INSIGHTAotearoa
A newsletter for New Zealand's insight meditation practitioners and communities
kanya @ insightaotearoa.org | http://www.insightaotearoa.org
Monday September 5th, 2011
The theme of this issue is ‘Challenging Mind States’.
Kia Ora,
In this newsletter you’ll find…
EDITORIAL: Skillful Means
WISE WORDS: Hafiz
REFLECTION I: We Are All Just Dogs!, Alexandra
REFLECTION II: Reflection on Loss, Toni Bernhard
POEM: The Journey, Mary Oliver
REFLECTION III: Working with Anger, Gil Fronsdal
WISE WORDS: Parrot Wisdom
CULTIVATING THE DHARMA GARDEN: Dealing with Challenging Mind States in the Dharma Garden
WISE WORDS: Rumi
INTERVIEW: Peter Fernando talks with Vincent Horn
THEMES: For upcoming issues
SANGHA NEWS & NOTICES
IN COMMUNITY: Retreats, Workshops, Courses, Talks & Special Events
RESOURCES: for Dharma study and support
THE LAST WORD: Pema Chödrön
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EDITORIAL: Skillful Means
Challenging mind states are tricky. We can get so unconsciously caught up in them, and the story the we create around them, that the tendency to react immediately (often unskillfully) is strong. If it is our habit to move into repression or denial, then we are likely to disconnect and distract ourselves. Either way the result is that we suffer. It’s helpful knowing our own strategies, so that when we are challenged, whether by an external trigger, an internal mind state, or both, we can counteract those habitual tendencies and explore a different way of navigating the troublesome terrain.
Our training on the cushion in stopping and learning to see clearly supports us to bring some level of space around the difficult mind states that arise in daily life. Each time we practice presence in the face of what is difficult or challenging, showing up for these mind states us with an open heart and willingness to look deeply, we find a way out of our habit of unconscious reactivity that adds yet another layer to the suffering.
May the teachings and offerings in this month’s newsletter encourage and support you to meet difficult mind states with wisdom and understanding.
with metta,
Kanya Stewart
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WISE WORDS
Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Hafiz (fourteenth-century Persian poet)
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REFLECTION I: We Are All Just Dogs!
We have a gorgeous woolly three year old dog in our family called Zen, and we called him Zen because we always thought he had stuff to teach us!
I have a very difficult person in my team at work and I had got to the point over the period of maybe a year where I thought I might have to leave my job where I had been for ten years because of this person. I had used my Buddhist practice through this time to watch my thoughts and reactions around him to try and work my way though what was happening because I knew it was about me and my reactions to him. In the end I was so beside myself with internal anger, that he would just have to speak around me and I would be a mess inside and I would think “why is that person being nice to him or laughing at his jokes – can’t other people see what he is really like”. It was very stressful and I just didn’t want to go to work any more.
One Sunday evening I meditated and decided within the meditation to ask for help around this situation. The following morning I was doing my usual commute to work, and as I walked to the car, a tune entered my head. I wondered what it was and started to hum to myself until I realized it was the Brahma Vihara Chant… Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha… and I started to chant as I drove. I started thinking about this situation with my team mate. And I thought, well maybe I could try and relate to this difficult person as if I was relating to someone that I liked within the team… this thought was important because it led me to the insight I had…
But first, back to Zen Dog. When he was a puppy we took him to puppy training school to learn how to sit and wait, etc. It was here one day that the trainer said to us “when you are training a dog, they are not cute or cuddly or woolly or good or bad …. they are just a dog”.
Well, driving along and exploring my thoughts, I suddenly thought, YES, he is just a dog. He is not a difficult person, he is not irritating, he is not anything else I may think he is, he is just a dog. I am just a dog, we are all just dogs (or human beings). It’s like unidentifying the identity of who I think this person (or dog) to be. If I strip away the identity that I have built around this person, myself and others, we are all just dogs!
