Fayette County Mindfulness Meditation

Hello embodied friends, We will meet again this Wednesday, Sept 23, 5:30 at the Quilt Museum. We are practicing with some of the techniques the Buddha recommended for developing mindfulness of the body. These techniques are part of a series of practices described in the Satipatthana sutta – a very comprehensive text that the Buddha asserted was “the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of suffering and discontent, for walking on the path of truth [reality*], for the realization of Nibbana ….” Sounds worth a try. But how would mindfulness of the body lead to these benefits? We live in the world of what Joseph Goldstein calls “relative truth [reality**].” This is the world of everyday people, objects, plans and labels. We know this is MY body. We know these are MY people.

Hello friends, We will meet again this Wednesday, Sept 9, 5:30 at the Quilt Museum. [Note that next week, Sept 16, we will not be meeting] We think about our bodies a lot. We have infinite ways to classify, compare, measure, rank and value them. We take them very personally and create a strong sense of self around them – this body as mine, as me, as myself. As if we are under a spell, we have a tendency to forget that these bodies are held together temporarily, and they will fall apart. We find ourselves surprised, dismayed, maybe even offended(!) when this happens. These habits of mind are deep seated and inevitably lead to suffering. Mindfulness of the body is a foundational meditative skill, but what is it, exactly? The Buddha taught a number of different contemplations that are designed to help us

Hello friends,We will meet again this Wednesday, September 2 at 5;30 in the Quilt Museum. This week, we’ll talk about (and practice) spiritual farming. What? The Buddha lived in an agrarian society (as we do out here in Fayette and surrounding counties!). When he addressed his monks and lay people, he called what he did and taught others to do as bhavana, which translates as “to cultivate or tend.” He described the heart and mind like a garden that needs to be actively planted, weeded and grown, rather than just passively observed. There’s a famous sutta where a wealthy brahmin farmer, Bhāradvāja, accuses the Buddha of being idle. He tells the Buddha that he should plant and plow the fields for his food instead of begging for alms from the community, a practice of ascetics in India and Asia to this day. The Buddha