In this season of multi tasking and increased activity, remember to use your practice to support your happiness.  The underlying purpose for the practice of Dharma is to alleviate suffering wherever we find it–whether our own, or that of others.  Your practice will support and sustain you in your emotional, physical and spiritual endeavors. Here are just a few helpful hints for sustaining your sitting practice:

• Sit every day, even if it’s for a short period.
• A few times during each day, establish contact with your body and breath.
• Remember that everyone wants to be happy, just like you.
• Practice regularly with a group or a friend.
• Use inspiring resources such as books or audiotapes of dharma talks.
• Study the Buddhadharma (e.g., the 4 Noble Truths, the Noble 8-Fold Path).
• Sign up for a retreat – one day, a weekend, or longer. The experience will deepen your practice.
• If you miss a day, a week, or a month – simply begin again.
• If you need guidance, ask for help from an experienced meditator or teacher.

You are traveling a path that has led to clarity and peace for many people over thousands of years. May their efforts support and inspire you.

In this season, many are bustling and busy and thinking of what gifts to give.  Running here and running there, buying for this one and buying for that one, we can get lost in a narrow view of  the meaning of the season.  It can be exhausting, and actually can become a very miserable experience.  Or, we can pull our lenses back to take the wider view and reflect on the wonder of a season of generosity.

Buddhist monasteries (and, indeed,much of the  traditional transmission of our teachings) are grounded in giving or “dana” as it is known. There is something very special and at the same time very ordinary in the offering of food and other forms of material support by students and practitioners to the community–it celebrates the wholesome and transformative power of sharing. In this traditional meeting and exchange, the spiritual world and the material world come together and their inseparability is revealed. The foundation of our Dharma practice is giving, and the powerful experience of generosity opens our hearts.  May the heart of our community be blessed by goodwill, generosity and love in this season.

Giving and receiving is the very nature of life’s engagement with itself.  Rather than being something that we do, sharing is actually what we are.  In each moment our very in-breath is received from the world, the oxygen released by the metabolic processes of plants sustaining our biological survival moment to moment, and the carbon dioxide that we breathe out provides plants what they need to sustain the photosynthesis that nourishes them, and upon which all life on earth depends.  I find it so helpful to just remember that which I call “me” is an expression of an ever changing, timeless and unstoppable process of giving and receiving, and in remembering, relaxing again and again in gratitude, allowing it all to unfold.

When we reflect like this, gratitude arises naturally and openly, saturating every breath, every moment with the joy of simply being alive.  May your Thanksgiving celebration be alive with gratitude and love.

With the holiday season can also come dukkha. The natural world begins to slow down and hibernate and we speed up with travel, parties and plans; with multiple obligations and observances. One can easily become overloaded and stressed. What a perfect time to practice equanimity.

The Pali word upekkha, usually translated as equanimity, refers to the balancing of energy.  Equanimity is developed as we learn to keep our heart open through the changing circumstances of our life and our practice. It is that state of mind which is in the center, inclining neither to one extreme nor to the other. But Equanimity is not indifference or apathy.  Under its influence, one simply does not push aside the things one dislikes or grasp at things one prefers. Equanimity is the power of mind to experience the changes in the realm of form, the realm of feeling, the realm of mind, yet remain centered and unmoved.

If you find this season overwhelming or challenging, try balancing energy with this practice.

As the weather cools and the leaves fall, we enter the Season of Gratitude and Giving. When the Buddha taught, he always began with the teachings on dana (“generosity” or “giving”) because without an open and generous heart, the teachings cannot be received.
A Thai forest master who visited the West questioned the sequence of teachings we typically follow here. In Asia, he said, the teachings proceed from  generosity to morality, and  then after establishing these in daily life, to meditation practices . But here we usually start with meditation; sometimes saying something about morality as a basis for the teachings, and only after some time, as a kind of appendix, teach about generosity, often in the form of a “dana talk.”  The master was pointing to our having lost something valuable in this altered sequence of practices. We desire transformative, transcendental meditative states, and we are willing to put our effort into that. However, the foundation for genuine transformation through meditation is the cultivation of generosity and morality. (Morality is sometimes called “the gift of fearlessness” because that is what we offer to our community when we lead a life of integrity). Generosity has tremendous power because it arises from  letting go. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, and to give generously, all spring from the same source. When we cultivate dana we open up these Buddha-like qualities within ourselves. Letting go gives us profound freedom and generosity offers many loving ways to express that freedom.
How will you cultivate generosity now, in this season?

What does it mean to be awake?  The Buddha taught that we awaken through a purification of vision– from singular concern for the small self, the body of fear, to a deep care for the world and every single being in it.  According to his profound insight, the world as we experience it is largely a matter of our own projections.  When we look at ourselves, others and the world, we don’t actually see things as they are, but through the lens of our individual hopes, fears and dreams.  We create a version of the world, based on our conditioning and perceive reality through the filter of these projected images and ideas. The Buddha pointed to this error as the root of our suffering, and invites us to practice to be liberated from this fundamental misconception.  Through practice, we open our hearts and minds  to see ourselves, others and the world more clearly. We are open to joy, fulfilled, free from suffering. Let us accept the invitation.