This was such a powerful insight. And as I write this six months later, it still sends shivers through me and I can still feel the enormous power of this insight. In my thinking about possibly relating to this person as someone else, I had suddenly stripped away the story I had built up around him and the identity of who I thought him to be. And in the space of a moment – he became “just a dog”.
So, on that day, I arrived at work. In my head I was saying to myself over and over – he is just a dog, he is just a dog. It was incredible because everything had dropped away – the anger, the irritation – it had all dropped away. I could actually speak to him not through those filters as I had been doing, but as a human being. He had become just a dog!
Alexandra
Alexandra is part of the New Zealand Insight sangha, and has been practising for over ten years.
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REFLECTION II: Reflection on Loss
Facing losses that are overwhelming – from lost health to lost friends to lost livelihood – deeply challenges our cultivation of equanimity. But sometimes we can find teachings and practices in the most unexpected places. One day I was watching an interview on televison with actress Susan Saint James. Three weeks before the interview, her fourteen-year-old son, Teddy, was killed in a plane crash. Her husband and another son were seriously injured and several of the crew members died. In the interview, Saint James talked about how close she was to Teddy because he was her youngest child and the only one still living at home. In addition, due to his work as head of NBC sports, her husband, Dick Ebersol, was gone much of the time. She said that she and Teddy were like roommates and had become best friends.
Then, emanating deep calm and acceptance, she made this most astonishing comment: “His was a life that lasted fourteen years”. I gasped. Could I make that statement with such equanimity should one of my children or grandchildren die?
I still don’t know the answer to that question. But Susan Saint James's words and the serenity with which she spoke them entered my heart that day. Ever since, when I find myself in grief and despair of the many losses I have had to face due to my illness, her words are my equanimity practice.
When I feel myself mourning my lost career as a law professor or a lost friendship, I say to myself, “This was a career that lasted twenty years” or "This was a friendship that lasted twenty-five years”. If I feel overwhelmed by the loss of my health and its consequences, I say to myself, “This was a body that was illness-free long enough to be active in raising my children and to not be a burden to them when they were young; to be a part of their weddings; to teach and be of personal support to many law students; to travel and keep company with Tony out in the world.”
Inspired by Susan Saint James's courage, which reinforces the teachings of the Buddha that I’ve learned, I am able to say these equanimity phrases without bitterness. I can even be genuinely grateful for those years. When overcome with loss or the losses you’ve encountered, be you chronically ill or the caregiver for a loved-one who is chronically ill, I encourage you to try the equanimity practice I cobbled together from the words of a remarkable woman facing the most devastating loss we can imagine.
From ‘How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers’,(2010), USA, Wisdom Publications, pp 84–85
Copyright 2010 by Toni Bernhard. Excerpted with permission from Wisdom Publications.
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POEM: The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.
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REFLECTION III: Working with Anger
A tension sometimes arises between Buddhist teachings and Western attitudes towards anger. When I give a talk on anger, describing how to work with it, how to not be controlled by it, and how to let go of it, inevitably someone will say, “I don’t think that anger is bad or that we need to get rid of it; it can play an important role in our lives.”
One of the issues between Buddhist and western cultural understandings of anger is the assumption that the English use of the word “anger” is the same as the Buddhist use. Often, they are referring to somewhat different experiences.
The Buddhist word dosa is usually translated as anger. But it would probably be more accurate to translate it as “hostility,” provided that we recognize that hostility can be present in emotions ranging from minor annoyance to full-blown rage. While the English word anger can include hostility, it doesn’t have to. The West has a long tradition of accepting certain forms of anger as appropriate responses, for example, a forceful protest against injustice.
Dosa burns the one who is angry. Classic Buddhist teachings liken being angry to holding a red-hot piece of coal. For Buddhists, acting on dosa is never justified; dosais a form of suffering that Buddhist practice is designed to alleviate.
One ancient Buddhist text likens dosa to “urine mixed with poison.” In ancient India, urine was considered to have medicinal properties; it was unpleasant but beneficial. However, when urine is mixed with poison, the unpleasant medicine becomes harmful. At times a forceful “No!” is required of us even though it may be unpleasant. But an energized “no” mixed with hostility is like mixing urine with poison.
