Mary will facilitate. She invites you to join Monday night for our monthly recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. The Five Mindfulness Trainings are one of the most concrete ways to practice mindfulness. Current times press us all to reflect deeply on which ethical values can support us to cross the wide river of suffering to arrive on the other shore. The 5 Mindfulness trainings serve as a compass to reach the other side, the shore of freedom from suffering and the root causes of suffering..
As we come out of the past six months of daily accommodations to Covid 19 compounded by a deepened reckoning of racial injustice in our country and in the world, I am so grateful to Thay’s skillful transmission of the Buddha’s teachings, to my sanghas and to my practice. Together they create a generous raft of support. They give me confidence that, with diligence, I will reach the other shore.
Tonight, we will use the ARISE Sangha “Contemplations on the 5 Mindfulness Trainings, A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic” for our recitation. Full text of 5 Contemplations here. We will focus on the first mindfulness training, Reverence for Life. The first training is to protect life, to decrease violencJDe in oneself, in the family and in society. The ARISE contemplation on the First Mindfulness Training invites us to practice with this training through the lens of acknowledging beauty:
Aware of the suffering caused by oppression and generational harm based on racial, cultural, social, and ethnic inferiority and superiority and its resultant structures of injustices and harm, I acknowledge the beauty and violence inherent in life. I vow to resist being complicit in systems and structures that continue to perpetuate violence and hatred instead of reverence of life for marginalized groups. I recognize that each person contributes to my individual and our collective awakening, and the co-creation of a world that celebrates and affirms differences and similarities. All living beings can teach me something, when I remember to pause, breathe, listen deeply with a calm and open mind and heart, and ask myself: ‘is there more’ or ‘ what else is here with me’’?’ I honor and respect all life guided by Right View and Right Energy.
The ARISE Sangha “invites us to open to a new and deeper way of understanding the Five Mindfulness Trainings, guiding principles for mindful and ethical living, which call us toward individual and collective awakening, compassion, and peace. We are aware that we are interconnected. What happens in Wuhan, China affects people in New York City. What happens to the Black body affects all bodies. We are called forward.
The global pandemic is a gateway to suffering worldwide, disproportionately impacting Black people, indigenous, and people of color, who face poverty, sickness, displacement, and death. They, we are not alone. Our lives and livelihood are interconnected. We are called forward.
We cannot exist independent of low wage workers, health care workers, un-housed people, single mothers, undocumented people, the unemployed and underemployed. If one such person lives on the knife edge of racial, ethnic, social, structural, and systemic oppression and discrimination we are all affected. We are called forward.
The practitioner dwells in the now, recognizing equanimity and instability, discrimination and non-discrimination, ill-being and well-being, practicing right view and engaged through compassionate action. Aware of the cycle of racial, ethnic, and social inequities and discrimination, we courageously turn to practice wholeheartedly. We are called forward.
Lighting a stick of incense, listening to the sutras, sitting upright and solid, palms joined, the practitioner looks within and in concentration the path and fruit of skillful action is revealed. We are called forward.
Speak aloud these words with the sangha voice, a true river of understanding.”
After recitation, we will have time for dharma sharing. I invite you to reflect on the following questions before we share together:
What beauty have you discovered in the past 6 months that strengthens your reverence for life?
What practices have served you well in your journey to reach the other shore?
What have you learned to help us co-create a new world that is less violent to the planet, to ourselves and to each other?
I look forward to seeing you on Monday night and listening to your heartfelt sharings on matters of beauty and reverence for life.
Bowing in gratitude,
Mary