This Monday October 24, we will meet in person.
See calendar for online and in person schedule here.
3812 Northampton St. NW
Washington DC 20015
Come to the door next to Circle Yoga (formerly the Pharmacy).
This week, Annie and Bea will facilitate. We will meet in person this week and we will read the Five Mindfulness Trainings together. After that we will focus on the first training, Reverence for Life:
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning 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 support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
This past week on an email listserv, there was a “conversation” (aka conflict) about affinity spaces. A BIPOC member offered news of a BIPOC event happening, and another member replied that he thought spaces for BIPOC only were racist.
I had a strong opinion on the email and I wasn’t alone. Several people replied saying how and why he was wrong, and I also believed that he was. And if I’m really honest, I didn’t want to try to understand his point of view because I was so annoyed. Later, when he offered a reason for his initial email, I struggled to believe him or to care. My anger felt justified, and it felt good because I felt I was in the right.
And although the first mindfulness training is about not killing, Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) reminds us that killing may be the endpoint of wrong perceptions and lack of skillful understanding. While we may never kill anyone, our righteousness and attachment to our own views can take us one more step in the direction toward killing.
In a reflection on the First Mindfulness Training, Thay says (full text below):
In order to end wars, we should try to help each other remove our wrong perceptions.
The cause of violence, the cause of war and wrong perceptions is also our attachment to our views. We believe that our view about the truth is the only correct view, and that we should destroy other kinds of views. And that leads to fanaticism, intolerance, and war.
That is why the First Mindfulness Training encourages us to look deeply in order to change our way of thinking. We have to look deeply in order to see the interconnectedness of everything and release our dualistic thinking. Once we can see the interconnectedness of everything, we will be able to understand the views of others.
The ending of war may begin with the understanding of the views of others, even if we disagree with them. Correcting or condemning others is easy but it isn’t likely to help folks change. In order to listen to different opinions, we must be able to practice deep listening without reacting. And that requires our ability to pause, breathe and come back to the present moment and to know we are OK, even when we are listening to discriminatory words.
I don’t think that this is possible in every situation. If we have a strong reaction due to our own lived trauma, we may not be the right person to listen. But if we are in a position to listen and understand, perhaps we can reduce the killing that arises from fanaticism - the other person’s or our own.
As I checked my email just now, I saw that one of the other members of the listserv had written the following wise reply:
“Wanting peace, understanding and inclusiveness in the world I am obliged to be vigilant and recognize the seeds of discrimination and intolerance in myself. This is challenging work and has led me to a more embodied practice. The nervous system has a response that has little to do with what I think or what is in my heart. Like a fish looking for water, we swim in an ocean of systemic and ancestral conditioning. Systemic change begins within. May the seeds of intolerance in me be a beautiful mindfulness bell inviting me to look deeply and grow the fruits of understanding and inclusiveness. May we look with eyes of compassion and care for our addiction to dualistic thinking, pairs of opposites, wrong views like acceptable and unacceptable.”
I’ve also shared two other quotes on this topic below.
We look forward to seeing you Monday evening! If you are unfamiliar with the Five Mindfulness Trainings, there is a short introduction below. If you are interested in learning more, please join some of us participating in a series of sessions with the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center from November 3- December 15 online. There will be a ceremonial transmission of the trainings in January. Learn and register here.
With much love,
Annie & Bea.
Nelson Mandela writes in Long Walk to Freedom:
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
Indian poet, Angelina Pandian, writes:
Love is understanding.
It is understanding the words unspoken
Held back behind a veil of silence,
It is understanding the hurt
Hidden beneath self-defiance,
It is understanding the joy felt
On hearing your achievements
It is understanding the longing
The loneliness, the pain endured.
For, when you really understand
The reasons behind the tears and fears
The motives and the dreams,
The thought behind the actions,
The restrictions which influence
And the desire of the Soul,
You can say, “I know, I understand.”
Its enough if you understand
For when you truly understand
You can forgive anything, accept everything
- You can truly love!
—-
From: https://ethical.net/ethical/zen-ethics-the-five-mindfulness-trainings/
Interbeing and the First Mindfulness Training
War is a product of misunderstanding and wrong perceptions. We have wrong perceptions about ourselves and about other people. And from those wrong perceptions arise a lot of anger and fear. In order to end wars, we should try to help each other remove our wrong perceptions.
