires two wings: wisdom and compassion. If we neglect to nurture the compassionate heart, we may continue to be enmeshed in self, and our spiritual progress will be limited.

Under Fred's guidance at FCM's spring retreat this past weekend -"I am Here for You: Living an Altruistic Life," retreatants had the opportunity to cultivate the wing of compassion through experiencing the essential Buddhist teachings and practices of altruism. During the retreat we practiced seeing all beings as interconnected and equal in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. We "stepped into others' shoes" to cultivate empathy, which - when combined with an aspiration to help all beings - supports boundless loving kindness and compassion. We generated loving kindness in our hearts for those we love, those we are indifferent to, those we have difficulty with, as well as for ourselves. And we performed the ancient "alchemical" practice of tonglen, taking in the suffering of another and breathing out whatever healing might be needed, realizing that this exchange does not increase our suffering but actually breaks up the self-cherishing in our hearts, creating joy and openness instead.

These wonderful practices can be found in many Buddhist writings. Students in the current Lojong Intensive will recognize the concepts of "Absolute Bodhicitta" and "Relative Bodhicitta," with clear instructions for cultivating, respectively, wisdom and compassion, both essential on the path of enlightenment. Texts by Shantideva and commentaries and instruction by the Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard, Sharon Salzberg and many others are readily available to help support our understanding and cultivation of the compassionate heart.

Through these practices of altruism, in being there for others instead of being there for the self-cherishing self, we discover the second "wing" needed for true transformation, and a pathway to true happiness and ease.

Submitted with metta,

Angie Parrish

WALKING IN THE EVERGLADES FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS: Practicing Environmental Mindfulness with the Micosukee and Seminole

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 13:53:03 GMT

With gratitude to Andrew Rock for this rich sharing. For more information, including how to join the Buddhist Climate Action Network, please contact Andrew at rock1@tampabay.rr.com.

This past week I joined a group of about thirty indigenous people and environmentalists on an eighty mile walk through the Everglades, along US Highway 41. While I knew it would be worthwhile to participate in this event as part of my climate action work, I did not realize in advance that this walk would also be deeply meaningful as a focused practice of mindfulness and intentional living.

The specific purpose of the Walk for Future Generations, organized by members of the indigenous people living in the Everglades, was to protest and try to stop the pending construction of the ROGG (River of Grass Greenway), a paved bicycle path through the Everglades that would further block the free flow of water and wildlife, and also destructive seismic testing for oil and gas exploration scheduled to begin soon in the Big Cypress Preserve. More broadly, the event was intended to raise awareness of the plight of living beings in an increasingly damaged ecosystem, and to inspire the participants and others to devote ourselves to efforts to preserve and protect our planet as a viable home for future generations.

The leaders of the walk were Betty Osceola of the Panther Clan of the Micosukee tribe, and Bobby C. Billie, a council member and spiritual leader of the Micosukee Simanolee nation (who had never signed a treaty with the US government). I had met Betty in January when we were both lobbying in Tallahassee against pending pro-fracking legislation, and Betty gave a very powerful speech about the preservation of mother earth and the protection of our precious gift of clean water upon which the life of her people and all creatures depends. Bobby had come to the Interfaith Climate Action Conference held near Orlando later in January, speaking in a panel discussion with other faith leaders about what had led them to environmental activism. He spoke with great dignity and power about the decline, in his long lifetime, of the land and water, of the woods and wetlands, of his people’s ability to grow crops and hunt and support themselves. He spoke of our collective exploitation of mother earth just to make money, to the point where the circle of life was broken and the land he grew up in was hardly recognizable any more.

Last Wednesday afternoon I drove down to the base camp for the walk at Trail Lakes Campground, in Ochopee on Highway 41, south of Alligator Alley. The walkers had not yet returned from the fifteen mile stretch of road they were walking that day, but by the time my tent was pitched they arrived in two big vans and a couple of pick-ups, hot, tired and hungry. After washing up and resting, and eating a simple dinner prepared by volunteers who’d stayed in camp, everyone gathered around for a fire circle. The evening had turned damp and a bit chilly, mosquitoes were out in force, and we were happy to sit on logs and camp chairs in the warmth and light of the large fire the men had made.

I was expecting a relaxed evening of story-telling and chatting around the fire, perhaps with some drumming or songs. But it quickly became clear that the Fire Circle was a very purposeful and important part of every day, as Bobby Billie and Betty Osceola led us through what in the Florida Community of Mindfulness we would call deep sharing/ deep listening practice. Bobby Billie, very much the spiritual leader of the indigenous people present and of all who had gathered to support them and the life of the Everglades, began with a short talk, and then asked each of us to speak of what we had seen that day, what had spoken to us, and what it meant to us. We went around the circle, as a full moon rose through the pine trees, each person taking the time to look deeply and speak seriously, the rest of us listening in silence, with no chatting or cross-talk. That day the walkers had gone through a recently burned area, the result of a planned fire by the Park Service, and people were deeply affected by the death and destruction they had seen and felt: dead birds and snakes by the roadside, scorched trees and grass, the hot and jagged earth under their feet. Those of us who hadn’t walked that day also shared, speaking of what we had seen and of why we had come. If people started to ramble as they spoke, Bobby or Betty Osceola would remind us of the instructions and tell us to keep focused on our purpose.

The next morning, before we began our walk, Bobby smudged each of us with smoke from a mixture of herbs he had made in a seashell, and then had us form a circle, holding hands as Bobby reminded us of our purpose. He told us that everything we did and everything we thought had meaning and should not be taken lightly. Then Betty Osceola had us line up in double file, behind our two flag bearers - one holding a pole with the banner of the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation of Aboriginal Peoples, the other holding a long staff bearing a dozen eagle feathers. She told us that we were a “we,” not a “me,” and that we needed to take care of one another. She told us to walk in silence, maintaining our order and dignity, alert to everything around us, and to remember that we were here to give support to the life and the nature all around us, supporting us.

The day was overcast but still hot and humid as we walked along the verge of US 41, a two lane road running east-west through the Glades. In the early morning the birdlife was active and the roadside vegetation rustled in the breeze, with occasional gaps in the bushes and low trees that revealed small lakes and waterways. At times we could hear the pervasive sound of airboat motors revving up nearby and occasionally see them moving deeper into the Glades. For me it was a brand new experience in an unfamiliar ecosystem, walking with people I didn’t know; yet it also seemed very familiar, a new kind of outdoor walking meditation. We walked silently and alertly, attentive to the movement of our feet on the earth, to our breathing and our bodies, to the plants and sky and wind and water. We walked as one organism, our steps and our intention in harmony with one another and with all that was around us. Our minds were in the present. Even though we were walking to sustain the life and health of future generations, that intention required our focus right now. And if we lost focus, our leaders brought us back in no uncertain terms. After a few miles Betty Osceola stopped us and addressed the group: “Y’all aren’t paying attention,” she said. “The plants and animals are trying to help us. They’ve been sending you energy to help you walk, but you aren’t paying attention to them, you aren’t getting it. Focus on where you are, on what’s happening. Give some energy back to everything that’s around you. We’re here to help them. Remember your purpose!”

In the late morning we came to the Big Cypress Preserve Headquarters for the U.S. National Park Service, where we held a press conference and delivered petitions with thousands of signatures urging the halting of plans for the ROGG and for oil and gas operations. We rested on the grass in front of the building, airing our feet, sipping water and eating granola bars while listening to speeches by leaders of the Florida Sierra Club, by the co-founder of the Stone Crab Alliance from Naples, by a biologist and author from Stuart on the East Coast, and by the indigenous people: Bobby Billie, Betty Osceola, and walkers from the Seminole tribe (though not from the official tribal leadership, the “businesspeople”). I was particularly struck by the speech by Karen Dwyer of the Stone Crab Alliance, as she described in detail the destructive and disruptive effect seismic testing for oil & gas would have on the area, with an extensive spider-web of roads cleared for big trucks and heavy equipment, and powerful explosions and vibrations that would significantly impact all wildlife throughout a wide area.

After lunch nearby at the Big Cypress Visitor Center we reformed our column, and went back into mindful silence – Betty told us to take out our imaginary keys and lock our mouths: “Take your key, lock it, and throw the key away” she’d tell us every time we re-started after a rest stop - and the walk continued. Our banners, the brightly colored shirts of the Indians, and our column of walkers all drew the curious attention of passing motorists, many of whom would honk or wave in support. We might hold up a hand in reply, but we didn’t engage them, maintaining our silence and our focus.

Most of the afternoon we walked through grassy wetlands, seeing wading birds and the occasional airboat, but no gators or any other animals. Once Bobby stopped us to point out an island of trees where he used to play as a kid, no longer accessible on foot due to blockage of water by roads and canals. Another time he had us pick fresh young leaves from a bay tree by the side of the road, telling us that we should keep the leaves with us and smell them for energy when we felt tired.

It rained off and on through the afternoon, which cooled things down a little. After a rest stop at an intersection, we turned south, headed for the town of Everglades City, where Betty planned to deliver another signed petition to the City Council, asking them to rescind their support for the ROGG. As we neared the town she reminded us to walk in silence, with purpose and power. The rain began to come down really hard as we marched down the main street through Everglades City, in tight double file, banners in front, heads down in the pouring rain, eyes on the feet of the walker in front of us. We were soaked and tired but we wanted to end the day strong and make a good impression. The townspeople came to their porches and doorways to watch us go by, and when we finally got to the municipal park by the gulf, several supporters were there to greet us. The rain stopped, and we rested, drank water and munched on snacks in the covered pavilion while some of us gave short speeches about what the Everglades means to them and why they were doing this.

That night, back in camp around the Fire Circle, Bobby Billie spoke of how his people had been in the Everglades for many generations, of how in his lifetime Mother Earth had been attacked and weakened, how the woods were mostly gone and the water no longer fit to drink, the deer and fish no longer abundant, and the crops weakened and not as nourishing. If our grandchildren and great grandchildren and unborn generations a thousand years from now are to survive, we will have to do a much better job of protecting and preserving our Mother Earth.

Bobby asked us to reflect on our personal commitments, on how each of us intended to help leave a world in which future generations could survive. As we went slowly around the circle, each person spoke with great sincerity and conviction. For some of the younger ones, it was about what they would do with their lives, about right livelihood. For some it was tactical: how to get better media coverage, how to grow this movement, how to influence or replace political leaders, how to break the stranglehold of money and big corporations, how to promote renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. For some it was about inner work as well: living simply, healing our own habits of greed, anger and lack of awareness. There were about thirty of us, and when we had gone around the entire circle Bobby spoke again, telling us he heard much more unity and clarity tonight than the night before, more purpose. Then he had us take out the bay leaves from our pockets, and to remind ourselves, silently, of the specific commitments we were making, as one by one we threw our bay leaves into the fire.

Many of us hadn’t kept our bay leaves with us – they’d been crumpled up & thrown away during the walk, or left in wet clothes when we changed, or mislaid. Bobby Billie asked if we remembered what he’d said when he told us to pick the leaves. Someone said: “You told us to keep the leaves with us.” “Yes,” Bobby said, “and that didn’t mean keep them for a while,” or keep them until you change your clothes. It means keep them with you.” Bobby wasn’t angry or impatient, but he was very firm and clear. He told us that when the indigenous people spoke, it was with a purpose, not just to hear themselves talk. And when his people listened, they listened carefully, also with purpose, so that they could learn something about their world and about their way of life, something that would help them know how to live, how to care for another, and how to teach future generations to live. Again, I was struck by the power and clarity of Bobby’s teaching. (I had been one of those who crumpled up their bay leaf and tossed it aside along the way.) I was reminded of one of the core goals of our Buddhist practice: learning to be fully awake and to make our actions of body, speech and mind purposeful, so that they may serve our goals of understanding and compassion. Here was a spiritual leader of Florida’s indigenous people, teaching much the same values and practices: listen, watch, speak and act with alertness and purpose. Take life seriously, respect yourself and one another, care for your community, be grateful for the world around you and let your energy nourish Mother Earth as she nourishes us.

The next morning after breakfast we loaded into the vans and drove to our starting point for the day, the sixth and last day of the Walk for Future Generations. Once again, Bobby bathed each of us in smoke from his shell, and then we formed a circle as we focused on our intention for the day. Then Betty Osceola formed us up in double file behind the flag bearers, told each pair of walkers to look after one another and those around us, and to “take your key, lock it and throw the key away,” and we headed west on Highway 41. I enjoyed the relative cool of the morning, the many different kinds of birds flying or wading or sitting on the electric lines, the breeze blowing off the Everglades, the open vistas along this section of the road as we walked through grassland interwoven with lakes, rivulets and swampland.

Betty stopped us to point out a red flag about 150 feet out from the road, marking the DOT’s right of way for the ROGG. She helped us to see all the trees and grasses and habitat that would be destroyed in the construction process, and told us how every roadbed across the Everglades is a dam, keeping the water from its natural flow from north to south. She also told us that many thought the ROGG was the first step in a plan to widen US 41 into a four lane highway, like Alligator Alley (US Highway 75), causing huge destruction and disruption, and opening up the southern Everglades and coastal areas of the Ten Thousand Islands to large scale residential development. That was why the right of way was 150 feet from the existing road, and was one reason why her people were adamant that the ROGG must be stopped.

