RELATIONSHIP: REACTION AND RESPONSE
WINTER INTENSIVE: JAN 23—APRIL 28, 2018
Dear Sangha,
In the Zen tradition, we always aim for a fully engaged response to what arises in this life. The cold and dark of winter provide a perfect context within which to recommit ourselves to practice, to deepen our inquiry, and to awaken right in the midst of our daily lives.
The 108 Days of Meditation begins on Tuesday, January 9, and the opening ceremony of our Winter Intensive is two weeks later, on January 23. The theme for this year’s intensive is Relationship: Reaction and Response, and the Head Trainee is Petriana Dantika Monize.
Probably more than in any other culture, we Americans believe we can control and manipulate external events so that life will be in line with what we want. In reality, we have very little such power. What we can do is work with our perceptions, mind states, subjective experiences, and responses to people and situations. Given something fearful, we can develop ease in working with it; given confusion, we can search for clarity, and given something that feels impossible, we work on making it workable. We practice with the mental and emotional field out of which actions emerge. These actions can be responses, or reactions.
The teachings this winter will be inspired by an ancient text, Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only, by Vasubhandu. This text has been translated with a commentary by Ben Connelly under the title Inside Vasubhandus’ Yogacara. This work is especially helpful in examining the mechanisms of our minds, and freeing us from the conditioned reactions that arise in our lives and cause suffering for ourselves and others. While this book is not required for intensive participants, you may want to get a copy.
Please read Dantika’s invitation to join her in the Intensive (see below). Both the 108 Days of Meditation and the Winter Intensive will end with a closing ceremony on Sat. Apr. 28, at the end of our spring sesshin.
Roshi Eve Myonen Marko
Sensei John Genyo Sprague
Dear Sangha,
Like everyone else, my life is filled with many responsibilities; these leave me tired, often edgy and unable to act clearly, particularly in my relationships at home. In truth, I am most reactive there. Sometimes, the reactions are large, heavy in weight like molasses or humid and bog-like or swampy. When reactions show up, I become out of control and feel pinned to or fastened in a fog I hope would quickly lift. This is not often the case. Then anger, frustration and melancholy follow.
For most of my life, knowing presented a sense of safety, comfort, ease which granted reprieve from uncertainty and its accompanying dis-ease. I always knew the best plans for the life of others so that I could rest in ease, that when and if A, B, C, D were followed, consequences and suffering would diminish for all involved. When this sense of knowing is challenged, my reactions are large.
For Winter Intensive 2018, please join me as I describe, bear witness to, enquire into, comment on and lovingly respond to prominent moments of reaction and knowing in my life.
Thank you very much,
Dantika
WINTER INTENSIVE: JAN 23—APRIL 28, 2018
Dear Sangha,
In the Zen tradition, we always aim for a fully engaged response to what arises in this life. The cold and dark of winter provide a perfect context within which to recommit ourselves to practice, to deepen our inquiry, and to awaken right in the midst of our daily lives.
The 108 Days of Meditation begins on Tuesday, January 9, and the opening ceremony of our Winter Intensive is two weeks later, on January 23. The theme for this year’s intensive is Relationship: Reaction and Response, and the Head Trainee is Petriana Dantika Monize.
Probably more than in any other culture, we Americans believe we can control and manipulate external events so that life will be in line with what we want. In reality, we have very little such power. What we can do is work with our perceptions, mind states, subjective experiences, and responses to people and situations. Given something fearful, we can develop ease in working with it; given confusion, we can search for clarity, and given something that feels impossible, we work on making it workable. We practice with the mental and emotional field out of which actions emerge. These actions can be responses, or reactions.
The teachings this winter will be inspired by an ancient text, Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only, by Vasubhandu. This text has been translated with a commentary by Ben Connelly under the title Inside Vasubhandus’ Yogacara. This work is especially helpful in examining the mechanisms of our minds, and freeing us from the conditioned reactions that arise in our lives and cause suffering for ourselves and others. While this book is not required for intensive participants, you may want to get a copy.
Please read Dantika’s invitation to join her in the Intensive (see below). Both the 108 Days of Meditation and the Winter Intensive will end with a closing ceremony on Sat. Apr. 28, at the end of our spring sesshin.
Roshi Eve Myonen Marko
Sensei John Genyo Sprague
Dear Sangha,
Like everyone else, my life is filled with many responsibilities; these leave me tired, often edgy and unable to act clearly, particularly in my relationships at home. In truth, I am most reactive there. Sometimes, the reactions are large, heavy in weight like molasses or humid and bog-like or swampy. When reactions show up, I become out of control and feel pinned to or fastened in a fog I hope would quickly lift. This is not often the case. Then anger, frustration and melancholy follow.
For most of my life, knowing presented a sense of safety, comfort, ease which granted reprieve from uncertainty and its accompanying dis-ease. I always knew the best plans for the life of others so that I could rest in ease, that when and if A, B, C, D were followed, consequences and suffering would diminish for all involved. When this sense of knowing is challenged, my reactions are large.
For Winter Intensive 2018, please join me as I describe, bear witness to, enquire into, comment on and lovingly respond to prominent moments of reaction and knowing in my life.
Thank you very much,
Dantika
