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REFLECTION AT YEAR’S END: THE PARAMIS
For SIM’s last Thursday gathering, we will take time to reflect quietly together on the past year in terms of the Paramis, those qualities that lead to peace when cultivated and perfected. Rather than evaluating or judging, we will then use this reflection to assess our strengths and weaknesses as a way of setting intentions for our practice in the coming New Year. Join the SIM community one last evening in 2016 for a time of silence, sharing, reflection, and community.
To view the handout for this talk, listing the ten Paramis, click here.
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Karma & Reincarnation from a Buddhist Perspective
Here’s the topic that so many Buddhists try to avoid – Karma & Reincarnation. Some claim – incorrectly – that the historical Buddha did not teach reincarnation. Others claim that you don’t need to know about these teachings or take them seriously to engage in conscious Buddhist practice. Others are just confused and want to avoid the whole topic. But this is an important topic, and one that needs to be thoughtfully and deeply considered if you take the Buddha’s teachings seriously.
What did the historical Buddha actually teach regarding karma & reincarnation? How do these teachings differ, if they do, from the teachings on the same subject by other major spiritual and religious traditions of the day? Why are the Buddha’s teachings on karma & reincarnation relevant to our daily spiritual lives today ?
This evening with SIM Founding Teacher, Dennis Warren, will explore these topics from both a short and long term perspective. As background for this evening, you may find it helpful to review Dennis’ November 17th presentation on “Change and Karma”.
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Here’s a copy of the poem that Dennis recited during this talk: A Stone I Died by Rumi
Better than, worse than, the same as…
The habit of fault-finding and comparison is part of a larger pattern of insecurity in which we always feel the need to judge ourselves in regards to other people. It is as though we need to convince ourselves that we are okay, which we can only do indirectly, in comparison to people who we feel are superior, are less okay or just like us.
The point is not to dwell on our own faults—or our own virtues, for that matter. It is to see ourselves and others in a clear and unbiased way. It is to see, but not to dwell on the seeing. The first step in this practice is awareness of what we are doing, actually seeing and experiencing the discontent of the comparing mind! We will discuss the judging mind and the Buddha’s advise on how to abandon it.
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Depends on What?: An Exploration of Causes and Conditions
You may have heard about the importance of “causes and conditions” but what does that mean to our practice in formal meditation and daily life? Can we learn to recognize how causes and conditions work in our lives experientially without making it into an intellectual analysis? What would it be like to know a peace that does not depend on outside circumstances?
Rich Howard will lead this evening exploring the practical application of the Buddhist understanding of conditionality. As a start, notice how the experience of finding a parking place near the Friends’ Meeting House affects your mood!
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SIM 2016 Residential Retreat with Dennis Warren, Diane Wilde, and Rich Howard.
** If you would like to download any of the following dharma talks, please right click on the talk’s link “talk x of y” and select “save as”.
“An integrated path of practice (1)” – talk 1 of 7 with Dennis Warren
“Metta” – talk 2 of 7 with Diane Wilde
“Compassion” – talk 3 of 7 with Rich Howard
“An integrated path of practice (2) Key elements” – talk 4 of 7 with Dennis Warren
“Sympathetic joy” – talk 5 of 7 with Diane Wilde
“Equanimity” – talk 6 of 7 with Rich Howard
“An integrated path of practice (3) Spiritual and Daily Life” – talk 7 of 7 with Dennis Warren
Thursday, September 8, 7-9 pm. Sitting and Dharma Talk with Tony Bernhard, Visiting Teacher. Directions to the Middle Path: the Buddha’s roadmap to the end of suffering…
This talk references a handout: click here
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Nature is a seamless whole, flowing and changing continuously. The world we inhabit is increasingly digital, measured, quantified, and reduced to numbers and words. How do you think of your practice? Minutes on the cushion? Days in retreat? Years of practice? Or does the practice flow through every waking moment? We spend this evening examining our view of practice as analog or digital. We ask ourselves if it makes a difference. We think about our own practice and discuss how it might be digital, analog, neither, or both. And how that serves our life and the world.
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In Buddhist teaching, ethical conduct constitutes an essential training: sila, one of the three trainings that form the ennobling eightfold path. While contemporary teachers frequently discuss the ethical precepts in positive terms, emphasizing the wholesome qualities we are cultivating, traditional Buddhist teaching frames them in the negative, as core unwholesome behaviors with respect to which we practice renunciation. In this dharma talk and group discussion, we will explore why the precepts may have been framed in this way as well as the freedom and richness found in exploring this path of “not doing.”
This talk references a handout: click here
Laura Rosenthal, a long-time participant in the SIM community, is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Dedicated Practitioners Program (DPP 4) and is currently participating in Spirit Rock’s Advanced Practitioners Program (APP).
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The previous two talks (Jul 28, Aug 4) focused on Right Effort, or Energy, and the prominent role it plays in Buddhist practice. This talk has a focus on the important relationships between Right Effort or Energy, on the one hand, and Right Action on the other. Understanding these two different elements of practice; how they are similar; and how they are different is an important step in making them operational in daily life. This talk explores the meanings of Right Effort and Right Action, their role in practice and their place in Buddhist psychology.
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