We walked on, as the heat became intense and we began to sweat through our clothes. Mostly we walked looking down at the feet of the person in front of us and the ground ahead, stepping carefully to avoid the rocks and broken glass and trash strewn all along the roadside. Betty and the leaders at the front would hold up one finger in the air to indicate we should form single file when we crossed a narrow bridge and the verge narrowed, and then hold up two fingers when we could reform our double line. We sped up for the many bridge crossings, but mostly we walked slowly, at the pace of the slowest of the group. The walk leaders were always very patient: if anyone stopped to re-tie a shoelace, adjust a pack, or for no apparent reason at all, we would all stop. No one was left behind, even for a few seconds, and I began to see that this, too, was a value the indigenous people were teaching us: we stay together and we care for one another, especially the oldest, youngest or the infirm. “We” not “me.”

A young couple with a baby were with us today, walking a few rows in front of me. The little fellow was maybe a year old, with happy bright eyes, almost always smiling, carried on his young father’s shoulder, playing with his dad or engaged by the walker behind him, interested in everything. Our group of perhaps 25 walkers included a wide range of ages. On this last day more of the Micosukee had turned out, including a family with a big muscular father who walked next to Betty as a walk leader, his teenage boys and young daughter, and some young women in beautiful traditional dress. My walking partner Diane was from Miami, and we had other folks from the east coast, as well as from Naples to the west, and several who lived in the Everglades. There were folks visiting Florida, a young white rasta dude with a Latin accent and boundless energy, teenage girls and middle aged men and graybeards like me. Many had sore feet and blisters, and some were visibly limping. Some, like Betty Osceola, walked in double pairs of thick socks and no shoes, with a walking stick to lean on, and a few walked barefoot to spare their blisters, hobbling quickly over the rocky areas and careful not to step on glass or in ants nests.

As the day wore on it became a bit overcast, and even breezy, which was a real blessing – Mother Earth helping us to help her – but still very hot. We were encouraged not to guzzle our water, and to think about our purpose and to be aware of the life and beauty around us rather than our aches and pains and tiredness. Betty said that you get what you think about, so don’t think about being hot and tired - another similarity to our training as Buddhist practitioners: your thinking makes your world. After one of our brief stops, she told us to keep our formation tight and avoid gaps; breaks in the line make room for “the bad creator” to get in and cause harm.

We took a long break mid-morning at a roadside park, and an even longer lunch break a few miles further west, cooling our faces with the ice water from the coolers in the vans, letting our feet breathe, and chatting while we rested. It was well after one o’clock when we started up again, and we still had many miles to go. After a while I was hot, sweaty, and sore footed, but it wasn’t hard to settle into the rhythm of the walk: following the bare feet of the young Englishman in front of me, watching the ground for obstacles, looking up occasionally at the Glades, the water, a bird in flight, at the feather stick and the Council flag flapping in the wind, then eyes down again, just walking. Forming single file to cross a bridge or pass by some road work, then double file again; occasionally stopping to wait for someone who’d fallen out for a minute, then starting up again. If I noticed my mind was wandering I’d silently chant one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s gathas for walking meditation: “Solid” on the left foot, “stable” on the right. “Solid, stable, solid, stable” until I felt that stability in mind and body. Or: “I have arrived,” and then: “I am home. In the here …and in the now …I am solid … I am free …In the ultimate …I dwell …In the ultimate …I dwell.” I had scarcely ever been in the Everglades, but I felt at home and solid, walking with these people in this place, just walking, noticing, breathing, with the intention to be present and steady and open and helpful. Just walking together, hot, tired, and happy.

By the time we took our late afternoon break at Port of the Islands we were all visibly beat, and I thought I might be a bit dehydrated. The only place we could find to rest was a big dirt parking lot adjoining a new hotel, but I was glad to plunk down on the dirt, take a long drink and rest my feet and legs. However, my monkey-mind was starting to stir: “It’s almost 5 o’clock now. At this rate we won’t make another five miles by dark. Why did we take such a long lunch break? I’ve about had it. It’ll be really late by the time I get back to camp and then I still have to drive back to Tampa! I wish I hadn’t taken down my tent this morning.” And so on –I was aware of the “me” taking over from the “we.”

Betty must have sensed the mood, because as we formed up again, she said: “Among our people, we don’t ask when we’ll get there. We arrive when we arrive – that’s the way we travel. On this walk you are with the indigenous people, and so we ask that you do this the way we do it. For the Indians, there’ll be fry bread waiting when we get there; fry bread! Let’s form our line, keep our silence, and walk. Is everyone here? Are we ready? Let’s go!”

Our weariness didn’t exactly go away, but the walking took over, familiar by now, the focus on the next step, and the next, and the next, and on the purpose and on the people and on the place around us. It was still hot and humid, but after an hour or so it started to cool down just a little, the birds became more active, and we knew that if the end was not in sight, it couldn’t be too far. I began to really appreciate the walking, knowing that I could make it, and knowing what a unique and wonderful experience we were sharing.

The plan was to end our walk at the Miccosukee Village across from the main entrance to Collier-Seminole State Park, where dinner was waiting for us. We finally arrived as the color was fading from the sky and dark setting in. We were hot and tired, eager to get off our feet. A handful of Miccosukee women and children were there to greet us, and they had a nice dinner waiting for us under a big chickee. But Bobby Billie had us make another big circle in the open space by the village gate, while he invited into the circle not only the walkers, but those who had ridden in the vans and pick-ups, the drivers, even a tourist couple who had attached themselves to us at our rest stop at Port of the Islands. The mosquitoes had come out in force, and we held hands until we couldn’t stand them any more and we stood swatting away mosquitoes, as Bobby took his time taking the Council flag off its flagpole, folding it carefully, and then furling the eagle feather stick in its protective case.

Finally the circle was complete, and all was arranged to Bobby’s satisfaction, but he was not done with us yet. He asked us to reflect one more time on our intention: what we would do, when we resumed our “normal” lives, to work for the benefit and protection of future generations. He asked us to boil our intention down to a few brief words, and we went around the circle, starting with

Betty Osceola at Bobby’s right hand, sharing what we intended to do, making a public commitment to ourselves and one another, choosing our words with care. Finally, Bobby had us walk around the inside of our circle, in order, shaking hands or sharing a hug with every person in the circle, offering our thanks for one another’s support and presence. Bobby was teaching us patience, and appreciation, and making sure that none of the energy and intention generated by the walk would go to waste. At last, Bobby smiled and threw his arms up in the air. Our circle dispersed for dinner, and the 2016 Walk Across the Everglades for Future Generations was officially complete.

Veggie Reflections from Down Under by Chris Ghales

Sun, 20 Mar 2016 12:53:27 GMT

Thank you for this space to share personal dharma experiences. I’m on my 4^th vegetarian year with the anniversary on Dr. MLK Jr. day. Since first starting, I have not eaten flesh from land animals and eat sea creatures approximately once a month. I was still attracted to the smell of BBQ until I recently mentioned this to Fred. He suggested I visit the charnel grounds in India during a cremation ceremony because the smell that fills the air then is the exact same as BBQ. I now visit the charnel grounds every time I smell BBQ… a deep bow to the Teacher.

I grew up as a woodsman, tracker and hunter in western Pennsylvania until I moved to Florida in 1997. I would kill and butcher my own game and even the occasional fresh roadkill. I was responsible for getting my father back into hunting. He continues to keep two freezers filled with wild game.

I took up spearfishing when moving to Florida. “They are just silly little fishes, sub-animals and easier to clean. I can combine my two favorite hobbies, hunting and scuba. I’ll be doing this for a long time!” However, during some of those dives is when I considered becoming a vegetarian. One day I speared a snapper through the heart and watched it glide motionless to the sandy bottom, perfect kill, no struggle. And then something amazing happened. The rest of its school circled back and swam all around their motionless companion. I witnessed compassionate acts but I still didn’t get it. During the next dive trip, a barracuda ducked my shot and stared me down while I retrieved my spear. As soon as I reloaded, the fish took off like a bolt of lightning. At that moment I thought, “What am I doing down here killing these amazing creatures?!” Later, I cut up my spear gun and threw it in the trash never to kill again. I felt lighter but still a little heavy from the lives I’ve personally taken and by my past eating habits.

One of the documentaries mentioned in other comments above summed the idea up very well… No creature wants to die, why should we promote the taking of their life? I couldn’t think of anything that contradicts that idea. I also suggest mindfully watching some of the documentaries mentioned above. It is a chance to have a deeper understanding where our society’s food comes from and how we vote with our dollar.

Back to seafood… during one of the documentaries they showed what “long lines” and netting does to the environment. Not even the sacred underwater realm is safe from un-mindfulness. When I saw this destruction, I was filled with compassion for our earth and tears filled my eyes and I thought, “That’s it, no more seafood.” Through this posting, I re-pledge my commitment to the sea. I will also write a mindful letter, put it in a bottle and toss it into the ocean.

Generosity Comes to Life!

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 19:41:34 GMT

With gratitude to FCM Member Susan Ghosh for this enjoyable recollection and reflection

If you’ve been a part of FCM since we acquired the property at 6501 N. Nebraska Ave. in 2012 you have a good idea of what has been accomplished on our campus since then. If you’ve started attending the Sunday sangha or other classes and activities at the center in the years since then, allow me to fill you in a bit about what our center was like. Our main building was a church in disrepair. The upstairs hall was filled with pews that were nailed to the floor, the window panes were plastic blue and pink, and the floor was dirty and scratched. Downstairs what we now call the Fellowship Hall was a typical basement with a cement floor and round poles that held up the first floor. The entire western wall was covered with a mural, painted in dark colors, and each figure in the mural was thickly outlined in black paint. There, too, the windows were pink and blue. In the Education Building the floors were covered with old linoleum and the walls were in need of paint. Our “grounds” were covered with weeds and torpedo grass.

Little by little our campus transformed. The basement walls were painted, pews were pulled up, wooden floor polished, Med Hall and Hallways were painted; ground covers, shrubs and trees were planted, and on and on and on. Every day this beautiful campus we now have was manifesting. While some things such a roof repair were completed by professionals, hundreds of hours of selfless service were offered by sangha members.

From the outset sangha meetings were held in our new home, so in addition to the ongoing work, our home had to be clean and ready to use every Sunday. If a cloud of dust had been raised, our blue cushions needed to be vacuumed. The Buddhas, altar, teacher’s table and cushion, all needed to be dusted. The bathrooms had to be clean and ready for use.

Back in those early days about 20 people (??) regularly came to work days. In addition to all of the large and small jobs that needed to be done a small group of us did a LOT of house cleaning. I recall saying to a sangha sister, “I clean more here than I do at home.” Another sangha sister and I grumbled as we vacuumed the blue cushions in the 80 degree heat of meditation hall. We wanted a “cleaning person.” Our teacher, Fred, did not respond to our complaints. His vision was of a community where individuals selflessly offered their service to the group. So, on we went. Over time we learned that this new expectation was just a part of training our minds to put our own personal preferences aside and to find joy in caring for the center. We also were learning what it meant to be a part of a community in which all shared in taking care of the needs of our buildings and grounds, our programs and one another.

My mind was not easily trained, but though it grumbled I learned how to do the necessary tasks. FCM was different in most ways from my family or any other group that I had been a part of and it nourished me tremendously. I wanted to be a contributing member of the group. And, frankly, I wanted to be more like my sangha sisters and brothers who shared themselves so wholeheartedly and found so much joy in doing so. Over time I developed the habit of volunteering when there was work to be done.

Four years later the gifts of our tradition of selfless service have been tremendous. It is wonderful to be a part of the quiet family of workers who sit for 10 minutes on Sunday morning and do a brief meditation before quietly beginning the tasks the allow the center show her beauty to all who come to sangha meetings. Getting to know other members through our friendly bows and the practice of silently mindfully work together on our common goal is very profound. I have come to see that the center needs all of us and each of us contributes the skills and talents we have. If we choose, we can try out new skills in this safe and supportive environment.

When I invite family or friends to visit the center I feel a quiet pride and deep gratitude for the opportunity to be a part of the transformation and care of our center. As soon as people step on our campus they feel the energy and see the beauty of our home. When I say “we’ve done almost all of this ourselves” I know in my bones that I am a part of “us”. We take care of our buildings, we take care of our grounds, our programs, and one another. Our teacher, Fred, and our teacher’s teacher, Thay Nhat Hanh, stress the importance of the sangha. Thay says, the next Buddha may manifest as a sangha.” Here at FCM we have a rich and ongoing opportunity to understand the deep meaning of sangha.

If you have chosen to be a member of FCM, and haven't yet volunteered for selfless service, please know that caring for the center is a privilege of membership. Also, please understand that your help is needed. As the old adage goes, “many hands make light work.” If you are like me and don’t always have a joyful and generous heart, embrace that part of yourself with kindness and compassion, and allow the part of you that wants to end your own suffering to step forward. I think you will find that caring for the center strengthens your sense of connection to the sangha and being of service will open your heart.

Wake Up Tampa Bay: A Collage of Sharings from Wake Up Members

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 19:08:57 GMT

We thank Wake Up Tampa Bay members for these very open and moving sharings. Please also visit the photo album from the March 2016 Wake Up Day of Being (click here).

With gratitude to Whitney Hill

My path to the practice was rough to say the least, as I’m sure it was for just about everyone on it. In fact, none of us are strangers to suffering. Without it, we wouldn’t be here. We don’t come to the practice because our lives are perfect and easy. We come because our lives are painful and difficult and we often feel alone. We are looking for reprieve from our tumultuous minds and the seemingly endless storms of emotion that run our lives. We come because we’re hurting and broken and there is a part of us that knows that this cannot be the only way.

Mindfulness offers the rest we seek. The habits we cultivate offer us a way out; they show us a different path from the one that brought us here. And the people who walk this path with us, our community, our sangha offers support and guidance when the way is not so clear.