Dosa holds people out of our hearts, away from our kindness and care. We don’t necessarily need to avoid anger, but we do need to guard ourselves from locking others out of our hearts.
How can we work with this difficult emotion?
Meditation can be very helpful. In it we can experience our anger without inhibitions, judgments, or interpretations. It can be a relief to discover a capacity for witnessing anger without either pushing it away or engaging with it. In fact, meditation may well be the safest place to be angry, to learn to let it flow through us freely, without either condemnation or approval. With non-reactive mindfulness as the foundation, we can investigate anger deeply through the body, emotions and thoughts. Anger can open us to a world of self-discovery.
Anger tends to be directed outward towards an object, towards other people, events, or even parts of ourselves. In mindfulness meditation, we turn the mind away from the object of anger to study the source of the anger and the subjective experience of being angry.
We can investigate anger through the sensations of the body. The direct experience of anger may result in sensations of heat, tightness, pulsation or contraction. The breathing may become heavy or rapid, and the heart may beat strongly. Since these sensations are direct and immediate, bringing attention to them helps lessen the preoccupation with the object of the anger and with the story of why we are angry. This in turn, helps us to be more fully present for the anger in and of itself.
Turning our attention away from the object of our anger is important because, while the conditions giving rise to anger may be varied, the direct causes of hostile anger are found within the person who is angry. The causes include aversion, grasping, resentment, fear, defensiveness and other reactions that may be unnecessary and are often the source of the greatest pain in a difficult situation. A traditional folk saying states, “An enemy can hurt you physically; but if the enemy wants to hurt your heart, you have to help by getting angry.”
Hostile anger seems to have its roots in recoiling from our own pain. We may react to our own sadness, loneliness, fear, disappointment or hurt by directing anger outwards rather than experiencing these feelings. Learning to honestly and non-reactively explore our pain through the mind and bodily sensations is an important step to freedom.
In my own life, I’ve learned that my anger tends to have two primary causes: fear and hurt. When I get angry, if it seems appropriate, I remove myself from the situation and try to be mindful of what is going on inside. If I can find the fear or the hurt underlying the anger, then (if possible) I’ll go back into the situation and speak from the perspective of being hurt or afraid. Conversations tend to be more helpful when I do this, partly because I am not assigning blame. This often lessens the other person’s defensiveness or reactivity; they may even be more inclined to see their own responsibility.
Anger is always a signal. Mindfulness helps reveal what it signals. Sometimes it is a signal that something in the external world needs to be addressed. Sometimes it is a signal that something is off internally. If nothing else, anger is a signal that someone is suffering. Probably it is you. Sit still in the midst of your anger and find your freedom.
Adapted from a talk by Gil Fronsdal, July 1st, 2001
http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org
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WISE WORDS: Parrot Wisdom
Recently my partner showed me a small piece in one of the ‘New Scientist’ magazines about Irene Pepperberg. Irene studies Grey parrots. The main focus of her work is to determine the cognitive and communicative abilities of these birds, and compare their abilities with those of great apes, marine mammals, and young children. She is studying the mechanisms of their learning as well as the outcomes.
One of her “star” students, who also became a beloved friend, was Alex. Alex could make sentences out of 100 words. In her book ‘Alex and Me’ Irene recounts an occasion when, fuming after a frustrating meeting, she stormed silently into the lab where Alex was housed. Instead of his usual whistled greeting, Alex looked at his trainer and said, “Calm down”.
Kanya Stewart
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CULTIVATING THE DHARMA GARDEN: Dealing with Challenging Mind States in the Dharma Garden
If there is a better place than the garden as a good space for dealing with difficult thoughts and feelings, I have yet to find it. Although I love to walk in a mountain forest or along a wild beach when my heart is sore and my head confused, I can rarely spare the time to get to such places when my need is greatest, whereas the home garden is a constant resource.
