INSIGHTAotearoa
A newsletter for New Zealand's insight meditation practitioners and communities
13 Wrantage St, Westown, New Plymouth 4310, Aotearoa New Zealand
kanya @ insightaotearoa.org | http://www.insightaotearoa.org
Monday 17 May 2010
Kia ora,
In this newsletter you'll find...
1. EDITORIAL: Gratitude and Uncertainty
2. INTRODUCING – the new editors
3. AN INVITATION – to contribute to INSIGHTAotearoa
4. REFLECTION: Opening to Uncertainty – Kanya Stewart
5. POEM: River of Unknowing – Treasure Miller
6. STORY: Who Knows? – as told by Roger Nolan
7. CULTIVATING THE DHARMA GARDEN: Uncertainty in the Dharma Garden – Christine Dann
8. WISE WORDS: Anticipate Uncertainty – Rainer Maria Rilke; Michael Leunig
10. RESOURCES: for Dharma study and support
11. THE LAST WORD: Struggle against uncertainty - or train in letting go? – Pema Chodron
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1. EDITORIAL: Gratitude and Uncertainty
As Christine Dann and I take over as the new editors of INSIGHTAotearoa, we wish to first of all acknowledge the great gift that Deborah White has offered over the past two and a half years in her role as editor. Thank you, Deborah – our gratitude flows out to you for your generous gift to the Insight meditators of Aotearoa.
Our theme for May is uncertainty, a subject that arose out of the process of exploring where INSIGHTAotearoa would go from here. Initially no one stepped forward to take on the role of editor when Deborah announced her departure, and so the future of our newsletter was uncertain.
As I have been reflecting on this theme over the past weeks I have been acutely aware of how much our lives function from the basis of uncertainty. With change as the ultimate truth of our lives, how could this not be so? But it’s interesting to see the slant that we so often put on our experience. Unpredictable events are not always unpleasant or unwelcome, many bring unexpected gifts and surprises into our lives. Yet how often we focus on that which is difficult, unwanted and challenging, seeing uncertainty as something negative and hard to open to.
I remember many years ago His Holiness the Dalai Lama saying at one of his public talks that he begins each day with the words that go something like "Today I expect the best and anticipate the worst". Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and writer, influenced by his contact with Suzuki Roshi, began his daily prayers with the words "Lord, I have no idea where I am going….." I feel a little bit like this myself as Christine and I start out on this first issue. As we navigate our way around the processes involved in putting this newsletter together, it may be that it will come out a little late for the first few months. We hope you will understand.
My thanks to Marianne Adams for her support with this issue, and the inspiration that she is!
Kanya Stewart
Editor
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2. INTRODUCING – the new editors
Kanya Stewart is the new editor of INSIGHTAotearoa, which means that she will compile each newsletter from the contributions you send in (and others that she finds). Kanya lives in New Plymouth with her partner Jacqui and two cats. She loves gardening, cooking, and exploring local native reserves, river walks and beaches in her area. Her first insight meditation experience was on a ten day retreat with Christopher Titmuss at Gaia House in Devon, England, 1984, where she also did a three month self-retreat in 1999.
Kanya has been teaching Hatha Yoga for twenty-five years, and has recently begun facilitating Laughter Yoga with local service organizations, and teaching courses in insight meditation. Kanya values being able to live a quiet meditative lifestyle.
Christine Dann is the new contributing editor of INSIGHTAotearoa, which means that she will help Kanya find contributions and prepare the final version of each month's newsletter. Christine is a researcher, writer and sometime teacher and community organiser who lives on a one hectare farmlet and bush restoration project in Port Levy, Banks Peninsula. Her first insight meditation experience was attending the 'Stillness in Action' retreat organised by Southern Insight in September 2000. She is a member of a small (but perfectly-formed) meditation group in Diamond Harbour, and a trustee of the Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust. She is a keen organic gardener and cook, and tries to practise what she preaches about the desirability of living a green life. Her main recreation is singing in a small local a capella choir, the Diamond Harbour Singers. Her ambition is to practise Tai Chi, meditate, and do some strenuous physical exercise every single day – but two out of three ain't bad.
Christine and Kanya also have a connection from a previous life in a previous century, when they were both involved in political and social action in the women's movement. Little did they know then that 1970s feminists could – and would – be reborn as insight meditators!
Kanya and Christine are supported in their editorial roles by Peter Fernando and Marianne Adams (research) and Caren Wilton (keeping the INSIGHTAotearoa website updated).