That is what Wake Up has been for me. We’re all at different points along our journeys but, in a way, our suffering brings us together and we all learn from each other’s experiences. Wake Up is a space where we find refuge in the teachings and in each other. It’s a place of consistency and reliability where new habits are formed and old ones fade out. We’re a community notably free of the judgments and ridicule that so often plague our generation. We’re a force for peace in each other’s lives where old friends feel loved and connected and new ones feel safe and accepted. We stop, we rest, we calm, we heal. We laugh, we cry, we listen deeply and we share openly all in the spirit of mindfulness.

With gratitude to Aoka Carr

She said “I feel like I can be inside my skin in this place.” That's when I felt my eyes well, hot tears streaming down my patient face. It was because of the day's practice - the sincere efforts to attune to the present moment that I had the awareness to let them fall, silently, without trying to change them. I sat as each one of the attendees expressed poetically honest and authentically vulnerable sentiments. There were familiar themes: a sense of belonging and excitement to meet other young people on the journey of mindfulness and self-discovery, an environment of non-judgement that lead to feelings of comfort which allowed some to find an openness within themselves, discoveries of ways of looking at thoughts, feelings and sense impressions that inspired intentions for many to carry further.

As each person opened up, I saw the tenderness inside them, the place that, in one of our readings, we learned most people protect themselves from exposing. I saw deep listening, deep sharing, connection, space, presence, bravery, nakedness... and in the midst... I realized that this was a new experience, a curious one. This is what it is like to be in a room full of peers, who are seeing each other and allowing others to see them.

It was the end of the Day of Mindfulness that Wake Up, a meditation group for people in their 20‘s and 30‘s, had put on. Five hours earlier, we - some core group members, some who had been coming for a while and some entirely brand new to the center had arrived to a seated meditation. We were guided to find our breath and dwell in the presence of the moment. When the bowl was struck, we read from Nothing Special and practiced deep sharing and deep listening. I watched as people heard each other without trying to change each other; I noticed when I was trying to be of the moment rather than in it.

Next, we quietly put on our shoes and mindfully stepped out into the sunlight, walking the gardens, our shadows falling, in and out of step with the person in front of us, stopping midway to listen to the birds and feel the wind on our faces. Back inside the meditation hall, we were lead into a a gentle yoga class followed by a deep relaxation. I felt the peace in the room amongst the audible breaths, as we tightened and relaxed our muscles in unison.

Afterwards, we were lead down stairs to delight in the bounty of delicious foods people had thoughtfully prepared. We remained in silence, contemplating how the whole universe could be represented by the food on our plate. When everyone was seated we talked. Really talked with each other about our lives, why we were at a day of mindfulness, our struggles in our practice, our fears, vulnerabilities, advancements. I heard people whose practice had grown, talking with people who just began, and a lot of laughter. I felt such gratitude to be among so many who were so genuinely interested in each other.

After a beautiful time getting to know each other more deeply with words we went back into the meditation hall for our final sitting. This is where I could feel an expansion inside myself. Sitting, the thoughts still came and I still watched them, but behind them was a tenderness, a gentle potentiality of detachment. I could feel the energy of our collective efforts. In all of us, there was a softening - some armor laid down. And with the final sharing, she said, “I feel like I can be inside my skin in this place.” And my tears fell and I let them, grateful to be able to be so present in this wonderful day.

With gratitude to Casey Clague

I first became involved with FCM when I moved to Tampa about three years ago. Shortly after I began attending sangha, Bryan Hindert approached me to ask if I’d be interested in starting a Tampa chapter of Wake Up. Our initial group was only five or six people, but we met regularly and were all very supportive of each other’s spiritual growth. Unfortunately, I had some health problems and other life circumstances that prevented me from attending Wake Up for around a year and my spiritual practice became less of a priority.

When I finally started back, I felt welcome immediately, like I hadn’t missed a beat. Since then, I have been continually amazed by the growth of the group, both in terms of size and in our individual practices. In walking this path together and deeply sharing our experiences, I feel like we have learned to live more skillfully, kindly, and openly. For me personally, I have gained a peace and awareness in my life that I didn’t know was possible. It would be hard to overstate how essential Wake Up is to my continued spiritual development. I want to thank all members of the group for their continued support and insight; I hope that I am able to give back to some degree what has been freely given to me.

With gratitude to Jennica Rob

I started attending Wake Up about a year ago. Prior to this, I had started a meditation practice to help manage my anxiety. My only expectation was that Wake Up might help me become a better meditator in some small way. Unexpected to myself, I have become a regular at Wake Up and have benefited from it in ways that I never imagined. I feel that it has radically changed the course of my life. Through our discussions and guided meditations I have been given invaluable tools to ground myself in the present moment rather than being caught in the stories in my mind.

I have been able to bring this practice into my days and feel much more present and accepting of my life. But what I am most thankful for is how Wake Up has allowed me to make connections and foster friendships with some of the most authentic and open minded people I have ever met. I feel continuously inspired by the kindness and openness of my peers. I am in awe of of their consistent willingness to be honest and present with themselves, both with their strengths and flaws, sorrows and joys. I feel lucky to know them and look forward to seeing how Wake Up evolves in the months to come.

With gratitude to Jerry Stinnett

I initially found Wake Up through meetup.com. I was looking for a group of younger folks to meet with regularly and get to know under the setting of meditation. I had been experimenting with meditation on my own using self-help books. I also had been to a few different groups but they weren’t quite what I was looking for.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived, but I was getting into the practice of getting outside of my comfort zone. Being a highly skeptical person I felt some initial insecurity but I quickly warmed up to the guided meditation. Since that first day I believe I have only missed one or two events in the last year and a half. Everyone that I have met in this group has been sincere and open. I found my way into the greater Sangha as a whole from this group and became a member shortly thereafter.

I cherish the bonds that I have made through Wake Up and will maintain these friendships for the rest of my life. The personal transformation I have gone through in the last few years has been in large part due to the existence of this group. I look forward to seeing it grow and continuing to be a part of it.

With gratitude to Sam

For the past ten years, my struggles with anxiety have been exhausting. Whenever I thought I was “getting better” life would trigger me and I would lapse back into painful confusion. I started meditating about a year and a half ago when I realized that taking anxiety medication on its own would be only palliative for me and not transformative. The final straw that set me on the path of mindfulness was my first experience with heartbreak. Shortly after my heart had broken open, I sought out a community and started attending FCM. I like to think of my experience with heartbreak as a “Wake Up call”, because it called me to Wake Up.

Since attending Wake Up, my peers and I have grown together in so many ways. I have learned to value the art of listening more than the art of self-expression, which to my surprise has been a great relief. All of us at Wake Up have the great opportunity to feel free to be ourselves. Simply showing up is an act of emotional vulnerability, an admission that we are lost and in need of community, and I love that. This admission of pain is what binds us all together and is something I have learned to deeply appreciate.

Listening deeply to my friends at Wake Up has taught me that my very own anxiety is a source of motivation to heal myself and others. It has also taught me that my very own anxiety is not my very own, because fear is a seed in all of us. I am now grateful to have suffered my way to the path. Through earnest practice and the encouragement and deep insight of my fellow meditators at Wake Up, the natural wisdom at the core of every human is visible to me now. It is like being lost in a forest in the middle of the night and seeing the distant glow of a fire on a hillside. I know it is there, and I know I am going towards it, and the journey is the rest of my life. I cannot control the forest around me, but I can keep walking.

When I remember to surrender to the fact that life is unpredictable, existence becomes lighter. The precious moments when I become aware of my limited time in this body are the moments that bring me home to the present moment. I doubt that I could have learned to surrender without the help and wisdom of others. Speaking from my experience, letting go of the illusion of being in control does not come easily. I still have a very long way to go to heal myself, and I look forward to following the path knowing I am not alone. Not only do I see that my peers have plenty of wisdom to offer me, but I see that my pain has been a means of gaining insight that I can offer to them in return.

A Weekend at FCM: Nurturing the Long Distance Connection

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 13:57:16 GMT

With gratitude to FCM member Rebecca Milburn for this post.

I moved away from Tampa a year and a half ago, and thus, moved away from FCM. I have continued to participate in intensives from afar; they have been very important to my continued growth and connection to FCM. However, I have missed FCM: the people, community, close connection with the teachings, the beautiful building.

After a year and a half, I had the opportunity to visit FCM last weekend. I participated in Wake Up, a Day of Mindfulness (with Fred teaching) and Sunday Sangha. It was wonderful to be back; I felt a combination of excitement and peace when I stepped foot in the building on Friday. I enjoyed again participating in Wake Up – it has grown tremendously since I was a member and the new members (new to me, that is) have a sense of ownership of the group that I really appreciated.

The Day of Mindfulness was soothing and healing for me. I received so much love and warmth from the sangha, I was filled with the deep sense of connection and community I remembered from when I lived in Tampa. Practicing silence in a shared space provides me with a sense of safety – the ability to connect with others beyond using words. To my surprise, spending the day primarily doing sitting and walking meditation did not feel difficult. It felt like I was getting back in touch with a part of me that was always there.

The Q &A session Fred led was extremely helpful and it seemed the questions he answered applied directly to my life. I work as a psychotherapist in a community mental health clinic located in a very high need area. I often feel overwhelmed by all the suffering I encounter on a daily basis. A term spoken of in my profession is “self care” and I am often inclined to think of my spiritual practice in such terms. Fred reminded me that my practice goes beyond “self care” – a more appropriate term may be “self/other care” – since, as he said, “I am my brother” – there is no separation. When I heal myself, I heal another and when I heal another, I heal myself. This helped rejuvenate my desire to be of service to others and to do so from a place of joy and meaning.

I also resonated with the Q& A regarding the “to do list”. I continually find myself needing to have something to do, filling space, fearing the quiet. While at the Day of Mindfulness, having the support of the sangha, I relished the quiet and calm inside me. Now that I am back in Virginia, I am happy to know that the sangha is still there, supporting my practice, and possibly the inner quiet, from afar.

I bow deeply to all members of FCM and offer gratitude to those who made this visit possible for me.

Reflections on Winter 2016 Retreat, by Anda Peterson

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 19:22:45 GMT

As soon as I entered the retreat center, I knew I this would be, for an introvert like myself a dream come true: in the company of others but not required to engage in small talk. Although it was the first retreat I had ever been to, I felt at ease. From the first silent moments, a companionable silence between my fellow participants. I was almost disappointed by the lack of challenge silence might present me. Perhaps the real challenge to my quiet nature would be a Constant Conversation Retreat. Such extreme discomfort would be like being whacked by a Zen master’s stick daily and maybe I would be slapped into enlightenment.

The retreat took place over four days at the Franciscan Center in Tampa, a modest, no frills place of 1950’s boxy architecture, but spacious enough for the forty-two of us and right on the banks of the Hillsborough River. Across the river in the distance the Golden Arches reminded us of our proximity to the never silent city, but the park-like grounds created a peaceful oasis.

Our days at the retreat began at 6:00 AM by the person in charge of waking us hitting a gong that sounded like a metal plate being struck. I am not much of a morning person and unmindfully rushed to dress so that I could guzzle as much coffee as possible before meditation at 6:30. In the dining hall, coffee clutched like a lifeline, I took a seat with a few others as we watched the full moon shining into the river. Calmed immediately by the glow of moon and water I felt grateful to be up early enough to bask in this serenity, made all the more precious by our silent observance.

After the 6:30 half hour group sitting meditation and ten-minute group walking mediation, we engaged in our individual walking meditation outdoors. Silent and slow were the unspoken guidelines. Setting one foot in front of the other became significant. The shells on the walkway crunched under foot, and pressed lightly into the rubber of my shoe’s sole. Other walkers seemed to float past me. Outside and inside, our movements around each other took on a ballet like quality. Edges softened and when we had to make way for another in the hallways with each move to the side we emanated gentleness, kindness even.

Here is what I took away from the four days of silence and mindfulness:

How to put the right amount of food on my plate. At the first breakfast I filled my plate but eating mindfully and without distractions, I soon realized I could not finish this amount of food. I didn’t need to eat with my usual greediness. Slowed eating tells me when I am full.

Mindfully walking reveals the world around me. The pace makes room for contemplation of a tree branch winding to the ground, the light playing on the water, the energy of my mind drawn to more focus, less scattershot.

Most talking is not necessary. And I did not miss my cell phone or computer or even something to read. The ego likes to talk a lot more than my Buddha nature.

Also, I gained:

A greater understanding of ducks.

The ducks and I woke, sat, walked and ate. We co-existed and I felt like their kin. One seemed to follow me for a bit on my walk. Being a duck and being a human is not so different when the mind’s endless litany of desires, demands and preferences are set aside. If the world appreciated more being than doing, perhaps I could have dipped a cup into the Hillsborough River for a drink.

A better handle on my thoughts.

Thoughts do not have no substance I had given them. As soon as one arises, it disappears. My mind makes thoughts, but something else, my awareness remains steady as the thoughts come and go. I can choose to follow them or not.

A deeper experience of space.

With our preoccupation with solid objects like bodies, cars, guns and high-end real estate, we do not notice the spaciousness of life. To find space we must remove the paint from the canvas. The mind rebels at this; it needs to fill space with images and words. Mindful investigation shows us how space is the substance we dwell within and without. Space surrounds and fills bodies, rocks, ducks. Space holds us, like an embrace.

A deeper experience of silence.

