Deep gratitude to the group for holding the space for mindful practice for each other during my absence. Mindfulness groups like this are strengthened by the generosity, commitment, and practice of its participants. Mindfulness and meditation are not spectator sports!!!
Retreats are always different and sometimes odd and this was no exception. But the process works regardless and the learnings were a profound as ever. Thus, I am still in a somewhat wordless state of mind after 10 days of silence. Nevertheless, the world of words has returned, clamoring for my attention. So this email will be necessarily short.
We’ll delve into mindfulness of mind in the coming weeks. I’ll just lift up Ajahn Chah’s beautiful teaching on the still flowing mind here - the mind that is vast and still while experiences flow through it. Leigh Brasington, one of my teachers on this retreat, teaches us to look at our experiences not as discrete events happening one after another but as processes continuously unfolding. Ajahn Amaro whom I am reading now (and for a long time) points out that the mind is not in the body - rather our bodies and all our experiences are actually in our minds. Rodney Smith, well known insight teacher in Seattle, says the process is hermetically sealed - everything we think we know, think we perceive, think we conceive are simply processes of our minds unfolding. There is no there out there except for the mind’s unfolding.
And finally, the beautiful first verse of The Dhammapada, translation* by Gil Fronsdal.
All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind,
And suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows
Like a never departing shadow.
*Thanissaro Bhikkhu in his translation uses the word “heart” instead of “mind” in his translation. They are both correct and actually better together than separately as the Pali word they are attempting to convey is citta which, in Buddhism, is our heart-mind center.