Burlington Buddhist Sangha

Sam led our session on the Tenth (and final) Perfection – Equanimity, drawing on many sources.

Christina Feldman’s talk on Equanimity from January 2 of this year can be found at

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/44/talk/18108/

from which were excerpted: 14:38-37:02 and 48:39-end.    Highlights were:  Mustard seed story starting at 22:20, “…you must be a dog” starting at 27: 38, Billy Collins poem “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House”, starting at 29:53, and the Udana sutta:  starting at 59:50.
We closed with a “Guided Equanimity Meditation” by Lila Kate Wheeler,
http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/109/talk/19422/

Also distributed was a “handout” was found on Wikipedia’s entry for “Equanimity”,  ref. no. 4;  from Gil Fronsdal.

And wrapping up the bundle of sources was a poem by Edward Espe Brown in “The Complete Tassajara Cookbook”,  p. 242:

The truth is you’re already a cook.
Nobody teaches you anything,
but you can be touched, you can be awakened.
When you put down the book and start asking,
“What have we here?” You come to your senses.
Though recipes abound, for soups and salads,
bread and entrees, for getting enlightened
and perfecting the moment, still
the unique flavor of Reality
appears in each breath, each bite,
each step, unbound and undirected.
Each thing just as it is,
What do you make of it?

Margaret led our reflections on Metta, not just as a meditative practice, but as a state of mind.  The presentation  drew on excerpts from a dharma talk by Rodney Smith

http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/404/Default.aspx

Also helpful (and funny) was a poem by Tony Hoagland’s book “What Narcissism Means to Me”, reprinted here (and followed by a brief quotation from the Samyutta Nikaya on metta as a state of mind)

Phone call – by Tony Hoagland

Maybe I overdid it
when I called my father an enemy of humanity.
That might have been a little strongly put,
a slight overexaggeration,

an immoderate description of the person
who at the moment, two thousand miles away,
holding the telephone receiver six inches from his ear,
must have regretted paying for my therapy.

What I meant was that my father
was an enemy of my humanity
and what I meant behind that
was that my father was split
into two people, one of them

living deep inside of me
like a bad king, or an incurable disease-
blighting my crops,
striking down my herds,
poisoning my wells – the other
standing in another time zone,
in a kitchen in Wyoming,
with bad knees and white hair sprouting from his ears.

I don’t want to scream forever,
I don’t want to live without proportion
like some kind of infection from the past,

so I have to remember the second father,
the one whose TV dinner is getting cold
while he holds the phone in his left hand
and stares blankly out the window

where just now the sun is going down
and the last fingertips of sunlight
are withdrawing from the hills
they once touched like a child.

(From What Narcissism Means To Me, Greywolf Press, 2003)

From Samyutta Nikaya:

“It is in this way that we must train ourselves: By liberation of the self through love, We will develop love, We will practice it, We will make it both a way and a basis, Take a stand upon it, store it up, and thoroughly set it going.” – the Buddha

Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation, page 708:

“Therefore, bhikkhus, you should train yourselves thus: ‘We will develop and cultivate the liberation of mind by lovingkindness, make it our vehicle, make it our basis, stabilize it, exercise ourselves in it, and fully perfect it.’ Thus should you train yourselves.”

 

 

Today, Michael guided our reflections, drawing on several sources, including Robert Frost’s poem “West Running Brook, and an excerpt from Gil Fronsdal’s dharma talk on Resolve, which, along with his talks on all the other paramis, can be found at

http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1859/

Our reflections today were guided by Wendy, anchored in an excerpt from Tara Brach’s dharma talk, “Wise Intention: Living in Truth” (link below).

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/175/talk/17431/

 

Anne P led our consideration of Patience today with a guided meditation and excerpts from a talk by Narayan Lieberson Grady

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/131/talk/2956/

Jackie framed our discussion of Virya using one of Joseph Goldstein’s many talks on the subject, which can be found on the web at

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/17252/

Rebecca led our reflections on Prajna today, reading from an extended definition of Prajna

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_in_Buddhism‎

and from a Shambhala Sun article on “The Sharp Sword of Prajna”

http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1675

 

Donia led our reflections on Renunciation, drawing on her years of experience in a Gurdjieff community.  The emphasis was on using renunciations strategically, to break up habitual attachments, and thus bit by bit erode habitual ways of viewing the self.

Today Payton led our reflections on Morality, the second of the ten perfections. In Pali, this is Sila, which is a word with many meanings and shows up in many of the Buddhist lists (Paramis, Paramitas, Eightfold Path, etc.).

Payton chose three viewpoints on Sila.

The first was a talk by Sylvia Boorstein. (http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/174/talk/6541/)

Sylvia discussed how Morality develops in the human life and how it can be very subjective.

Particularly, this quote was interesting:

“a moral act is something that you do out of the conscious intention to make things better for somebody else.”

Second was a talk by Gil Fronsdal. (http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1859/)

 

Gil remarked that there are two main points to Sila: Compassion for others, and Care for the self.

The third was a brief (and paraphrased) excerpt from a talk by Trudy Goodman (http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/183/talk/5953/)

Our mind is always altering and changing and re-creating who we are. This is great freedom, but also can be a problem for us. We can’t just work hard and achieve some state which will last forever. Sila is a guardian of dharma, protecting the learning that we achieve. It acts like a crucible for our karma, transforming our intent over and over again.

Today Maryann led our reflections on Generosity, the first of the ten perfections, and the initial teaching in many paths to establish a Buddhist practice.  The first thirty minutes of an exchange with James Baraz, discussing a project which cultivated a generous outpouring can be found here:

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/86/talk/18132/

As sangha members listened to and discussed that project, we began exploring the possibility of doing something ourselves which gave back to the community, and cultivated this quality in our own lives.  If you haven’t already heard the talk, you might want to have a listen to the first 30 minutes, in order more fully to participate in our sangha’s discussions.