Silence and space are inseparable, perhaps they are the same thing. Both serve to heighten awareness. Sitting in the meditation hall the stillness is like the river on this windless day; we sense the energy of our own bodies and those near us, the current still runs underneath the flat surface. Each small movement of a foot, each small sound like a cough is like a stone tossed into the water. My shoulders and back stiffen against this submersion in this deep silence because my habit is mindless movement and nervous fidgeting. This silent stillness reveals each habit.

An insight.

Space and silence are changeless as nothing else is. Words and actions change each moment, float around space and drop into oblivion. We fill the canvas with images, fill the air with words, but nothing is lasting but space and silence. We know this, but see no point in it, devalue it. And yet…We yearn for both. Even when we do not know it.

What then is most nourishing, most natural? What calls us, what is oddly familiar and like home when we stop, awake, aware? If what is real is only what is changeless, what is really true about the ducks and us?

Sharing of Experience from Recent Recovery in Mindfulness Half Day

Sun, 07 Feb 2016 17:51:02 GMT

Dear Sangha

Thank you Lee Purser and Ruth Fishel for leading the first Half Day of Mindfulness for the Mediation in Recovery group. This group has been meeting at FCM since October 2014 and was developed to support many of us in recovery programs to use mediation and mindfulness in our daily lives. During this day, Lee and Ruth provided instruction in mediation along with guided meditations and dharma talks. We also did a walking mediation through the beautiful FCM gardens.

Lee brought so much of Buddhist thinking into her talks, relating how these teachings enhance the principles of 12 Step Programs. She provided a wealth of information about Buddhism and Recovery. As usual, Ruth spoke so personally about her path of growth using Buddhist teachings to enhance her recovery program. Her emphasis on practicing self acceptance is so important in learning to live in the present moment.

Although the day was one of silence, we had the opportunity to ask questions and make comments. We also met in dyads to share the one or two most important things we took away from the day. Our experience ended with lunch and fellowship where, judging from observation, participants eagerly shared with one another.

When Lee first spoke of planning this day, the thought was we may have 15 to 20 attendees. We were delighted that approximately 45 people attended. Thanks to all who got the word out! The group of attendees was very diverse with many long time meditators along with those new to the practice. Some, but not all, were in Recovery programs and while many were members of FCM others were not.

Finally, I would like to encourage anyone interested to try the Mediation in Recovery group which meets every Tuesday in the Education building at 6:30 pm. Everyone is welcome!

Bowing,

Eleanor Cecil

Fragrant Palm Leaves (Journals 1962-1966) by Thich Nhat Hanh

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:01:38 GMT

Fragrant Palm Leaves (Journals 1962-1966) by Thich Nhat Hanh

Book review by FCM member Janet Levine

“A satisfying read on many levels: a great introduction to Thay’s ideas, to the majesty of his poetic writing, and to understanding the inspiration for his spiritually based activism.”

Fragrant Palm Leaves is the work of a person in his mid-thirties coming to terms with realistic acceptance of the meaning—great possibilities of leadership and mission, as well as significant disappointments of personal loss—that arise from his monk’s training and leadership role in trying to reform Buddhism in his country, Vietnam. The strength of the journals lies in Hahn’s honesty in his writing. The journal entries are not private musings but poignant and often powerful reflections, inspirational messages, directed at his followers. A controversial figure in Vietnam, as he went into to exile (for the first time) in May 1966 he wrote that he doubted if the collection would pass the censors. “If it can’t be published, I hope my friends will circulate it among themselves.”

The memoir opens in 1962 in mid-winter at Columbia University in Manhattan and at Princeton University in New Jersey. In this section many striking descriptions of Thay’s reminiscences of the secluded mountain monastery and retreat he built with his friends and comrades—monks and nuns—at a retreat they named Phuong Boi contrast with his descriptions of the stark winter beauty of a northeastern winter. “Phuong” means “fragrant” and “boi” is a palm leaf on which the “teachings of the Buddha were written in ancient times.”

Anyone who has resonated with a “place of the heart” now lost to them will be powerfully moved by Thay’s descriptions of life at idyllic Phuong Boi and his sheer joy in the beauty he finds there. His realization that he cannot remain attached to this place is a lesson for us all. As he writes, quoting another monk, ‘Phuong Boi doesn’t belong to us, we belong to Phuong Boi.”

Whether it is in the starry sky in Vietnam or a winter storm in New Jersey, in any place he lives Thay finds solace and cosmic connection to nature. “I still respond to the call of the cosmos…with all my body, with every atom of my being, every vein, gland and nerve, I listen with awe and passion. That is how I feel when I hear the call of sky and earth.”

Among many other reflections Thay touches on the passing of youth and the permanency of truth. He shares several instances of his own growing realizations on the nature of reality and illusion. These moments contain the clarity of awakened understanding. They are illuminating and encourage us to continue in our practices knowing that we too can experience the conviction of Truth. “How can we continue to live if we were changeless? To live we must die every instant. We must perish in the storms that make life possible. I cannot force myself back into the shell I’ve broken out of.”

Thay returns to Vietnam in 1964 after his stint lecturing in the USA and although Phuong Boi has fallen into ruin in the tropical environment, he and his cadre of followers devise Buddhist practices in the impoverished rural village communities where they find themselves. These practices are the foundation stone from which will evolve the Communities of Mindfulness that Thay will establish around the globe.

A satisfying read on many levels: a great introduction to Thay’s ideas, to the majesty of his poetic writing, and to understanding the inspiration for his spiritually based activism.

Marco Island resident, Janet Levine recently became a member of FCM. She is a lifelong meditator and a Dzogchen practitioner for twenty years. Steeped in the traditions of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, FCM is her first encounter with Vietnamese Buddhism and the work of Thich Nhat Hanh. On the recommendation of Fred Eppsteiner, she began her acquaintance with Thay’s work by reading “Fragrant Palm Leaves”. She is a well-reputed author and a book reviewer for the New York Journal of Books.

My Experience at Empty Cloud, by Coralee Hicks

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 23:23:32 GMT

My Experience at Empty Cloud - Learning Non-attachment to Knowledge

by FCM Member Coralee Hicks

Members of FCM have the extraordinary opportunity to experience a solitary retreat at beautiful Empty Cloud Cottage, a truly sacred, tranquil space in which to meditate and study at a deeper level under the skillful guidance of our teacher Fred. We thank FCM member Coralee Hicks for sharing her recent experience of solitary retreat at Empty Cloud Cottage.

A private retreat differs from a group meditative setting. In a solo retreat student and teacher set the meditation schedule and choose the focus of the practice. Since solo practitioners have to rely on their own inspiration and self-discipline to practice, there is more opportunity for touching deeper reservoirs within themselves, strengths and abilities that they might have doubted lay within

I was very eager and a bit nervous when I arrived on Wednesday. Retreats have been an important part of my spiritual growth. My hearing disability makes group retreats difficult. Now I was in an environment that allowed me to hear Fred's instructions. I had planned to study the Diamond Sutra. I thought: one of the early sutras, why not begin at the the beginning. The actual beginning for me was very unexpected. I also brought two issues that were thorns in my psyche. I hoped to get some relief from them.

On the first night Fred asked me a series of questions. When I finally was able to say "I don't know" he laughed. This not knowing is an uncomfortable place for me. I believe(d) that knowledge was power. I have spent my professional life working in the area of information transmission. As Fred left me that evening one of the last things he said was "It is not about learning".

Oh. If not about that.. then what is it about?

So I sat, and I thought. And I sat and thought.. and then realized that some questions (like what is the final digit of Pi) don't have answers. I shared this insight the next day. I also realized that I was not ready to understand the Diamond Sutra. My expectation of a Professor/Student relationship was wrong. Perhaps not having expectations might be better? Fred then asked what is a thought? I don't know? I thought I knew... I wished I knew. I don't know. Thinking gets in the way of meditating... I am addicted to thinking?? Ouch.

On the final day Fred suggested I relax. So I took a few naps. I wrapped myself in my blanket and pretended I was wrapping my self in the love of the Sangha. I sat and watched the wind move through the trees. I watched the light and shadows move across the image of the Buddha in my room.

I realized the two thorny issues were now resolved. When I meditated I told my thoughts to keep Noble Silence. My thoughts laughed at me. I pictured my thoughts as bees and told them to go back to the hive (buzz off).

The closure session with Fred was comforting. It is okay to stop. It is okay to be human. It is okay to be Coralee.

Reflections from the Summer 2015 "Self Development" Intensive

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 21:21:47 GMT

In the eight-week summer Intensive for 2015, participants had the opportunity to personalize and deepen their practice by freeing the mind from habits of body, speech and mind that sabotage well-being and our capacity to live in harmony with others. The eight weeks was divided into four two week sections that dealt with different areas of focused change: a personal habit or behavior, a personality trait, an afflictive mind state/ emotional state, and a relationship (family, friend, work colleague). We thank FCM member David Braasch for sharing his experience from the Intensive.

One of my personality traits was to harshly judge past, present, future events, and people. As part of my first intensive, I decided to focus on the present, and particularly people.

Here is a simple example: I am sitting at a red light, and there is a brand new shiny black Aston Martin right in front of me, also waiting.

My afflictive tendency was to start an immediate conversation about not only the Aston Martin, but the person in that Aston Martin. A typical dialog might go like this (this is actually a monolog): “That’s a super nice car. That guy must be really rich. I bet he cheated a lot of people to get that car. What a jerk. Probably cheats on his wife and doesn’t love his children. Bet he lives in a really nice house too, and probably has more than one house. Wish I had a car like that. Why don’t I have a car like that? Life is unfair that I am driving a Toyota Matrix with 170,000 miles on it. Pretty sure it’s going to need a new AC, new tires, and probably 1,000 other repairs soon. In fact, I am sure of it. Every time I go to the Toyota dealership I get screwed.”

As you can probably see, this is not a healthy way to approach every stop light, nor every situation we encounter in present reality. I knew I needed to change, and I also knew that I needed to use a strategy that was very real to me: photography.

When I say photography, I am talking about actual cameras, not cell phone cameras. I am talking about viewfinders, 35 mm SLRs, and even plastic cameras. The point is this: it is important that I have the sense that I am holding a device close to my eye, and not away from me, as we do with our cell phones. I need to go into that small, honest world of the viewfinder and focus on what I am seeing, a choiceless awareness of what is in front of me. When I photograph, I first look at what I am seeing, bring the viewfinder to my eye, compose, take a deep breath, and then deliberately press the shutter button, and exhale. I decided that this is how I will approach the man in the Aston Martin.

First of all, I don’t know that it is actually a man driving the Aston Martin. It could be a woman, it could be a teenager, I simply don’t know. And I simply don’t know anything about that individual driving that car, sitting at a stoplight, just as I am, and many others.

What I do know is that I can look at this in a different way. “I am sitting at a stoplight. There is a black Aston Martin in front of me. Let’s photograph this.” This is how the event unfolds.

First, breathe, and wait. Bring the camera’s eye up into the mind, compose the frame, make it a picture, take a breath, press the shutter, listen to the mirror click and close, and then caption it: “Black Aston Martin, sitting at a stoplight, waiting to make a left turn, in October afternoon sunlight.” Please note that I am not actually using a camera….

The effect this has had on me has been this: the negative reactivity is thwarted, and in most cases, stops right there at the end of the caption. And then I move on.

Sometimes a story of compassion and kindness evolves out of the image. Maybe the person is in that car is driving home to take someone to the hospital; maybe that person is suffering, and has no idea where he/she is going. That person is the same as me. Sometimes there is no story, and I just let the image fade away, or remain as it is.

The point is this: Sometimes there is still a reactive judgment, but now it is softer, more compassionate, and more realistic. All the lens filters have been removed. Lately, there have been moments when it was just this: compose, breathe, click, and move on, because the light is green.

Sandy Garcia's Introduction to Bill Menza's "The Dharma Rain"

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 20:20:02 GMT

Bill Menza was my dear friend, counselor, and role model. As a loving brother on the path, over the course of many years he touched me deeply through his persistent teachings about, and behavioral demonstrations of love based on the Dharma.

Bill’s unwavering reliance on the Dharma to encourage others to wake up and to love and serve others shone like a bright beam of light. My growth and clear seeing was enhanced by his frequent reminder that taking refuge in the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, is all that one needs for healing and transformation in this life.

When encountering Bill, one was assured that through his teaching, his friendship, and other vehicles, one would receive life-affirming gifts. He understood and taught that the connection, understanding, and acceptance that we all so long for always flows to us and through us when we share our love, compassion and generosity with all sentient beings.

For years, Bill and approximately 15 other sangha brothers and sisters met Sunday mornings at a brother's farm near Tampa, FL, to study the Dharma, enjoy the beautiful scenery, and pick oranges generously made available by the farm’s owners. During these gatherings, one could count on Bill's deep, penetrating contributions during the discussion period. We all marveled at his copious note-taking, assured that he would use them to share insights and wisdom for years. Bill turned picking oranges into yet another loving exercise as he always picked an extra bag or two to take back to Sarasota to share with others.

No matter the topic, the death of a loved one, racism, an inhumane prison system, the Holocaust, the Charleston, SC. massacre, Engaged Buddhism and the prerequisites for activism based on right view, the wounded child, his own “demons”, or anything I or anyone within the group became stuck on, Bill always found time to connect, to care, and to teach. Moreover, no matter the location, The Tampa Practice Center, Blue Cliff Monastery, Plum Village, cyberspace, or elsewhere, Bill made himself available for teaching and sharing the Dharma. While conversations with Bill were always welcomed and beneficial, for years Bill quietly and persistently created and nourished yet another vehicle, his wonderful Dharma poems.

