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Marie will facilitate on April 25. She shares:
Dear Thay, dear friends,
Please join us on Monday evening, when we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings and turn towards the Fifth Training, Nourishment and Healing. I invite you to reflect on this passage: “I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition and consciousness.” In particular, I’m curious about how we “consume volition” and what impact does this have on our lives?
I hadn’t really thought about consuming volition until recently. During our recent OHMC retreat, Valerie asked us, during her second Dharma talk: what does it mean to live life with intention? She created space for us to explore this in small groups, and that was powerful. A little later, I was and continue to be, struck by quote she shared from Howard Thurman, a great theologian of the 20th century:
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
That quote stops me in my tracks. It resonates at a deep level, and when combined with this passage of the Training, feels important and nourishing to me and much needed in this world.
After we’ve recited the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we’ll have an opportunity to reflect on volition, including these questions:
What does “consuming volition” mean to you?
How do you consume volition?
What makes you come alive?
What stops you from doing what makes you come alive?
How does your practice impact your volition, and the converse?
I hope you will join us.
With love and a bow,
Marie
PS If you’d like to learn more about Thay’s teachings about volition, here is a short video.
The Fifth Mindfulness Training, Nourishment and Healing
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.