sitting monkey is place where
david evans
writes about meditation, buddhism, and related topics.
my month long program - tibetan for a month is “dathun” - started this evening. very exciting. tomorrow i need to teach the participants to practice oryoki - our contemplative form of eating.
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just arrived at karme choling, after a red eye flight and a quick drive from boston up interstate 93. and i arrived just in time for the first staff meeting for this meditation retreat.
On the tombstone of Ephraim Tisdale, son of Henry and Patience Tisdale, a cousin of mine who died in 1805:
How short and hasty is our life
How vast our soul’s affairs
Yet senseless mortals vainly strive
To lavish out their years.
a company is testing using video games to treat attention deficit disorder when combined with an EEG. i envision a science fiction but likely future where all children perform tasks in school with brain wave measurement gear to improve mindfulness and awareness. could be a real leap in education technology, well at least for the wealthy portions of the world that can afford technology assisted learning. (via /.)
i had a mixed reaction to the biofeedback game wilddivine a couple years ago but that was mostly because of the new agey presentation.
on my retreat this week, i had plenty of time to consider how i got there. what where the causes and conditions that led to me sitting in a tiny cabin in the new england woods with nothing to do but sit and practice with my mind.
at the same time, i noticed in my practice this week a greater sense of and familiarity with a feeling of self-consciousness. it even had a noticeable body component, a tightness in my chest. i tried practicing with that feeling, to create more contrast and see if i could identify where it was more and more and how it worked.
yay! what a wonderful thing to simplify life so much and practice meditation. how incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating. and at times irritating to watch my mind drum up drama after drama for no reason, really no reason. hopes and fears and regrets all pointless - i was just sitting there with no reason to consider any of it. why stir up so much drama? for what purpose really? why oh why have i trained my mind all these years to fret so much, to constantly stir and stir and cloud my mind with pointless drivel, fears of futures that have not yet arisen, hopes based on fantasies that may or may not occur, and endless review of what has long since past. what an incredible waste of energy. how wonderful to watch that subside some and see that it is possible to live even briefly without it all.
coincidentally, today is the day in my lineage where we celebrate the life of Milarepa, the famous cave yogi of Tibet. this wise-man-in-a-cave would write songs to teach and today dharma centers around the world are singing his songs in remembrance.
participated in my first shambhala training weekend program as an assistant director. what a wonderful experience and wonderful people. i was glowing by the end of the weekend it was such an intense and inspiring program. later today i’m going into a retreat cabin in the woods (the vaishravana cabin) for seven days of silent, solitary meditation. i’m excited for the intensity of that and to see how much my mind can settle in isolation, or not settle.
I wanted to make sure people knew about the Mukpo Institute starting at Karme Choling officially this fall but with a mini-version occurring for six weeks starting this month. The vision for this is to create a deep training situation of practice and study, for people who would like to take a few months at a time up to two years in a stretch and complete all of the pre-seminary and seminary programs in Shambhala Buddhism and then even all of the main vajrayana/tantric practices in one intensive. Karme Choling is building new housing this summer to accommodate the longer term students and practitioners. Students can come for any portion or individual program as well. I’m very excited about this, personally, but I thought you might find this interesting.
Five senior teachers and Acharyas will lead the programs, including: Ashe Acharya John Rockwell, Acharya Michael Greenleaf, Acharya Arawana Hayashi, Benoit Cote, and Suzanne Duquette.