On September 10, 2010, I received four poems from Bill which reminded me of my good fortune of having received many others from him over the years. It was probably then that I first thought about how a book of his poetry could also benefit many others. In early 2015, exactly two weeks after his cancer diagnosis, an email exchange between us resulted in the launching of a long-overdue book project.

Deeply grateful for the years-long Dharma poetry teachings that he'd so generously shared with me, on March 17, 2015, I asked if he'd ever considered publishing some of his poems. He responded with the subject line: “Hi Sandy; am I dreaming!!!! hugs and poems”, and went on to write, "Your words are some very strong good medicine. I am feeling real good now. A book of poems so they can tell others about the Dharma has been my life-time dream. Let's look into this. Over the next few weeks I might not be able to help a lot with such a project. Maybe especially when chemo treatment starts. But would do what I can. Yes, please share my poems as you see fit and useful to spread the Dharma. I will send you more poems to put to good Dharma use.” Shortly thereafter, Bill sent 176 poems. I contacted Beth DeLap, owner of The Whole Salamander Publishing Cooperative, and Ken Lennington, MD, Beth’s husband and Bill's dear sangha brother. Ken read and edited every poem, Beth agreed to involve her masterful editing and publishing skills, and the project took off.

During the days that he was critically ill and his body deteriorated, Bill continued to send detailed, intimate, loving emails that shared information about his various ailments so that others might learn and possibly take steps to alleviate their own present or anticipated suffering. Always giving. He labeled his many doctors, other help providers, and his beloved wife Alica as true Bodhisattvas. Always grateful. As a participant on the phone sangha, Bill continued to teach and share until he was too weak to continue. Always loving.

Ultimately, 210 poems were included in a proof copy of Dharma Rain Brings Flowers, that brother Bill was able to enjoy for two weeks before he left. Writing that the book was his baby, Bill was pleased that the words that he had so diligently and lovingly worked with for many years might, in fact, benefit others and help to foster understanding and compassion among sentient beings, and love of the Dharma.

Thank you dear friend Bill for being all that you were, and for having given all that you gave to your fellow brothers and sisters throughout the world. You are the true embodiment of the concept and practice of Interbeing, and of the fact that we Inter-are. May the Dharma Rain in your book water the seeds of wisdom and compassion for countless people from all walks of life and on all loving paths throughout the world.

With love, joy, and ease,

Sandy Garcia

Source of True Clarity

Reflections on FCM's 2015 Spring Retreat - Dharma Medicine: The Three Fierce Mantras

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:40:31 GMT

Thanks to Andrew Rock for sharing these recollections.

Last weekend 31 practitioners from many parts of Florida gathered for a three day silent retreat at the Franciscan Center on the beautiful Hillsborough River. Every retreat is wonderful in its own unique way, but FCM’s spring retreats are unusual in two respects: they are open to everyone, not just FCM members, and they are led by senior students, with Fred coming to give Dharma talks each morning. Our retreat sangha included several people new to FCM, and in some cases new to the practice, as well as several FCM members who had not previously been on retreat with us. Nonetheless, the sangha quickly began flowing as one, silently and powerfully, with a deep tide of commitment, discipline, gratitude for the teachings and the good fortune that brought us this rare opportunity. We practiced for ourselves and each other, to relieve our suffering and heal our delusional thinking and afflictive emotions, so that we may, each in our own way, help to relieve the suffering of others.

The title of the retreat was “Dharma Medicine: The Three Fierce Mantras.” As always, the real subject matter was to observe our minds, and to awaken to reality as it is, free of our dramas and obsessive thinking. In his teachings on the Three Fierce Mantras, Fred showed us the unvarying law of karma, that all effects are the result of causes and that our dramas and afflictions are the result of our conditioning. If we wish happiness for ourselves and others, we must cultivate the seeds of happiness, not those of suffering. In his Dharma talks, Fred focused initially on the first two of the fierce mantras:

Whatever has to happen, let it happen!

Whatever the situation is, it’s fine!

Not necessarily fine in the sense of ideal, but fine because it could not be otherwise, and it is always workable if we accept reality as it comes. All is perfect because it is just as it must be, the inevitable effect of the causes and conditions that have occurred. That is not to say that we don’t take action when appropriate, but we do so without the dramas of anger, or anxiety, or disbelief. On the last day Fred taught the third fierce mantra:

I really don’t need anything whatsoever (except the Dharma).

If we have a spiritual path and an aspiration to wake up, we find that we don’t need the world to conform to our wishes and desires, we can accept it as it is and find our happiness and equanimity in a mind that is open, free and unattached to any particular outcome.

Each day of retreat opened at dawn with the beautiful tone of the bell and the morning chant, calling us back to our true home, followed by sitting and walking meditation and a chanting service. In the afternoons and evenings Diane and Bryan led us in guided meditations to help us identify and examine our resistance to accepting reality as we find it, looking deeply into the causes and conditions that lead to the afflictive emotions and delusive thoughts that trouble us.

We also practiced mindfulness of the body as a path of awareness and healing, with deep relaxation and mindful movements after lunch, as well walking meditation in the beautiful grounds of the Franciscan Center. Later we practiced deep sharing and deep listening in small groups guided by senior students. We enjoyed sharing healthy vegetarian meals in friendly silence, and night walks outdoors after evening meditation.

We ended the retreat with a closing circle, sharing the specific aspirations and insights we would bring home with us from the retreat. The Three FIerce Mantras no longer seemed so strange or challenging to us, but rather a source of strength and simplicity. We return to our lives empowered by the teachings, supported by the sangha and our teacher, grateful for our precious human lives, and determined to continue down the path of healing and awakening to reality as it is. In this way we will help into bring healing to this troubled world, and greater joy, ease and equanimity into our lives.

GENESIS : Wondrous images of this amazing world by Sebastiao Salgado

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:25:00 GMT

Thank you to Andrew Rock for sharing his experience of visiting the Genesis exhibition by Sebastiao Salgado. Viewing Salgado's photography is a profoundly beautiful way to practice mindfulness for this incredible planet that we are so fortunate to share.

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Yesterday Nancy and I were in Manhattan, at the International Center for Photography to see Genesis, the great photographer Sebastiao Salgado’s epic depiction of this beautiful and amazing world, and its myriad and wonderful creatures.

Salgado’s gorgeous black and white photographs reveal the almost incomprehensible sweep, diversity, power and stunning beauty of our planet, as if this was the dawn of creation. And in a sense it is, because for us this planet will never be more beautiful, more alive than it is right now.

The immense majesty of mountain ranges, glittering in sun-pierced storms, cloaked in snow and ribboned with shining rivers; wide untouched deserts of endless dunes; and baobab forests in New Guinea, ice sheets in the south Pacific islands, grand canyon walls and wind-carved monuments in the American southwest… All still there to be seen, and Salgado journeyed this intimate vastness with the eye and the skill of an accomplished artist, to see and share with us the glory of creation.

Nothing is sterile in this Genesis. Salgado shows us not only the beauty of rock and sky and water, but also herds of reindeer in the Brooks Range, colonies of penguins scattered over Antarctic ice, elephant families in the Okavango Delta, a heron in flight, a jaguar crouched at a river to drink, giant bats flying silhouetted under lacy leaves of tropical forest.

Despite the daily extinctions of species, despite the decimation of the teeming abundance of wildlife that covered the plains, filled the skies and animated the spreading forests not so many generations ago, the variety of living beings is still – still! – a source of delight and gratitude. Genesis reintroduces us to our biological brothers and sisters, so innocently reliant on us to protect their homes, and to enjoy and preserve the wonder of their existence.

As if the plants and animals were not amazing enough, the wonderful diversity of peoples on this earth is also revealed in this Genesis. I could hardly believe that in this day and age there are cultures still living so simply, so perfectly and uniquely adapted to such diverse environments. Salgado takes us along with the fur-clad Nenets in the Siberian arctic as they migrate north with their reindeer herds; climbs huge tropical trees to visit in forest tree houses; squats with the San bushmen of the Kalahari desert as they make music with gourds and twirl sticks to kindle fire; shows us the shining eyes of young Turkana women, wonderful black satin skin scarred by ritual beauty marks; endures the watchful stare of shaggy-haired tribesmen in the high mountain forest of Papua; relaxes at midday in shaded reed hammocks with Amazonian families.

There is no hubris in these pictures. “In Genesis, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.” Salgado’s awe, delight and reverence for this sacred world shines through every photograph. He calls this collection his “love letter to the planet.” He and his partner Lelia and their team put in eight years of hard travel and deep, patient looking to reveal the glory of creation in these wonderful portraits.

What motivated their project was not only their desire to see and share the beauty and diversity of this amazing planet, but their knowledge that it is dying of our unbridled greed for more fossil fuels, more money, more meat, more power, more stuff. They hope that if we can truly see how wonderful is our earth and how beautiful and vulnerable our fellow creatures, our hearts will spill over with love, wonder and delight. And with that love will come the creative energy and determination to change our materialist ways and to halt the reckless rape of our planet and destruction of its creatures.

This marvelous exhibit exhorts us to slow down and appreciate this wonderful earth our home, and the web of life that holds and sustains us, so that this glorious genesis does not pass away and this planet become another lifeless hunk of dead rock in a cold universe.

If you can, please see these wonderful photographs. In person in New York through January 11, 2015,

http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/sebastiao-salgado-genesis

collected in the Genesis book,

http://www.amazon.com/Sebasti%E2%88%9A%C2%A3o-Salgado-GENESIS-Lelia-Wanick/dp/3836538725

or take a look online.

https://www.google.com/search?q=genesis+salgado&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=LbtoVP-kA9apyATXtoK4Cg&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1258&bih=563

(please copy and paste URLs if links don't work)

Then step out side, look up at the sky, and around you at the life that abounds everywhere, even in the city, even now. Watch a bird in flight, look in a baby’s face, take a minute to simply breathe and enjoy being alive. Let’s expand our awareness, realizing how we are a small part of genesis, interconnected and interdependent with our environment and all its inhabitants. This world is not ours to plunder and destroy, but rather to enjoy and protect as stewards for future generations. May this Genesis contribute to a new beginning for the way we live on this wonderful planet!

Andrew Rock

Brooklyn, NY

November 2014

Vegetarianism and Climate Change

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 16:58:35 GMT

Thank you to Andrew Rock for this very thoughtful sharing about vegetarianism and climate change.

I am very happy that our FCM community is having a discussion about vegetarianism! Compassion, loving kindness, and awakening are at the heart of our practice and our aspirations. Those of us who have taken Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five Mindfulness Trainings are committed not to kill… and not to let others kill.

In his wonderful talk at our Tampa Practice Center on Sept. 15th, 2014 (a video is available on FCM’s website and on YouTube) Venerable Geshe-la Phelgye told us that if there is a hell on earth, it is the animal industry. His campaign for vegetarianism began after he visited a slaughterhouse. If we knew the hellish conditions under which the meat industry keeps food animals, and then slaughters and processes them, we would stop eating meat, not only for ethical and health reasons, but out of sheer revulsion and disgust.

Geshe-la told us that even though most of us haven’t seen these horrors with our own eyes, and may not know about them, “it exists for us consumers; they grow as we demand.” We may not do the killing, but we make others kill for us. What he saw at the slaughterhouse opened his eyes and changed his life. He made the commitment to be vegetarian, and from that moment he felt no cravings for meat and had no health issues from its absence. He began his campaign within the Tibetan Buddhist community and around the world for vegetarianism.

My wife Nancy and I both stopped eating meat in the early 1970s. Nancy did it in the experimental spirit of the era, and Andrew for a mix of health, environmental and ethical reasons. At first I still ate chicken, then I happened to visit a relatively small chicken farming operation, and that was that for eating any more chicken. We continued eating fish and seafood until three years ago, when Nancy went on a solo retreat under our teacher Fred’s guidance at Empty Cloud Cottage. Even though Nancy had loved eating fish, she came back with the firm intention not to eat other living beings, and that was the end of our eating fish and seafood. We haven’t missed them.

We are both very healthy and we have lots of energy for practice, for work, for friends and community, and for enjoying our stay on this beautiful planet filled with wonders. We love being vegetarians, not just for reasons of principle, but because vegetables and fruits are so enjoyable to grow and harvest and prepare, and so delicious to eat!

It is a myth that vegetarianism means a sacrifice of taste and enjoyment. No, quite the opposite! During my short transition period from being a meat eater, I quickly realized that, for me, fruits & veggies were much tastier, more varied, more colorful and more fun than meat. We need to experiment for ourselves, to make a gradual transition if necessary, as Geshe-la said, and to learn to prepare varied and tasty vegetarian meals, and we’ll see how satisfying it is on every level.

It is wonderful that FCM and our Mindfulness Institute are offering vegetarian meals and classes on vegetarian cooking. We need to do more of this, to share the knowledge, the confidence and the enjoyment of a vegetarian lifestyle.

There is one more dimension of this discussion I’d like to address. As practitioners of the Dharma, we are not only committed to compassion, to non-killing and to alleviate suffering, we are committed to awakening. And when we open our eyes to what is happening around us, what do we see?

We see that we are in a time of incredibly rapid mass extinctions, and of accelerating destruction of the biosphere that supports all life on this planet. And we see that we humans, individually and collectively, are the cause.

The industrial meat and fishing industries are among the top drivers of global warming, climate change and environmental degradation. Vast amounts of land, fossil fuels, money, human effort and other resources go into raising, feeding, slaughtering and distributing “meat products.” (How appalling that we speak of “harvesting” and “processing” our fellow beings!) The pollution created is immense. The inefficiency of industrial meat and fish production as a way to generate calories is immense… But little understood: we don’t want to know!