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3. AN INVITATION – to contribute to INSIGHTAotearoa
Every month we will let readers know the themes for the following three issues of IA. We extend a warm invitation to any of you who may like to contribute of articles, poems, quotes and reviews for inclusion in the newsletter. It would be wonderful to have more material coming out of our community; personal experience of retreats, stories of dharma in daily life, poems, book reviews... so that these pages may reflect what is happening in the dharma in our own community. Aside from that, any Buddhist writings that you may want to offer that go with the themes that we will be announcing in advance would be very welcome. Please share your wisdom and your creativity so that we can all benefit.
The theme for the June issue is ‘New Light’ , with a focus on stories and poems of awakening/enlightenment, and for July it is ‘Death & Dying.’
We still need someone to make hard copies of this newsletter for fifteen people, just an hour or so a month of your time. If you can do this, please let us know, your generosity would be very much appreciated. Email Kanya pranava @ ihug.co.nz.
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4. REFLECTION: Opening to uncertainty
Uncertainty is an integral and all pervading aspect of our lives. The Buddha taught that all conditions (of this world) are changing, and are therefore unstable and unsatisfactory.
What would it be like to enquire into the changing conditions of our life, to not take anything for granted and to know directly that all conditions are indeed constantly arising and passing away? In our mindfulness practice, and especially on retreat we have the opportunity to quiet the mind enough to see and experience the constant flow of movement and change. But when our concentration and ability to enquire are no longer strong and active we can so easily fall into forgetting. Our sharpness of vision gets blurred as we move back into the stream of daily life. The direct knowing that change inevitably gives rise to uncertainty and unpredictability becomes less immediate. We can find ourselves caught up in clinging to the conditions in our life we find desirable, and wanting to get rid of conditions that we find unpleasant and difficult. We want to feel that our lives are secure, that we are invulnerable to the forces of uncertainty and disruption.
Attachment to continuity, to comfort, to security are all mind states that lead to suffering. We know this intellectually, but knowing this deeply would mean putting aside the strategies we construct to create the illusion of security. It would mean seeing deeply into our fears, into the places where we are stuck and rigid, not turning away. To have faith that we can do this would be a radical step out of the refuge of our comfort zones and into taking refugee more completely in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
The force of delusion is so strong, that unless we do maintain a regular formal practice, we get lulled into the old habits which can remain unchallenged and not investigated. However, the many uncertainties that we all face regularly on a daily basis can help us to see how bound up we are in expectation that thing will happen as we want them to. These often small but frustrating uncertainties are a great training ground for us, opportunities for letting go, to remember to come back to the present moment of seeing clearly. When we are fully present and connected, we can move out of our preoccupations and expectations and see clearly the reality of what is here right now.
Often it’s only when something major happens, something so unexpected and unpredictable that we see how fragile our sense of stability really is; a sudden diagnosis of illness, the death of a loved one, loss of a job, a major change in a close relationship, major plans disrupted, a natural disaster that robs us of a sense of safety. It’s usually when the big issues throw our life into question that we are likely to be shaken out of our false sense of security.
In my own life, opening to the understanding that I am not in control, and being able to surrender to life’s unpredictable unfolding has come through many years of living with chronic illness. They were years when my whole life changed radically, years of great uncertainty when I could no longer maintain any semblance of a ‘normal’ life or hold on to my familiar ways of being. I felt that I was dying, not literally but symbolically. Faith in the practice, in the belief that “I” would be okay waxed and waned. In the face of ongoing challenges, I experienced a lot of fear and resistance. The greatest gift I had during those years was the connection to my breath. How precious that was, to have the presence of the breath to hold me, to ground me, to keep me from disconnecting when I felt overwhelmed. I experienced the breath as a presence that was familiar, stable and my greatest resource, a way to get out of thinking mind with all the stories of what may or may not happen.
Understandably, we fight dissolution tooth and nail, desperate to hold on to the known and the familiar. The ego wants to maintain control at all costs, even at the cost of losing what may be precious and potent, the seeds of new beginnings, a new life unfolding. But in the breaking down of the mental structures which hold us in a contracted state, we have the opportunity to live in completely new way. I found this happened to me as I painfully let go of so many expectations and beliefs I held about myself and my life. The unknown became a place of creativity, of freshness and unlimited possibility. It was in this place of uncertainty, more than at any other time in my life, that I began to experience myself not as a tight contained unit but as more fluid, as part of the greater whole.
Our fear of falling apart, of not being in control is a determining factor in how our lives unfold. When we are extremely fearful, we attempt to control things by trying to maintain a tight hold. Being in this state is to reinforce the sense of a separate self, with the illusion that this self is the doer, the one who must manifest and maintain security and livelihood. Once we begin to let go of our resistance and fear and open to uncertainty, our sense of rigidity begins to lessen. When we can allow this, we also allow in the possibility to experience our connectedness to something far greater than we who think we are.