I find that having physical work to do while I mull over my feelings is helpful in lots of ways. The regular, practised movements of gardening work against jerky emotions, providing a sense of familiar competence to offset whatever emotional incompetence I am feeling. Doing something useful even when feeling lousy is also a bit of a consolation. Even not doing anything, but just allowing myself to be distracted by the movement of birds and bees, the scents of flowers and the feel of the sun on my back is therapeutic.
Once I used gardening and praying – to the point of exhaustion – as a way to deal with some very difficult emotions that had arisen after being rejected as a friend by two people who (at that point) I admired and felt close to. I didn’t plan to do this, it just came about that I was making my first visit to Southern Star Abbey in Hawkes Bay, a Trappist monastery where a friend of mine is a monk. Although not a Catholic (or any kind of Christian) I decided to join in the (900 year old) Abbey routine of chanting the Psalms seven times a day (starting at 4 a.m. and finishing at 9 p.m.) and in the spaces in between to help my friend with his gardening. Mostly I did this alone, because he was busy with other things, and I did it as hard and fast as I was able, both because there was a lot to do and because it suited how I was feeling. I did this for three and half days, and by lunchtime on the fourth day I was so tired I knew I could not do any more. So I washed up, had a good meal, went to the 2 p.m. psalm session – and then sat on the verandah of the guesthouse feeling a very deep peace. My difficult emotions were gone, and I was at peace with myself and with those who had disturbed my peace.
I expect this form of ‘self-medication’ would only work for keen gardeners, and abbeys are even harder to get to urgently than mountain forests, but it was an interesting experience, and showed me yet another way one work with, as well as in, the garden.
Christine Dann
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WISE WORDS
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Rumi
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INTERVIEW
The following is taken from an interview with L.A based Insight teacher, Vincent Horn, conducted by Peter Fernando.
Peter: Do you notice any difference in the Gen-Y approach to Dharma practice and teaching to those of other generations?
Vincent: Hmmm…. It’s hard to generalize, because everyone has unique differences, but I do think there are significant cultural differences between my generation and the Boomer generation. They grew up in a completely different era with different technologies, different cultural systems, different economics, different politics – you know, everything was different!
So I think that informs people on a really deep level. I think it also informs how people teach anything, in this case Dharma. And on top of that, most Insight teachers in the West went to Asia, became monks, practised with Asian teachers, in environments that were traditional and Asian – and they then had to return to this context and figure out how to make it relevant. And so there was this incredible task that they had. But my generation doesn’t have to do the same things, and so they’re starting from a completely different point.
I think that there are these natural differences. And one of them, and I was just talking with my friend Hokai Sobol about this today, is that we don’t have the same interest in the ‘Zen aesthetic’ so to speak. We’re not really into monasticism as the primary means or ethical structure that we operate within.
So because there’s not as much interest in these things, it feels like there’s a kind of dropping away of some of the traditional forms, and then a vacuum of, ‘O.K… what do we put here, then?’ (laughs). And I wonder in some ways if that’s going to be the big challenge of my generation – figuring out what to do.
Because there’s a real danger, I think, when you start dropping forms, of actually losing the depth. Of it becoming the spiritual marketplace thing, where you’re just getting a little of this and a little of that… And you never really get the full enchilada! (laughs) So there is a danger in that, because people may consider themselves to be spiritual, but may not necessarily be challenged to go very deep.
And I also see a tendency in my generation, and I see it in myself, is that we can be pretty narcissistic actually. We can think we have it all figured out. We think we can figure it all out on our own, whereas maybe in the Boomer generation there was more humility in terms of being willing to learn from experts and teachers and masters, which seems critical for us to learn. So sometimes I worry that our generation is going to lose the power of that natural hierarchy. I’ve seen that reflected in some spiritual teachers who said that for a time they dropped the very top-down hierarchical structures, that you have in Asia, and instead they did this, like, ’everyone’s equal’ thing – and actually people weren’t getting it. They weren’t really waking up! So they then had to re-introduce some of the structures…
Peter: It’s great to hear those reflections – particularly the tension you described both in terms of what forms will work, to avoid falling into the ‘spiritual marketplace’ thing, where one isn’t really having anything rubbing up against one’s edges, and also in terms of how hierarchies and systems can create shadows. Because the top-down hierarchy has its own shadows, as does the ‘no one’s better than anyone else’ approach…
Vincent: Yeah – which assumes that everyone’s on the same page. And it’s just not true. Everyone isn’t on the same page! (laughter) Someone who’s spent years meditating tends to know more about their own minds than someone who hasn’t!