We can feed everyone from the bounty of a healthy earth. But not if we continue to eat meat, and if by our example we encourage others to continue down this dead-end road. As North Americans, we set the standards, the aspirations for the developing world. As OI, we can set the example of moving away from consumption of animals and fish. Better than anyone, we understand our interbeing.

Yesterday Nancy and I saw the film “Revolution,” made by Rob Stewart, a young Canadian marine biologist turned climate change campaigner. It focuses on the dying oceans (“the lungs of the planet”) and the huge decline in corals, fish, and phytoplankton from acidification caused by global warming and from industrial scale fishing. I wept at footage showing hundreds and thousands of sharks lying dead on a dock (killed for shark fin soup) and of mutilated tuna and swordfish corpses dumped out of trucks on to concrete for processing, of massive nets and containers crammed full of dead and dying fish, of the billions of pounds of “by-catch” discarded, wasted, killed for no reason but our greed for money, greed for flesh. We are committing both murder and suicide, and it must not continue!

How wonderful that our teachers are showing us the way, and encouraging this discussion of a vegetarian lifestyle! How wonderful that our eyes are opening! How wonderful that we have the opportunity and the support to change!

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Let’s do this, together as a community.

Gratefully,

Andrew Rock

September, 2014

In his wonderful talk at our Tampa Practice Center on Sept. 15^th, 2014 (a video is available on FCM’s website and on YouTube) Venerable Geshe-la Phelgye told us that if there is a hell on earth, it is the animal industry. His campaign for vegetarianism began after he visited a slaughterhouse. If we knew the hellish conditions under which the meat industry keeps food animals, and then slaughters and processes them, we would stop eating meat, not only for ethical and health reasons, but out of sheer revulsion and disgust.

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Let’s do this, together as a community.

Gratefully,

Andrew Rock

September, 2014

Insights from the Summer 2014 Intensive: Freeing a Hindrance / Cultivating an Awakened Mind

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 19:37:26 GMT

We are very grateful for this deep sharing by FCM member Tammy Klein, based on her recent experience in FCM's Summer Intensive.

When I'm restless, I'm not accepting things as they are. I'm not letting life unfold - I want to control life! I realize the hilarity and futility in that. Life is going to do what it's going to do. I need to notice when the restlessness (or other hindrance) happens, investigate what's happening and let go. Breathing deeply in the moment and "breathing into" the restlessness helps tremendously. It passes! Everything passes like clouds so I don't have to be afraid of that drowning feeling I get.

I should just welcome these hindrances because they're pointers - "Oh, I guess I need to let go and let this pass through me." "Oh, there I go again getting uptight because the plan changed." Now I can begin to identify restlessness and aversion as it's happening and understand why it's happening, and more often before I inflict suffering on others (and myself). I am increasingly able to stop.

There's no security in hanging on tightly to life and trying to make it run my way.

I can notice my thoughts and feelings and how they can trigger a hindrance. But there's no substance to them - they're just like puffy clouds in the sky. I can notice them, and let them pass through without making a story, justification, rationalization, etc,

My "drowning" feelings of restlessness are the same in feeling as aversion. They're overwhelming. (First I get restless and then I get mad when things don't go my way according to my plan!). They both feel the same in my body, and I can feel my body for clues when I start to cling or tighten up in the chest and gut.

There are no problems!

I can always go back to my breathing as an entry to being. I need to practice deep breathing and build my muscles since I tend to breathe shallowly.

Being is all around me, and I can just watch it. And I can tune into that "hum" in the background of life. There is ease all around me.

It's ok to do one thing at a time - like brush my teeth - and do things slowly.

I want to spend more of my time cultivating my good seeds rather than my issues. It seems for me like a process of "noticing, now let it go or pass through, notice, pass through..."

If I have trouble sitting, I can switch up my walking meditation and do that first. But I notice I haven't had that issue of late. I think it's because I noticed, felt it and let it go.

As much as I "honor" my hindrances by working with them and focusing on them, I can also "honor" my good qualities such as my investigative abilities and my ability to be honest with myself and face things as they are.

While I'm not ready for the monastery, I'm clearly on a spiritual path leading to some place great. I'm happy about that!

Tammy Klein

Mindful Consumption

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 12:56:55 GMT

In this two-part article, FCM Member Andrew Rock shares wisdom on how we can live happier and healthier (for ourselves and others) lives by consuming more mindfully.

MINDFUL CONSUMPTION

Part 1: Mindful Eating & Mindful Gifting

Many of us feel anxious as the holiday season approaches.. And many of us begin the new year feeling that we over-did it during the holidays. Ate too much, drank too much, bought too much, received too much, and, afterwards, threw away too much uneaten food, too much gift-wrapping, too many unwanted presents. We resolve to go on a diet, do our gift shopping earlier and more thoughtfully next time, and be more loving and patient with our difficult family members the next time around.

Our mass consumer culture encourages the opposite of mindful consumption. Mindless consumption, conspicuous consumption, and, as I write this on “Black Friday,” frenzied consumption. We know that mindless over-consumption is not nhealthy for us individually, for our loved ones, for our society or for our planet and its myriad living beings. We can’t afford it, our families can’t afford it and our planet can’t afford it. But we get caught up in habit, in what we think are the expectations of our loved ones, and in the constant cues to buy, buy, buy.

So as December looms, with the new year close behind, let’s take a few minutes to reflect on each of the following questions, and jot down a short response:

What are some challenges for me regarding consumption of food?
What are some challenges for me regarding the gifts I give or the gifts I receive?
What are some challenges for me regarding my consumption of our world’s resources?

At the end of this article we will revisit our challenges to see how increased mindfulness can help us.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that what we consume creates our inner environment, physically, mentally and emotionally. The consumption of toxic items waters our negative seeds of anger, fear and desire. He encourages us to “consume in such a way that health, happiness and a future are possible.” At the recent retreat at Magnolia Grove Monastery in Mississippi, Thay told us that “if we practice mindful consumption, we will be able to heal ourselves, heal our society and heal our planet.”

Many of the unhealthy foods and unnecessary things that are dangled for us contain a hidden hook buried within the appetizing bait. The hook of physical disease, mental unease and environmental pollution and degradation. If we look deeply, we can see the hook inside the bait, and we realize that we don’t want to bite that hook! The fleeting pleasure promised by the bait just isn’t worth it! A moment of awareness and insight can result in a permanent change in the choices we make.

This subject is very near to my heart. Long before I knew about the “M-word” I’ve been on a quest to bring awareness to my choices and to live simply. As a teenager I was fortunate to live overseas in a country where fruits and vegetables were plentiful and fresh, and where there was no television to amp up our supposed needs and wants. When I returned to the U.S. in my twenties, I lived without TV and kept my distance from pop culture, which over-stimulates us in order to hook us, reel us in and sell, sell, sell. I wanted to be a free human being on this earth, not a “consumer” driven by advertising and conditioning like a laboratory rat in a cage.

I became more-or-less vegetarian since 1972, and soon after spent a few years as an organic farmer and distributor of organic fruits and veges. But it wasn’t until many years later, as a member of Sweetwater Organic Community Farm in Tampa, that I learned what organic really means: nothing wasted. Nature recycles everything.

Mindful Eating

The name of the growing Slow Food movement says it all. We can slow down a bit, and see our food and our hunger as they really are. We can be mindful not only when we eat, but when we plan meals, when we shop, when we cook and when we digest our food after we’ve eaten. This is not about taking the pleasure out of eating; rather, it’s about experiencing a true enjoyment of healthy, nourishing food. Which, by the way, is usually tastier and much more pleasing than processed fast foods.

So here are ten tips, things to enhance mindfulness about our consumption of food:

Food doesn’t come from the supermarket!

Sweetwater Organic Farm runs farm tours for schoolchildren, who visit the fields, see how the veges grow, and pull up a carrot or harvest a tomato, wash it & enjoy a tasty snack. One day a youngster asked: “How come you bought these carrots at the supermarket and stuck them out here in the dirt?” We laugh, but if you ask where our dinner comes from, we’ll usually name the store where we bought it. Our awareness of the “provenance” of our food is very limited: where it was grown or raised, how it was processed and packaged, how it got to the store and on to our plates. Is it local and in season, or from another region or hemisphere? Grown sustainably or by industrial agriculture? Fresh and ripe, or bred for its shelf life and preserved by refrigeration and chemicals? By looking more deeply into the roots and sources of our food we can enhance our mindfulness and make better choices.

Is it even food?

Much of our food is processed. Try reading the food labels, not just for the amounts of fat and carbohydrates, but for the ingredients. Nutritionists and food activists have worked long and hard to require food labeling so that we are not totally at the mercy of the food industry. It’s amazing how many chemicals are in everything but fresh fruits and veges – and even there most are grown with chemical fertilizers, weeded with chemical herbicides and coated with chemical pesticides, all leaving some residue. Chemical preservatives, flavorings and coloring agents are the norm. And high fructose corn syrup is in everything, in surprisingly large quantities (the substances in our food are listed in decreasing order on the label; those listed first are there in the largest amounts).

The food writer Michael Pollan (“Omnivore’s Dilemma”; “Cooked”), when asked what is safe and healthy for people to eat, replied: “Eat things your grandmother would have recognized as food.” (Since the processed food revolution began in the 1950s, some of us will need to go back to our great-grandmothers). If it isn’t food, don’t eat it. It always seemed weird and dangerous to me to put a bunch of unnatural chemicals in my body, and I’ve tried to avoid it all my life, by steering clear of processed foods and looking for those without added chemicals. I haven’t looked for studies linking cancer and other diseases with chemicals in food, but common sense tells me to be mindful and vigilant about putting industrial chemicals in my body.

Listen to your body.

If we are attentive to our bodies, they will let us know if they are hungry or full, happy or unhappy with what we have eaten. Of course, we must learn to tune out the mental static of our habitual cravings for junk food and comfort food.

At FCM we are training to be mindful of the body in the body. As we learn to put our attention on our breathing, on the tensed or relaxed feel of our muscles and joints, so too we can be more aware of our digestive organs and metabolism. Are we really that hungry when we sit down to pack away a heavy meal, or do we still feel full from the last meal? When we eat, we can check in with our bodies to know when we have had enough. Another food writer described an interview with an old and very healthy woman in the Philippines, a country where there is an unusually high concentration of people who live to a ripe old age. The old woman said that she and her family and friends follow the “80% rule”: they stop eating when they feel about 80% full, because by the time everything they have eaten is registered by the body, they’ve already had too much!

If we pay attention, our bodies will also let us know whether the food and drink we have consumed feels good to the body. Does it “sit well” with us after we have eaten? Does indigestion or discomfort keep us from a good night’s sleep, or weigh us down as we move about our day? How do we feel “the morning after”? Again, if we listen, our bodies can tell us what they want and need, much like a pregnant woman who craves certain foods. It might be a salad, it might be a starch or protein, or it might simply be resting from eating for a while to digest what we have already consumed. The body can tell us what it needs, and we would be wise to listen.

Slow down and pay attention!

Slow down when you eat! Enjoy this bite, this plate, this meal, not the next one. So often we are already planning the next forkful even as we are putting this one in our mouths! Getting ready to help ourselves to seconds before the first plate is finished, so that we are not enjoying the food still on the plate in front of us, much less waiting to see if we really are still hungry once we finish that first plate. When we are on silent retreat, we find that our food is particularly pleasing and that we don’t eat as much as usual. Why? Because we are practicing mindfulness of our food, and we are not distracted from our enjoyment of each morsel by talking or by mental chatter. It helps that we also practice appreciation of our food, and gratitude for the many hands and energies that went into raising it and bringing it to our plates for our enjoyment and nourishment.

I’m on an anti-grabity campaign.” That’s right: “grabity,” not “gravity.” Notice how often we talk about “grabbing a bite,” or invite our friends to “grab lunch” with us. Food isn’t for grabbing – it’s for sharing, savoring and then calmly digesting. Grabbing food is the opposite of mindful eating. “Grab” is just a word, but the words we use condition the way we think and the way we act. We can watch for each time that we or our friends talk about grabbing something to eat or drink, and we can use that heightened awareness as a bell of mindfulness.

We think we don’t have enough time to eat mindfully and well, but we do. How often do we grab our fast foods and then sit and watch TV? Or check our cell phones for messages for the umpteenth time? Or use the time we think we’ve saved to rush out and buy something? Or grab a meal and get back to work; might we not work smarter, calmer, better, after we take the time to enjoy our food and nourish ourselves? Really, what better way to use our time than to eat good food and share it with friends or family, or savor it by ourselves, mindfully enjoying each bite and knowing we are doing something good for ourselves?

You don’t have to clean your plate!

Nor does your child or grandchild. How much misery has this misconception caused, how many family fights and lifelong traumas? It is not wasteful to stop eating once you’ve had enough.

Sure, it’s better not to take more food than we plan to eat, but sometimes we just don’t know, and sometimes the food is too tempting, so we take too much. Or we want to be generous, so we serve too much to those we are feeding. If we really don’t want to waste food, we can manage our shopping and meal planning better, or dish up less. But don’t force your body - or your child’s body - to force down more food than it wants, or than it can healthily digest.

We’ll look at the other five tips for mindful eating in Part 2 of this article next week, as well as the topic of mindfulness of the environmental impact of our consumption. But now, before the holiday shopping season is almost over, let’s talk about mindful gifting.

Mindful Gifting

Presents … and Presence

Let’s start by asking ourselves a few questions. Why do we give gifts? What are the most meaningful gifts we give, and receive? What really means the most to us over the holiday season?

