Saturday study group

Our Saturday study group will meet on July 11, 10 – 11:30 p.m. at the 12South Dharma Center. The study is based on Pema Chodron’s CD “Happiness.” This is an open group and everyone is welcome to attend. For questions, email rana_mukherji@yahoo.com. Please note that the study meeting scheduled for July 25 has been postponed until August 8 to accommodate our one day retreat.

Reading for Monday July 6

The One Who is Not too Busy
By Norman Fischer

You keep a to-do list, but you can’t get through it by the end of the day, and you’re frustrated because you feel like you haven’t been able to get enough done. You find that things take longer than you thought they would. And when people ask how you are, “Fine” has been replaced by “Too busy.”
Welcome to the “too busy” club.
In this technology-driven world, we can do more, so we do — and we love it. We feel effective and powerful as we check items off our lists and use our cell phones, BlackBerrys, and computers, sometimes all at once. We’re multitasking, doing as much as we can in the least amount of time. We’re active, creative, and engaged! In demand! Being too busy makes us feel as though we’re making an impact.
On the other hand, feeling too busy drives us crazy. Falling ever further behind as the to-do list relentlessly grows (each item generating many more items almost as fast as we can think of them) is nerve-racking and stressful. We begin to feel like prisoners of the list, prisoners of our lives and our desires, prisoners of time. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s as if we’re doing battle with time — and losing.
But the point is not how many things we have done or will do in a given amount of time; the point is how we do what we do. If we’re rushed and frantic, we’re too busy. If we move through our tasks with equanimity, patient and composed, we’re not.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition that I’ve been practicing for many years, there’s a story that illustrates this point: A monk is sweeping the temple grounds. Another monk comes by and says, “Too busy!” The first monk replies, “You should know there is one who is not too busy.”
Our sweeping monk may have been moving quickly, and so he looked “too busy” to his brother monk. But inside — in his mind — he wasn’t busy. In the midst of his vigorous activity, he was in touch with “the one who is not busy.”
The states of “busy” and “not busy” aren’t defined by how many things there are to do. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no such thing as multitasking; the brain can tend to only one thing at a time. Being too busy or not being busy is an interpretation of our activity. Busy-ness is a state of mind, not a fact. No matter how much or how little we’re doing, we’re always just doing what we’re doing, simply living this one moment of our lives.
That moment may seem long or short. Time is an internal, not external, reality. Have you noticed that half an hour in the dentist’s chair lasts longer than half an hour at a fun dinner party with friends? And five minutes waiting on hold on the phone passes more slowly than five minutes watching a movie. Time is how we live it, not what’s measured by the clock (after all, the watch was invented fairly recently, in the 16th century). To be sure, our world operates on clock time, which is convenient and necessary; how else would we make it to that dentist’s appointment or dinner party? But the clock is supposed to be working for us, not the other way around. If we feel too busy, we’ve mistaken a feeling for an objective reality and are held captive to that reality. It needn’t be that way.
Okay, you say, good theory: We think we’re busy, but we’re not — we’re just doing one thing after another. But the habit of being convinced we’re too busy is hard to shake. What can we do about this persistent mania of feeling task- and time-driven?
Understanding something differently is only a beginning. To change the way we live, we have to practice what we’ve come to understand until it becomes a natural part of us, a habit of thought, feeling, and body. Sometimes just a phrase can help: “Not busy.” Remembering our two monks, you can say this softly to yourself when you feel overwhelmed. I do this when I feel crazed; with the repetition of the words, I immediately recognize that it is my feelings and my thoughts that make me feel pressured, not the tasks I have to do. They will get done — or not, and the world and I will survive. Even if I do have a crucial deadline, I’ll have a much better chance of making it if I feel “not busy” and can proceed with a calm mind. Feeling frantic doesn’t make me more efficient. Quite the contrary, it makes mistakes and glitches more likely.
It goes without saying that if you’ve bitten off more than you can chew in a day, or in a lifetime, you’d better step back and change your circumstances, if at all possible. Let go of a few activities: Peace of mind is more important, and healthier, than those few extra accomplishments. But if you can’t or don’t want to change your circumstances, you need to find the most serene and beautiful way to live the life you have. In the end, if you persistently and unpleasantly feel too busy, remember this: It’s not a fact; it’s a choice. There is one who is not busy. That one is you.