The cause of violence, the cause of war and wrong perceptions is also our attachment to our views. We believe that our view about the truth is the only correct view, and that we should destroy other kinds of views. And that leads to fanaticism, intolerance, and war. That is why the First Mindfulness Training encourages us to look deeply in order to change our way of thinking. We have to look deeply in order to see the interconnectedness of everything and release our dualistic thinking. Once we can see the interconnectedness of everything, we will be able to understand the views of others.
People are killing each other, and it’s because they don’t have the insight of interbeing. They don’t see that the person they’re killing is themselves. If we just advise people not to kill, that may not be enough. We have to inspire them. We have to help them to understand that killing someone is killing yourself. If you’re inhabited by the insight of interbeing, you know that killing someone is killing yourself. The first mindfulness training, not to kill, always to protect life, should not be just a commandment, someone telling you that it’s a good thing to do. But you have to understand why you should not kill. If you can touch the insight of interbeing, and you are free from double grasping—the illusion that subject and object are separate from each other—then you see very clearly that killing the other is to kill yourself.
A person who is free from all views, a person who is capable of seeing the interbeing nature of everything, will never have the desire to kill. The practice of the First Mindfulness Training nourishes our compassion. Compassion benefits us and makes us happy. Without compassion we cannot relate to the world and to other living beings. Communication is impossible. That’s why cultivating compassion is crucial. It will bring well-being to us and to the world. It is a training; we need to train ourselves to be able to help compassion grow day by day.
There were moments during the Vietnam War that many of us were very close to despair. The war was going on and we did not see any sign that it would end. Every day, every night, people died, and the country was being destroyed by bombs and chemicals. The young people came to me and asked, “Thay, is there any hope that the war will end soon?” In that moment, we did not see any hope. We were very close to despair, because the war went on and on for a long time. So when people ask you a question like that, you need to breathe in and out several times. After having breathed in and out several times, I told the young people, “The Buddha told us that things are impermanent. The war is also impermanent. It should end some time.”
But the problem is: are we doing anything to help end the war? If we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the feeling of despair or anger, we can’t help. We can even fuel the war and make it intensify or last longer. So the question is whether we can do something for peace, whether we can be something for peace.
When you produce a thought of compassion, of loving kindness, or of understanding, that is peace. When you do something to help the victims of war, the children and adults, to suffer less, and when you bring food for refugee children, these are the kinds of actions that can help relieve a situation of suffering. So in that difficult situation, it’s crucial for you to find a way to be peace, a way to practice peace. Even if you can do it only in a very limited way, it will help you survive. It helps you nourish hope. It’s very important not to allow ourselves to be carried away by the feeling of despair. We should learn how to bring peace into our bodies, to our minds, so we’re able to give rise to thoughts of compassion, words of compassion, and acts of compassion in our daily lives. That will inspire many people, and it will help them not be drowned in the ocean of despair. Our thinking and acting show that the First Mindfulness Training is possible. If we have some peace within ourselves, in our way of thinking, speaking, and acting, we’ll be able to influence people and inspire them to go in the same direction. Little by little, we can improve the situation.
————
An Introduction to the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thich Nhat Hanh
The Five Mindfulness Trainings are one of the most concrete ways to practice mindfulness. They are nonsectarian, and their nature is universal. They are true practices of compassion and understanding. All spiritual traditions have their equivalent to the Five Mindfulness Trainings.
The first training is to protect life, to decrease violence in oneself, in the family and in society. The second training is to practice social justice, generosity, not stealing and not exploiting other living beings. The third is the practice of responsible sexual behavior in order to protect individuals, couples, families and children. The fourth is the practice of deep listening and loving speech to restore communication and reconcile. The fifth is about mindful consumption, to help us not bring toxins and poisons into our body or mind.
The Five Mindfulness Trainings are based on the precepts developed during the time of the Buddha to be the foundation of practice for the entire lay practice community. I have translated these precepts for modern times, because mindfulness is at the foundation of each one of them. With mindfulness, we are aware of what is going on in our bodies, our feelings, our minds and the world, and we avoid doing harm to ourselves and others. Mindfulness protects us, our families and our society. When we are mindful, we can see that by refraining from doing one thing, we can prevent another thing from happening. We arrive at our own unique insight. It is not something imposed on us by an outside authority.
Practicing the mindfulness trainings, therefore, helps us be more calm and concentrated, and brings more insight and enlightenment.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices (2009)