Most likely, your answers have to do with letting our family and friends know that we love them, that we care about them, that we think about them, and that we want to do something special for them. We tell our children, when they worry about what they’ll get us for Christmas or Hanukkah, “Please don’t think you need to spend a lot of money on us. It’s the thought and the love that counts.” And that’s pretty true across the board for most of our relationships.

Yes, there are people who do need material things: young people setting up their households, those who can’t afford to buy themselves those few simple things that would bring extra joy, and the growing number of Americans who can’t afford the bare necessities : a roof over their heads, adequate clothing and enough to eat. These folks do need our support, and the holiday season is a particularly good time to practice generosity for those in need.

But when you get right down to it, so many of our holiday gifts amount to more stuff for people who already have too much. The new stuff may be bigger, or newer, or have more capabilities than the old stuff, but is it really necessary and does it lead to more than a brief gratification of our materialist desires? And in many cases we spend more than we can afford, and those to whom we give feel that they must us give back gifts that are equally expensive, more than they can afford or we even want, and we get caught up in an escalating arms race of presents.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that the greatest gift we can give to anyone is our presence. We all want to be loved, and we want to be understood. When we suffer, we want someone to listen deeply, and when we are happy, we want someone to share our joy. We know that caring for others brings us deep and lasting happiness, and we also know how many of our family and friends are stressed, lonely, angry or depressed, feelings which are often exacerbated during the holiday season.

How many times have we gotten together with our loved ones at Christmas, and after the brief frenzy of gift-giving and opening has subsided, and too much food and drink has quickly been consumed, we lapse into an uneasy silence or resume feuds and arguments from last year’s holiday get togethers? We feel that we have been generous because we’ve given and received lots of presents, but have we really shared our presence with our loved ones? Have we really been there for one another? Do we all go away from the holiday celebrations feeling loved and understood? Perhaps we can focus more on being present for one another, and less on giving presents to one another. Instead of sending the children off to watch Disney movies after dinner, while the men watch football and the women gather in the kitchen - pardon the stereotypes, but they still see to apply - how about we let the electronic screens and devices rest, and we talk. Even better, how about we listen deeply, and when we do speak, it is in such a way that our loved ones feel that they have been heard, understood and supported?

Some Alternative gifting strategies:

Donations to favorite charities and organizations

Instead of buying more stuff, we can make charitable donations to our family and friends’ favorite “causes.” If we don’t already know the kinds of organizations and initiatives they would like to support, we can ask them. In and of itself, this lets them know we are interested in them, and want to know them better. It gives us something meaningful to talk about on an ongoing basis, and takes us out of ourselves.

For our part, we can tell those who normally give us holiday gifts that this year, if they intend to get us something, would they kindly make a donation to …(you can have fun filling in the blank). You might choose an organization that provides food for the homeless and undernourished, or a civil rights organization, or disaster relief for the Philippines or another afflicted area, an environmental group or a religious or community organization like FCM. There is no need for the giver to say or for the receiver to know how much was given, so the “gift arms race” can be ended. But whatever the amount, such a gift is something that you and your generous friends can both feel good about, and know that their generosity doesn’t translate into just more stuff the day after the holiday is over, more wrapping paper and cardboard boxes to fill the overflowing garbage containers after the holidays are over.

Give consumables or other small everyday items

A jar of jam or some other food that you know your family member likes, or something you really enjoy and want to share with your friend. These are thoughtful, and will not go to waste If the recipients don’t like it, they can easily “regift” to someone else.

As much as I hated being given clothes for presents as a boy, now I love it if my wife gives me a pair or two of socks, or boxer shorts to replace my worn out ones. It’s funny how sometimes we don’t lack for the big things, but we might need and really appreciate the small day to day items that we often do not buy for ourselves.

Accumulate small personalized gifts through the year

My wife Nancy is wonderful at this. She travels a lot, and she likes to shop. Not necessarily to buy, but to look and see what’s there. And she keeps her many friends and family members in mind, so when she sees something that she thinks will appeal to a particular person, she buys it, though she might hold it until the holidays or a birthday rolls around. It might be a book someone would like, or a craft item from another country that she thinks will appeal, or a household knickknack like a bowl with a cat on it for someone who loves cats, or a special garlic press for someone who uses garlic. When she gives presents like this, not only does the recipient usually enjoy the item, but she is warmed by knowing that Nancy was thinking about her as she went about her travels, not just at Christmas time but as she went about her everyday life.

Gift certificates or money

Nancy and I used to think that giving money was somehow not in good taste, but we’ve come around on that. A check or a bit of cash can be very welcome to help enliven a holiday for someone who is on a tight budget, or to tuck away until they have time to go out and have some fun picking something out for themselves. If you know their tastes and interests, a gift certificate to a favorite store or online service allows them to pick out something they really want or need.

You get the idea. Gifts can be modest, yet if they are personal and there is some thought behind them, those gifts can be very enjoyable and let our dear ones know that we care. It’s the caring, not the stuff, that is the real point. Above all, we can give the gift of our true and focused presence to our loved ones. Telling people we love them on a gift card that accompanies a big fancily-wrapped gift is nice and well-intentioned, but the gift of being there for someone, in the happy times and the hard ones, is the gift that keeps giving.

Part 2: Mindful Eating (continued)

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that “if we practice mindful consumption, we will be able to heal ourselves, heal our society and heal our planet.” In Part 1 of this article we asked ourselves about our challenges regarding mindful consumption of food, and about mindful gifts. We talked about why we give gifts – to show our love and to do something special for our family and friends – and about how our true presence may be more deeply meaningful to our loved ones than our material presents.

We also looked at the first five of ten “tips” that may help us with mindful eating: (1) Food doesn’t come from the supermarket! (2) Is what we are about to buy and eat really food? (3) Listen to your body. (4) Slow down and pay attention! (5) You don’t have to clean your plate!

Now, many of us are preparing for the Christmas and New Year holidays, a time of heightened emotions, material over-abundance (for many but not for all in our society), and – let’s be honest – over-eating and over-drinking, followed by remorse and resolutions to handle it all better next time round. The premise of this article is that with greater mindfulness we can handle it better this time round. In the present moment – which is all that there ever is for us - we can bring a clearer awareness to our actions of body, speech and mind so that we can make choices about our consumption that are more in line with our deeper aspirations for health and happiness.

Here are the remaining five suggestions for mindful consumption of food and drink:

6. Eating doesn’t end after the last bite

After we have swallowed our last mouthful and left the table, our minds may move on to the next activity, but our bodies know that their part has really just begun. Digestion takes time and energy, especially after we have eaten rich or heavy foods, and if we have mixed together a lot of different kinds of food and drink. Our appetite has been satisfied, but now our bodies must deal with what we’ve consumed!

We eat for enjoyment – nature has designed us to be motivated to eat – but most of all we eat for nourishment. As the saying goes, “we are what we eat” – do we really want to be a cheeseburger? - and our energy level is determined in part by how effectively we convert food energy into body energy. Some foods, like meats, fried food and dense combinations of fats, processed starch and sugars, may take more energy from the body to attempt to digest than they provide to the body! They may have good “mouth-feel,” but be a net loss to our metabolisms.

Obviously over-eating causes indigestion and discomfort, but so can poor food combinations. I’m not a nutritionist, but it seems only common sense that if we mix together too many foods that are acid and alkaline, hot and cold, solids and liquids we may make it difficult for our digestive systems to do their work properly. And in fact naturopaths have suggested for many years that poor eating habits create a toxic internal environment that makes us prone to colds and diseases.

If, as we plan and consume our meals and snacks, we are mindful that eating doesn’t end after the last bite, we can allow our bodies to digest our food easily, as designed, and help to keep ourselves and those we feed nourished and happy.

7. Every day is a special occasion!

Truly it is, another 24 hours to be alive and awake on this amazing planet! So often, though, this expression is used like a ritual incantation to allow us to overeat and to overdose on particularly sweet and rich foods, and often on alcohol too. Then after the special occasion is over, we try to diet and vow to do better hereafter… until the next special occasion turns up. That’s a stressful roller coaster to be on, when in reality every day really is special, and we want to feel good every day. It’s an unhealthy cycle for our metabolisms, which find it much easier to settle into a regular routine, so everything can stabilize, rather than lurching between extremes of binging and fasting without a chance to recover.

Holidays should really be a time to treat our bodies especially well, and to encourage – by example – our loved ones to do the same. We really do all want to be as healthy as we can, for many more special occasions to come.

8. Sugar does not = love

We think we are being kind to our family and friends when we provide them with heavy, rich food, or, as is often the case, with very good food but too much of it. And in particular, we think we are being “sweet” to ourselves and our guests when we provide them with lots of sugar. Especially on birthdays and throughout the holiday season.

Our comfort foods are often sugar-based. No doubt we associate them with happy interludes in our childhoods. I can remember many depressive binges on ice cream or chocolate or donuts, or some combination thereof. Fun for a very brief time, then uncomfortable for a much longer time. Is that really the best we can for do for ourselves when we what want is to feel “comforted”? Maybe if we called them “discomfort foods” it would help us be more mindful the next time our strong attachment to sweets kicks in.

Then there are those of us who are mindful of our own consumption, so we don’t eat the cake and ice cream and so on ourselves, but we urge them on our family and guests because we want them to have what they like. That’s totally understandable, but more applied mindfulness may lead us to realize that the most loving thing we can do is to provide healthy food, and to use our own understanding and example to support and encourage our loved ones to be mindful of what they consume.

This is not to suggest that we become food Nazis about sugar. I love chocolate, and nothing quite does it for me like a pistachio ice cream cone on a hot summer afternoon. As a friend of mine likes to say, quoting Oscar Wilde: “Moderation in all things, including moderation.” A little sugar now and then, sure. Too much sugar on a regular basis, bad news for our metabolism, our bodies and our emotions.

9. Excessive drinking does not = fun

“Drinking to excess equals fun” is another equation that needs to be rewritten. In the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us not to use alcohol, drugs or other products which contain toxins. Some practitioners totally refrain from drinking alcohol at all, and others may enjoy the occasional glass of wine or beer, but our aspiration and our practice is not to cloud our minds and damage our bodies by drinking too much.

We have been conditioned to believe that intoxication is fun, and that feeling bad during and after is just part of this enjoyable experience. Many of our friends and family are overdoing it, especially over the holidays, and if we don’t use mindfulness to create an opportunity to choose moderation or abstinence, we tend to go along with the crowd. We needn’t make a big point of not drinking or of drinking moderately, we simply stop after we have enjoyed one or two drinks and switch to water, tea or juice.

The unexamined assumption behind drinking for fun is that we need to be intoxicated to really enjoy ourselves. That we have to escape from reality into a happier state of mind. It is the antithesis of our mindfulness practice, which seeks to wake up to reality as it is, knowing that true happiness is always available to us in the present moment if we are alive to that moment. Seeking escape just perpetuates our suffering, and the things we think, say and do when we are drunk only compound our problems. As with over-eating, we can do ourselves and our friends and loved ones a favor by opening up alternatives. “Hey, I’m having a wonderful time just being here with you, and I don’t need to become intoxicated to enjoy our time together.”

10. Adopting a vegetarian diet is not a sacrifice, it’s a pleasure!

Our teacher Fred has encouraged us to strongly consider adopting a vegetarian diet - please read his wonderful Nov. 2012 letter “On Eating Meat” in the Resources section of the FCM website.

Eating a vegetarian diet is delicious, varied and satisfying. Fruits and vegetables are much tastier than meat by, especially when they are fresh. You’ll enjoy it, and your friends will enjoy it too when they visit you. Most good restaurants have tasty and satisfying vegetarian appetizers and salads and entrees, and even those that don’t have vegetarian entrees have vegetable side dishes that can be put together for a delicious dinner. Same thing at family holiday dinners: without making any fuss about it you can pass on the meat and have a great meal of side dishes.

Certainly, our bodies and our cooking techniques need time to adjust, and it isn’t necessary to go “cold turkey” on meat all at once. Listen to your body (see Tip 3 from Part One of this article) and see if you feel a lack of energy. On the other hand, you may quickly find that an all or mostly vegetarian diet is very satisfying from the get-go, that you feel lighter and more energetic, and that you miss ‘meat and potatoes” meals much less than you expected. Once you start to experience the alternatives, which are endless, the traditional meal of meat, starch and a side of overcooked vegetables begins to seem boring and rather unappetizing.

Yes, vegetarian cuisine may require more time for food preparation, but it’s enjoyable and rewarding. Many of us say we don’t have time to make vegetarian meals or snacks, but then we sit down and watch TV for hours while we eat our fast food!

We all know the primary reasons for not eating meat, and they are all true. It’s not good for our health, it’s not good for the animals and it’s not good for the environment.

When humans were living off the land and doing very hard physical labor in adverse conditions, we may have needed the concentrated fats and proteins meat could provide, but today we live pretty sedentary lives and we do better with lighter foods and less of them. Further, the meat we are sold today was generally raised on inferior foods laced with antibiotics and chemicals - you are what what you eat has eaten - in unsanitary and incredibly inhumane conditions. It is almost certainly true that if we knew more about how the animals that we eat were raised and treated, most of us would stop eating meat on the spot.

The meat industry is a major cause of environmental problems. The land used for grazing livestock and growing animal feed takes about up 30% of the earth’s entire land mass, land that is not available for more efficient forms of agriculture. Animal agriculture is also a significant contributor to the greenhouse gases causing global warming.