Our practice of coming back again and again to the present moment, both on the cushion and during the day, is the best tool we have to support us in facing into uncertainty. Using the wisdom of our practice, we train in “holding our seat” as Pema Chodron would say. With enquiry we see clearly the resistance, we can look deeply into the feelings that arise: the fear, the anger, the grief, the desire for things to be otherwise. So long as we remain connected, able to recognise and name these difficult mind states with kindness and compassion, we can learn to ride the waves of our doubt and fear.
What would it be like to step out of fear of change, to let in the natural forces of movement and flux. I believe that if we can reflect deeply on what has happened in our lives, the so called “good” and the so called “bad” parts, we can realise that some of the most difficult or challenging times were the ones in which change was a prelude to growth; that the dying away of the old was a necessary process in the beginning of a new phase. We may not have wanted certain things to happen, we may have resisted, but the forces that destabilised us, caused us to wobble or break out of old ways of being or even to fall apart, also enabled us to move forward in the most unexpected ways. We may not have invited these unexpected events or movements into our life, we may not have wanted or welcomed them, and yet in retrospect, can see the openings and movement they heralded, when we were finally able to surrender control.
The only certainty we could guarantee in this way of being is that we would live more dynamically, that we would be able more freely to give expression to the inner changes that flow through our being, and the outer changes that are calling us to respond to the conditions of the moment. Without our trying to control things we would be freer to make choices rather than being in reaction against what is happening. There would be an unfolding into the present moment that could include the many surprises that life brings to us, not only the ones we welcome but also the ones we‘d prefer not to have.
To be more fully awake in the present moment, allowing the unfolding without resistance, is the only way we can truly embrace uncertainty. In this way we don’t split off or reject aspects of our experience, but we embrace fully the fear if it arises, the panic, the grief, the excitement or delight. Nothing needs to be unexplored or unexamined.
Kanya Stewart
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5. POEM: River of Unknowing
Tentatively
I tip my toe
Into the river of unknowing
Innocently
I feel for the rhythms
Of a transformations undertowing
Wantonly
I open and open
Like a seed that’s ripe for sowing
Somehow I taste the freedom
And relief
That I don’t know who I am
And I don’t know where I am going
– Treasure Miller
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6. STORY: Who Knows?
There is an old story about a Russian farmer in the late 1800s, who happened to own a horse. As you can imagine, back then if you had a horse you were considered a person of property. A horse could help you work the land, you could rent it out to your neighbours, it was reliable transportation, and so forth. This farmer, therefore, was considered very fortunate.
"How lucky you are to have a horse!" his neighbours would tell him.
"You never know," the farmer would always reply.
One night, a sudden and violent storm blew up, and the frightened horse broke down the fence of the corral and got away.
"How unlucky you are to have lost your horse!" they all said.
"You never know," replied the farmer.
Sure enough, a few days later his horse returned, accompanied by a beautiful wild stallion.
"Two horses! How lucky you are!" everyone told the farmer, who only said, "You never know."
The farmer had a son, which was another good thing to have in those days. Extra hands were always needed to do the chores around the place, and this particular young man was strong and hard-working, so he decided to tame the wild stallion. While doing so, however, he was thrown from the horse and broke his leg.
"Your son broke his leg!" the neighbors lamented. "How terrible!"
"You never know," said the farmer.
Less than a week later, Cossacks swept through the village and neighbouring farms, and conscripted every able-bodied young man for service in the army. Since the farmer's son was unable to walk or ride with his broken leg, he was not taken.
And so it goes...
The fact is that we never know what is going to happen next, and we never know what fortune, good or ill, will arise out of any event. Alan Watts coined the phrase "the wisdom of uncertainty" to describe the existential fact that the seeds for our enlightenment rest in the unexpected events of our lives, not in our constant and fruitless search for security.
(An old folk tale, as told by Roger Nolan, American vipassana practitioner and psychotherapist – http://www.rogernolan.blog.com/)
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7. CULTIVATING THE DHARMA GARDEN: Uncertainty in the Dharma Garden
Eight years ago I planted a persimmon tree, and eagerly anticipated the fruit. After six seasons the tree had borne no fruit, and I was uncertain as to why. It did not seem to be unhealthy; it had been mulched with good compost and watered in dry spells; and I had fed it liberally with a special organic fertiliser containing all necessary trace elements, in case any were lacking in the soil. Yet there seemed to be no response. Meanwhile the lower limbs of the tree were shading out a vegetable bed. In a fit of crossness I lopped them off willynilly, and threw them over the fence into the next part of the garden.