Peter: Yeah. So I guess it’s about finding a balance where it’s pragmatic – where it’s actually serving its function, rather than just operating through a system because it’s been done before, or kind of viewing it as sacred in some way. And also avoiding the idealism where you just abandon any kind of structure.
Vincent: Yeah. I think part of the challenge of this is that the moment we abandon either the top-down hierarchical structure, or the ‘flat’ structure – the moment we try find something that brings together the the strengths of both of those – then I think that what starts to happen is that we have to integrate in a much more mature psychological understanding. Because then we start dealing with power differentials that can change – that apply in some contexts but not in others. So for instance my teacher may know more than me with respect to insight practice, but then in terms of finances, I may know more! Or we may know the same amount in a lot of other ways. So there’s a recognition that in different contexts we know more, which brings up the question of how we flow between those different roles – those power differentials that are more fluid, rather than getting into a belief that ‘This person knows everything.’, or ‘We all know the same things.’ I think it asks a lot more of us psychologically to hold all this complexity. And I notice that what happens both in the teacher role or the student role, when those power differentials are there, we have to deal with our own tendencies to project.
Peter: Yes.
Vincent: Or, you know, to disown, or to think, ‘This person has something that I don’t have, or can’t have’ – which is more like a psychological unworthiness, rather than just recognizing, ‘Oh. My calculus professor knows more about calculus than I do!’ (laughter) ‘And I want to learn from them!’. (laughs) Our sense of worth can get involved much easier when in comes to the spiritual process it seems. And this is what I find so helpful in working with people such as my teacher, Jack Kornfield, who really wants to bring a sophistication in understanding our psychological dynamics, also, since the psyche is so connected to spiritual practice.
Peter: Yes, absolutely.
Vincent: So for me, when I think about how to make this real, it just brings up all kinds of huge questions about how we interact as people in communities where there’s different roles we’re holding, and where we really do have a common aim around awakening. And furthermore, how to take awakening and actually make it real in our own lives.
Vincent Horn is a Buddhist Geek, teacher, and explorer. In 2006 Vincent helped start, and now runs, a popular Buddhist media project called Buddhist Geeks. And with the encouragement of his teachers — after nearly a decade of intensive meditation practice in the Burmese and Thai Forest Theravada tradition — he teaches both online and in Los Angeles, CA at the InsightLA meditation center.
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THEMES: for upcoming issues
Short contributions from readers (original or fully attributed) on the theme of the month are welcomed. Please email them to the Editor – kanya @ insightaotearoa.org
OCTOBER 2011 Radical Contentment: Sunday September 25.
NOVEMBER 2011 Practising Non-Harming: Sunday October 23
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SANGHA NEWS & NOTICES
NOTICE: Seeking support for February 2012 visit by Stephen and Martine Batchelor
Martine and Stephen Batchelor will be returning to New Zealand in February 2012 to give two public talks, a residential retreat and a day long retreat. Their schedule is:
• Friday 17th – Auckland – public talk
• Sat 18th – Auckland – day long retreat
• Sunday 19th to 26th – Riverslea Retreat Centre, Otaki – residential retreat
• Monday 27th – Wellington – public talk “Becoming Human – Buddhist Practice in a Post-Christian World” at St Andrews on The Terrace from 5.30pm
Their visit is being coordinated by Derek LeDayn – derek.ledayn @ gmail.com or 021 355 225.
