Fayette County Mindfulness Meditation

Hello friends, We will resume our Wednesday night meetings this week, Nov 4, 5:30 at the Quilt Museum. One of the more fraught questions we are faced with right now as a species is the role of AI in the world. Even if we don’t use AI ourselves, we still have to think about it – whether it’s the future of our work, the impact on our environment (and possibly our own neighborhood), and the safety of our society and its infrastructures, as well as many other concerns. I’ve been keeping up with the thinking of a project called the Buddhism and AI Initiative, formed by four people who are Buddhist practitioners and also have, or have had, careers in high tech, academic philosophy, and business. While acknowledging AI’s existential threats and exciting possibilities, they think that the creation of AI also creates an

Hello community of friends,We meet again this Wednesday, October 21, at 5:30 at the Quilt Museum. (Note: we won’t meet next week, October 28.) What are we doing on Wednesday nights, besides enjoying each other’s company? We’re practicing knowing our own minds and seeing reality clearly. And what’s the point of that? The teachings tell us that knowing our own minds is the master key to happiness, individual and collective. And intuitively we know that denying or ignoring reality never ends well. But the mind has its own agenda. You might say our mind has a mind of its own. Its agenda is to avoid pain, get pleasure, eliminate uncertainty, stay in control, and find safety, protecting not only our bodies but our idea of who we are. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. Yet the Buddha pointed to three inescapable truths about our

Hello friends, We will meet again on Wednesday, October 14, 5:30 in the Quilt Museum. Meditation does not have to be exclusively associated with the sitting posture. The Buddha taught mindfulness practice in the “four postures:” sitting, standing, walking and lying down. The instruction is to “know” each posture, and to maintain a continuity of bodily awareness in each posture, and all movements, no matter how minor. The point is to prevent us being carried away by distracting thoughts, and anchor us to the present moment reality of our lives. When we practice walking meditation together on Wednesday night, we know it looks like zombies have taken over the Quilt Museum, but it’s so important to learn how to remain calm and aware in the midst of movement! This week, we’ll practice sitting, standing and walking. Note that lying down meditation is usually not