A month or so later I was pulling out long grass beside that fence, and my fingers made contact with one of the pruned persimmon branches. They squished around a small green ball attached to the branch, and when I lifted my hand there was a distinct aroma of persimmon. The tree had just started to bear and I had inadvertently chopped off at least a half a dozen baby fruits!
At this point I went and inspected the tree very closely, and discovered that there was still some fruit left on it, hiding very discreetly behind its large leaves. Why had I not noticed them before? Why had I not seen the tree flower? What else did I not know about persimmons and how they grow?
I had been uncertain about why the tree was not fruiting; and then too certain that it was not. In both cases I had neglected to observe the tree closely at the right time, and had taken drastic action when none was required. Fortunately the only harm done was to my persimmon consumption last year. Yet my behaviour was different only in degree, rather than kind, from that of gardeners who spray every new invertebrate in sight with poison, before making certain sure that it really is doing damage to the plants, rather than to the plant-eaters.
In the rest of life too, how often have I tried to assuage the discomfort of uncertainty by taking action before all the facts were known? How often do I neglect to be still, and watch what is really going on, undertaking patient observation of all the factors at play? And how many ripe persimmon equivalents am I missing out on as a result? And yet – at least I have the garden to give me lessons in the nature of uncertainty.
– Christine Dann
(Cultivating the Dharma Garden will be a regular column offered by Christine from now on, linking her dharma practice with her gardening practice.)
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8. WISE WORDS: Anticipate Uncertainty
“I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient to all that is unresolved in your heart. Try to live the questions themselves like locked rooms or books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers: they cannot be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. You will then, gradually, without even noticing it perhaps, live along some day into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, from 'Letters to a young poet' (trans. H.D. Herter Norton, 1934)
God give us rain when we expect sun.
Give us music when we expect trouble.
Give us tears when we expect breakfast
Give us dreams when we expect a storm.
Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.
God play with us, turn us sideways and around.
Amen.
Michael Leunig
(First published in 'A Common Prayer', 1990)
Exchange between the Zen master and his student:
Student: What happens after death?
Master: I don’t know.
Student: How can you not know? You are a Zen master.
Master: Yes, but I’m not a dead one.
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9. SANGHA NEWS
INSIGHTAotearoa goes out in the first week of the month, listing insight meditation events during the month to follow throughout the country as well as containing articles of interest, encouraging and assisting the formation and growth of communities of meditation practitioners around the country. This issue is going out by email to 390 people and to 15 by post.
Please help us keep the SANGHA NEWS section of INSIGHTAotearoa up to date by sending news and corrections regarding events, sitting group details, etc. to christine @ insightaotearoa.org
INSIGHTAotearoa comes to you without a subscription price because our readers offer dana (donations) to support it. A traditional Buddhist generosity practice, dana received will be used to develop the newsletter, and the community that practises insight meditation. Regular automatic payments are very welcome. You can also post cash or cheques to 13 Wrantage St, Westown, New Plymouth 4310, making cheques payable to INSIGHTAotearoa. Here is the bank account information:
† Account name: INSIGHTAotearoa
† Bank: ASB Bank
† Branch: Lambton Quay
† Account number: 12-3140-0285603-00
† From outside New Zealand, the SWIFT code is: ASBBNZ 2A.
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10. RESOURCES: for Dharma study and support
MINDFULNESS IN PLAIN ENGLISH
This excellent basic guide to Insight meditation by the Ven Henepola Gunaratana can now be downloaded from http://www.urbandharma.org/dharma4/mpe.htm
AOTEAROA BUDDHIST EDUCATION TRUST
A charitable trust which raises funds to bring insight meditation teachers to New Zealand. To find out more visit http://www.abet.net.nz
INSIGHT MEDITATION IN AOTEAROA ON THE WEB
http://www.insightmeditation.org.nz – information on New Zealand's insight meditation practitioners and communities
http://www.insightaotearoa.org – the website for this newsletter
http://www.southern.insightmeditation.org.nz – Christchurch sangha Southern Insight’s website
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11. THE LAST WORD: Struggle against uncertainty – or train in letting go?
How are we going to spend this brief lifetime? Are we going to strengthen our well-perfected ability to struggle against uncertainty, or are we going to train in letting go? Are we going to hold on stubbornly to "I’m like this and you’re like that". Or are we going to move beyond the narrow mind? Could we start to train as a warrior, aspiring to reconnect to the natural flexibility of our being and help others do the same? If we start to move in this direction, limitless possibilities will open up.
– Pema Chodron
(More wisdom from Pema Chodron and a list of her publications is available at http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/)