I want to make one final and very important point about being vegetarian, and about all the mindful food tips discussed in this article: Eating well and healthily is not a sacrifice, it is a pleasure! As long as we have the attitude that “I know I should eat better but I want to enjoy my food,” we won’t change, and why should we? The reality for me and for many millions of others is that good food is more fun to purchase and prepare, more appetizing on the plate, tastier and more interesting to eat, and easier to digest. We feel better nourished, more energized and happier.

Mindful eating is a delight, and I wish you all a mindful “bon appetit” over the holidays and into the new year.

Sharing Experiences of Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels and Receiving Transmission of the Five Mindfulness Trainings

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:45:25 GMT

Our sangha sisters Nancy, Charner and MT each share from the heart their experiences, below.

At the last retreat I received transmission with my sangha sisters Charner, Evelyn and MT. This was not the first time. I had actually received transmission the first time in Naples from Fred, our teacher, back in 2005. The transmission ceremony is offered to both those wanting to commit to the Buddhist path of practice for the first time and those who would like to “re-enlist”, meaning those wanting to re-commit anew to the path of practice. I definitely wanted to renew and refresh my commitment.

The first time I received transmission, I was overwhelmed. The path was big, the challenge great and although I heard the words of the transmission I had no real idea how to put into practice many of the mindfulness trainings. I also knew that some of them would present more of a challenge then others. This time at the retreat in the Franciscan Center I heard the mindfulness training on Nourishment and Healing almost as if it was the first time.

Using food all my life as a method to escape my body, mind, and surroundings I knew this particular training spoke directly to me. During the transmission, I heard the words, “Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption” as if for the first time. I was aware. I was deeply aware of how unmindful eating has caused pain in my mind and body for many years. This time I heard another phrase in the training statement about practicing mindful eating, not just for oneself, but for all of society.

Since I have always lived alone, I never realized that when I eat mindfully I am doing it not only for myself but for everyone, especially those who are hungry. When I heard the transmission this time, a light went on in my mind. Even if the majority of my eating is done alone in my kitchen with no one around, it matters when I don’t consume food mindfully. It matters to society and I need to practice for society, especially for those who, every day, do not have enough to eat.

Taking transmission is a powerful step, even after the first time. You are declaring once again with your mind and heart and in front on the sangha community your intention to practice these five trainings. As we live in a culture suffering from a dearth of healing and transformative ceremonies, doing this one thing on retreat had a significant impact on my path of practice. I walked away with a new understanding that I was practicing this particular training not for myself or in service of a self-image molded from women’s magazine advertisements, but for my community, society, and especially those who suffer from hunger.

~ Nancy Cunningham

“To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge. By this practice, may understanding, compassion and equanimity be achieved for the benefit of all beings.“ As we say these or similar words each morning before sitting down to meditate, the meaning gradually has its effect upon us like water flowing over rocks slowly smoothing their surface. Repeating our intention every day reminds us why we practice and energizes our effort. Though on some days I recite these words rotely without clearly seeing their meaning, on other days the words penetrate more deeply.

It was on the last morning of the recent Fall retreat at the Franciscan Center, led by our teacher Fred, where four of us, surrounded by the Sangha and facing Fred and the Buddha’s alter, formally vowed to go for refuge to the Three Jewels - the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha - and to practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings. As I listened to the recitation of the ceremony’s words prescribed by Thich Nhat Hanh and detailed in his book Chanting from the Heart, they deeply penetrated my being. Standing in the middle of this harmonious gathering and touching the earth after each vow, I felt the warmth, love and support of the entire community, my spiritual family, and experienced great happiness inside of me for choosing this path.

~ Charner Reese

Healing Yourself is Healing the World - On retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh at Magnolia Grove Monastery, September 2013

Sun, 13 Oct 2013 14:03:36 GMT

Andrew Rock shares about the recent experience of being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh at Magnolia Grove Monastery.

Northern Mississippi might seem an unlikely place for a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh to generate a wonderful energy of mindfulness, kindness, clarity and healing, based on the teachings of the Buddha. But the fourfold sangha of monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen who worked so hard to develop the Magnolia Grove Monastery near Batesville, Mississippi have created just such an environment.

The brand new red-roofed meditation hall, named the Rising Tide, comfortably held almost a thousand of us; the surrounding fields and woods sprouted colorful tents by the hundreds. We ate our meals under a shady grove of mature oak trees. We were inspired by a huge mindfulness bell hanging in its beautifully ornate bell tower and, nearby, the large white statue of Quan Yin (the female, Asian form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion), rising from an island in the middle of a lush green lotus pond.

Thay, as everyone calls Thich Nhat Hanh (it means “teacher” in Vietnamese), told us that “the collective energy generated by the environment you create is very important. That is why sangha building is so important. If you put a person in a good environment of brotherhood and sisterhood, peace and kindness, that can be very healing.”

Thay gave a long Dharma talk every morning, the highlight of each day. If we know how to breathe and walk mindfully, Thay told us early in the retreat, we don’t have to be dominated by anger, anxiety or depression. We can bring our mindfulness up from our store consciousness – where our experiences have planted dormant seeds of happiness and suffering – and give our afflictive emotions a “mindfulness bath,” to relax and heal them with our tender attention. Practitioners know how to generate compassion as an antidote to anger, stability as an antidote to anxiety, joy as an antidote to depression. And we know that concentration has the power to burn away obstacles to happiness.

Sometimes suffering may be unavoidable, and Thay told us that a good practitioner also knows the “art of suffering.” She knows that happiness, which like everything else is empty of its own intrinsic existence, is made of non-happiness elements, including suffering; and suffering is made of non-suffering elements, including happiness. Suffering and happiness inter-are. So we can use our practice of mindfulness, understanding and loving kindness to be present to our suffering, without shooting a “second arrow” into the same wound by blaming ourselves or someone else for our suffering. We know that it is impermanent, like everything else, and that even as we suffer, we also have more than enough conditions to be happy. “A practitioner should be an artist,” Thay told us, “and know how to skillfully create joy and happiness.”

Thay’s clear, calm voice, and his effortless, flowing movements as he rose and glided over to write on the whiteboard were teachings also. He embodies mindfulness, stability and a simple, peaceful joy. Yet he has great confidence based on deep insight, and he has no illusions about the extent of the degradation of our society and environment from greed, violence, war, and pollution. On the fourth day of the retreat, instead of a formal Dharma talk, Thay held a Q&A session, and several questioners asked how to create world peace and about the role of political activism and civil disobedience to address environmental problems. Thay said:

“I have seen ecologists who are very angry. They have a lot of pollution in them. When they become less angry, it is easier to help.

“Protesting is not the best way – that does not help them to transform their anger, fear and craving. It is by loving speech and deep listening that we can show them another way and help them transform. We should learn to write love letters, not protest letters, to our politicians. That is the way to world peace. ‘Dear Mr. President: we understand that you have many difficulties. We have a way to help you.”

The better way, Thay told us, is to set an example of peace, to show that happiness is possible without a lot of money and weapons. Healing yourself is healing the world. The most important thing, he told us, is to live happily as a sangha. Calm down first, and live harmoniously and simply together. Other people come and observe your community and they learn. When they see the way you live, they wake up and they change. Your community can practice peace education – go and tell people very concretely how it is possible to be happy.

Several times Thay talked about mindful consumption. The consumption of toxins waters the seeds of anger, fear, and desire. “We should consume in such a way that health, happiness and a future are possible. If we practice mindful consumption, we will be able to heal ourselves, heal our society and heal our planet.” This is important for us as individuals, families and in our sanghas.

Building a sangha is not easy, he told us. We need a lot of compassion and patience. We need to practice deep listening. We need to give ourselves enough time and space to come together and transform. Without a loving community we cannot realize our dream. “The most important thing is to live happily as a sangha. If you have that, the rest will come.”

There were about twenty members of the Florida Community of Mindfulness at Thay’s Magnolia Grove retreat. We met briefly every day, at the bell tower, to share our daily experiences as our teacher, Fred Eppsteiner, had asked. We also met daily in small group discussions with other practitioners from Florida and the southeast, many without sanghas or teachers. We realized how fortunate we are at FCM to have such a learned and dedicated teacher, and such a kind and committed community. We also realized that, as a large and geographically dispersed community, FCM can be a resource for other practitioners in Thay’s tradition, and so we “spread the word” at the retreat about our community, our weekly sanghas, and our new website as a gateway for information and access to our programs. Already, in the two weeks since the retreat, several of our new friends have become members of FCM and have attended FCM activities.

Fred asked that our FCM members at the retreat think about what we can bring back home with us. One thing we have certainly brought back is a renewed appreciation for the good and important work of sangha building that we are engaged in. Another is a refreshed inspiration to continue our practice in the tradition of our root teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, and also a strong infusion of the joy that is embodied by Thay, his monks and nuns, and the sanghas that grow up around them at every stop of this North American tour.

Thay and the monastics conducted transmission ceremonies the last two mornings of the retreat. On the first morning, fourteen aspirants were ordained as members of the Order of Interbeing (“OI”), including our own FCM members Darlene Stewart and Anne Kracmer. We were delighted to be there to support and congratulate Anne and Darlene, and to present them with the brown jackets worn by OI members to symbolize their commitment to humility and service, understanding and compassion.

On the final morning, Thay transmitted the Five Mindfulness Trainings to those who wished to receive them for the first time, and to those who wanted to renew their prior transmission. Many of the retreat attendees were new practitioners, or new to Thay’s tradition, and virtually every one of them wanted to receive the transmission. It was wonderful to see hundreds of people simultaneously touching the earth as Thay transmitted each training, and to see their smiling faces, alight with happiness and purpose, at the end of the ceremony.

The retreat ended with a final walking meditation, led by Thay and the children, through the lush green meadows of Magnolia Grove, pausing to rest in a shaded forest glen, and then back, refreshed, invigorated and inspired, to return to our communities, knowing that wherever we are, we are always home.

Andrew Rock

True Collective Healing

October 2013

The Practice of Community at Magnolia Grove

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 23:01:36 GMT

Recently, Andy Solis, a long-term member of the Florida Community of Mindfulness, was part of group of members who travelled to the Magnolia Grove Practice Center in Mississippi to help with preparations for Thich Nhat Hanh’s upcoming retreat. Andy wrote Fred a letter about his experience there, and especially what he learned about the practice of community.

I would like to share a wonderful experience that several of us recently had at the Magnolia Grove Mindfulness Practice Center in Batesville, Mississippii. Our trip was an effort to create a deeper connection between the Florida Community of Mindfulness and the monastic communities within the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. On July 11th five FCM Sangha members travelled to Magnolia Grove. Rosaria Pugliese (Miami), Dennis Brown (Naples), Tim Niell (Tampa) and Ned Bellamy (Tampa) travelled with me. Magnolia Grove is the newest of the monastery/practice centers in the US practicing in Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh's (Thay) Plum Village tradition. It is home to approximately 25 monastics. The land for the monastery was originally purchased by a group of five Vietnamese families in the Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama areas.

The monastics and the lay community are working extremely hard to complete the hall prior to Thay's arrival. Most of the heavy framing and detailed stonework had been subcontracted to outside companies. However, the majority of the finish work, painting, and landscaping is being done by the monastics and lay community volunteers. The hall is quite large and will seat 1000 when completed. Needless to say, completion of the Hall by the time Thay arrives will be difficult and the extra hands were greatly appreciated.

The FCM road-trip was successful in establishing a deeper connection with this monastic and lay community close to Florida. They were very enthusiastic about friends visiting from Florida and welcomed us like family members who had been away and recently returned home. We were all touched by the way they immediately included us in their community. After working along side both lay volunteers and monastics for a whole day, we became "Uncle Rick, Aunt Rosaria, Uncle Ned, Uncle Tim and Uncle Andy." This gave us some insight into how the Asian communities practice Sangha. At some level, the Asian meaning of sangha is different than the western understanding of sangha. The lay community is committed to creating a place where lay people and monastics can be together in an open, loving, mindful way, i.e. like a healthy family.

Their commitment amazed us all. Numerous lay members would work all day at their professions or businesses, arrive for dinner, and work until 12 o'clock at night. They did this in a joyous and relaxed way. The lay families spent entire days at the Center working, eating, meditating, and playing together. They were not going to Magnolia Grove just to "do something" or "practice something". The doing and practicing was secondary to "being together in harmony." Each early morning sitting and chanting, each meal, and each period of working meditation was done with a sense of love and openness. The time spent was about being together for the pure enjoyment of being together, rather than to only to accomplish a specific task. There is a massive amount of work to complete prior to Thay's arrival, and yet all of the work was done with a sense of unity and togetherness. Nothing was done in a hurry. Finishing the work seemed less important than being together mindfully and as a family.

Periodic breaks were taken from the meditation hall work. When a break was announced we would all stop, sit in a circle, and mindfully talk and enjoy tea or salted lemonade. During one break, one brother sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. He did this without any thought that he didn't know me or that I was a stranger to him. He simply sat down as he would have with a sibling to enjoy a snack. All of the conversations were about being together, the community, or Thay’s visit. No one engaged in a monologue about themselves or attempted to tell everyone their life story. We just enjoyed each other’s presence. This was truly a sangha flowing as a river.

On our return trip, the group talked about what a great experience it was and how beneficial it could be for our FCM community to develop a connection with the Magnolia Grove community. We invited several monastics to visit us in the winter and they were highly enthusiastic. I hope that our new Center will become a place for everyone to just experience “being together” without any separation and “to flow as a river”.

With a smile and a bow,
Andy Solis
True Land of Mindfulness Training