Contributions towards their travel costs can be made through the Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust – http://www.abet.net.nz
NOTICE: Also coming next February – Insight Dialogue Meditation Retreat Feb 11th-19th, 2012 at Te Moata with Sharon Beckman-Brindley (USA) and Mary Burns (USA)
After an inspirational visit to Australia and New Zealand in 2011, Mary and Sharon return in 2012 with a retreat titled ‘Open Heart, True Wakefulness. Insight Dialogue and Relationship’
See http://www.abet.net.nz for more information
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IN COMMUNITY:
RETREATS, WORKSHOPS, COURSES, TALKS & SPECIAL EVENTS
1. Sundays, September 4 – 25, Sundays 2:30 – 4:00pm, WELLINGTON
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – a four week course led by Peter Fernando. It will consist of periods of silent sitting, guided meditation, instruction and an opportunity for questions and discussion.
Yoga Unlimited Level One, 80 Tory Street, Wellington
Cost: $90
Email bookings @ yogaunlimited.co.nz to reserve a place.
2. 28 September to 2 November 2011, Wednesday evenings,
7.30pm–9pm, WELLINGTON
Let Life Live Through You – Mindfulness of the Body:
a six week meditation and Chi Gong course led by Erin Taylor
Pa Maria, 78 Hobson Street, Thorndon, Wellington
To register and for information contact Erin – http://www.originalnature.co.nz/teachers/erin-taylor/
3. October 8-9, 10am- 5.30pm, AUCKLAND
The Open Heart – a weekend workshop on awakening the heart through meditation and restorative yoga. Led by Peter Fernando & Wilhemeena Monroe.
Cost: $170 includes organic lunch both days.
Phone 09-8173051/email info @ soulcentre.co.nz
ON-LINE
Online Practice Group: Journey to the West
Are you housebound due to health or disability or far from a meditation group? We meet weekly for an hour via Skype conference call to reflect on practice and draw on the energy of our experience together as a reminder for practice. We presently have members from New Zealand, the UK, Canada, USA and Sweden and are part of the Unfettered Mind network. (http://www.unfetteredmind.org) Contact Ann: abraunw @ gmail.com, 03 544 2597
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RESOURCES: for Dharma study and support
1. Aung San Suu Kyi on freedom. Burmese democracy leader and Buddhist meditator Aung San Suu Kyi recently gave two secretly recorded lectures for the BBC’s Reith Lecture series. They are available as podcasts at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012402s
2. Locally-produced Stephen Batchelor DVDs/on-line talks
The November 2010, panel discussion between Buddhist teacher Stephen Batchelor and Christian theologian Lloyd Geering at St Andrews on The Terrace in Wellington is now available as a DVD. A well attended meeting, the DVD includes responses to the questions which were put by a lively audience. The topic of the evening’s discussion was “Can Christianity and Buddhism Remain Relevant in the 21st Century?”.
Also available is a DVD of the talk that Stephen Batchelor gave at the National Library in Wellington in December 2004 on the topic of his book “Living With The Devil”.
Produced by the Wellington Insight Meditation community, each DVD costs $30, including postage. To get one or more DVDs, make a deposit into the WIMC account at Kiwibank 38 9010 0244181 00 with the reference ‘Geering Batchelor DVD’, “Batchelor DVD” or “both DVDs”. At the same time send a message to treasurer @ wimc.org.nz letting treasurer Janice Hill know how much you’ve deposited, which DVDs you want along with your postal address.
Alternatively, send a cheque to WIMC, PO Box 6626, Marion Square, Wellington 6141 with a letter stating which DVD you want, and how many copies.
OR You can watch both the 2010 panel discussion and the 2004 talk online at http://www.wimc.org.nz.
3. ‘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
4. 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
5. 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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THE LAST WORD:
…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.
Pema Chödrön
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with metta, Christine Dann, Kanya Stewart – supported by Marianne Adams. Thanks to Ron Dubin & Caren Wilton for their technical expertise & support, and to Ilana Becroft and Margo Schiller, who send out the hard copy.