Special Event

How Brains Meditate: Neuroscience Meets Contemplative Spirituality
Peter Grossenbacher, Ph.D.
7:00 PM Wednesday, July 8
12South Dharma Center 2301 12th Avenue So. Suite 202

How do the capacities of the human brain enable people to meditate? What lasting effects does meditation have on the brain? How do these anatomical and physiological changes impact the lives of meditators? Recent scientific investigation has begun to discover helpful answers to these compelling questions.

This talk presents exciting findings from recent studies of brain function and meditation, and offers a simple framework for understanding human nature revealed by these studies. Guided meditation will be offered to connect this emerging understanding with actual lived experience.

Dr. Grossenbacher is an international speaker on meditation and the brain, whose own research has been covered in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine and Discover Magazine. Associate Professor in the Contemplative Psychology Department at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, he teaches psychological courses on perception, cognition, statistics and research. Peter regularly provides meditation instruction, and also directs a program of research on meditation and contemplative spirituality.

Reading for June 29

When you contemplate the body by being within the body, you should not engage in all sorts of ideas about it; the same when you contemplate feelings by being within feelings, you should enter in without ideas; the same applies to contemplating the mind by being within the mind and contemplating thoughts by being within thoughts.

The thoughts should be just the objects of mind and you should not apply yourself to any train of ideas connected with them. In this way, by putting ideas aside, your mind will become tranquil and fixed on one point. It will then enter into a meditation that is without discursive thought and is rapturous and joyful.

-Majjhima Nikaya

A Day of Mindfulness, July 25

Please join us in a beautiful rural setting for a day of sitting and walking meditation. We will cultivate insight and lovingkindness through awakening our minds to the present moment.

This day long silent retreat will focus on mindfulness meditation. We will train our minds in present time awareness by bringing attention to the breath and sensations in the body, cultivating awareness of the pleasant and unpleasant states that arise. Through this practice we gradually understand the truth of the constantly changing nature of all things, and we learn to respond with compassion and friendliness to all that arises.

The hours for this retreat are 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Led by Lisa Ernst, the retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators; it will include sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions, optional interviews and a dharma talk. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Please bring your own meditation cushion if you have one and two blankets or a zabuton. If you don’t have a cushion, we will have a few extras. Chairs are also available.

Cost: $25, plus dana to the teacher. Scholarships are available. A deposit of $25 is due by Monday July 20. You may bring your deposit to the center during one of our meditation sessions, or mail a check made out to One Dharma Nashville to: 12South Dharma Center c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Ave. South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. The location of this retreat, in west Bellevue, is about 25 minutes from downtown Nashville. Directions to the retreat site and additional information will be provided upon receipt of your deposit. Please email lisa@lisaernst.com with any questions.

Note: The beautiful photo above, courtesy of Joe Allen, is a view of the woods from the meditation room where we will practice.

This is Iran

I promised at our sit tonight to post a link to this video from Tehran–a woman poet on the rooftops at night:

One day meditation retreat, July 25

One Dharma will hold a one-day meditation retreat on July 25 at a beautiful residential site in the rural part of Bellevue. This is an ideal setting for a meditation retreat with lots of woods, privacy and quiet. More details will follow, but mark your calendars.

Thursday night practice this week

We will meet for meditation this Thursday, June 18, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the 12South Dharma Center. This practice night is appropriate for people with all levels of meditation. We have an open discussion period after the sit. If this is your first time meditating with us, please plan to arrive 15 minutes for orientation.

Latest news

Saturday Study Group

Our Saturday Study group meets this week, on June 13, 10- 11:30 a.m., with a continuation of Pema Chodron’s CD on “Happiness.” This is an open group and everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, contact rana_mukherji@yahoo.com

This Week’s Reading

Next Monday we will continue our discussion on how we can observe the Eightfold Path mindfully in our everyday lives, rather than leave it as a set of ‘teachings” or techniques to apply from the outside that don’t genuinely touch us personally. For those who would like to refresh themselves on the Eightfold Path, here’s one version:   http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html

New Email Service:

After repeated difficulties with our Yahoo Newsgroup announcements being blocked by email servers, we are in the process of switching to a new email  service, Constant Contact. This service is much less likely to be blocked by servers and should increase the reliability of our announcements reaching our subscribers. In addition, subscribing, unsubscribing and selecting what announcements you want to receive will be much simpler.

Finding Jesus at a Buddhist Retreat – The Atlantic Podcasts

Finding Jesus at a Buddhist Retreat – The Atlantic Podcasts.