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Marie will facilitate Monday night.
Dear Thay, Dear Sangha,
On Monday, after our sitting and walking meditation, we will listen to part of a Dharma talk by Thay, entitled “Calling your cows by their true names.”
While the whole of the Dharma talk is wonderful - from the Pebble Meditation to the eight practices to care for our suffering - we will listen to the last part. This is where Thay teaches about another way to generate joy and happiness: the practice of letting go.
Somehow, despite all these years of practice and my intellectual understanding of impermanence and interbeing, I still find myself holding on. Sometimes, clenching, without even knowing that I’m doing it. Holding on to how I have taken care of my aging mother, contrasting that with how she is currently being cared for, and suffering. Holding on to how I would like to physically be with and comfort a dear friend who just lost her daughter, relative to being so far away, and suffering... Holding on to how much work I could and should get done in a day or week, when I wasn’t grieving…
“There are things that we used to see as essential to our happiness, to our well being, to our security, and we can not let them go. And maybe they are obstacles to our happiness. If we have the courage to let them go, then maybe happiness and joy will come naturally. And we have to learn how to release these things.” (from the above referenced Dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh)
On Monday night, I invite you to explore your “cows”: those things that you’re holding onto that might actually be obstacles to your happiness.
I hope you will join us.
With love and a bow,
Marie