Living Truth

     "Truth makes little sense and has no real impact if it is merely a collection of abstract ideas. Truth that is living experience, on the other hand, is challenging, threatening, and transforming. The first kind of truth consists of information collected and added, from a safe distance, to our mental inventory. The second kind involves risking our familiar and coherent interpretation of the world - it is an act of surrender, of complete and embodied cognition that is seeing, feeling, intuiting, and comprehending all at once. Living truth leads us ever more deeply into the unknown territory of what our life is. ...

     (Buddhism) is concerned not with truth that is fixed and dead, but with truth that is alive and constantly emerging. And it is only this kind of truth that is 'indestructible' because it is not a reified version of the past, but a reflection of what is ultimately so in the immediacy of the present." 

       Ray RA. Indestructible Truth. The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala, Boston, 2000.

Port Williams, Nova Scotia, Canada

Be Quiet, LISTEN & Learn

     In our "culture, where language is associated only with vocalization and speech, we fall within a 'discursive rationality' which makes the world amenable to linguistic and discursive ordering, molding, & systematization. Any speech act is 'potentially normative,' ... as 'the speech act selects an aspect of reality simply by speaking about it, and whatever is said is then transformed into the statutory basis of a discourse' which 'can ultimately result in constraint and epistemic control'. In a culture of 'discursive rationality,' the dominant form of knowledge is one that objectifies, organises, conceptualises, normalizes, & dictates. To 'know' the world, we categorize what we see and experience in the world – things, people – into concepts & ideas. Instead of being open to the rich moment-to-moment experiences in our encounters with people and things, we 'know' & relate to them primarily through our presumed concepts about them. Such orientation produces a sense of cognitive order & control in our relations to the world. A well-known example is the European empires’ extensive categorizing & detailed mapping of the geography, fauna, flora, habitat, & people of their colonies in their effort to rule & control them.
     'Listening rationality,' on the other hand, functions in the context of 'silence.' It quiets our mind, takes away our (illusory) sense of security & control, and opens us to the untidiness, contradictions, & richness of being which cannot be bound by conceptual ordering. It invites us to the openness of not knowing and the 'risk' of growth. Silence can be 'a very fertile way of relating, (as it) might indicate a healthy desire to set aside certain automatic defenses that are only intended to fill emotional vacuums' and 'a desire to abandon automatic verbal sequences that fill our games (of social interactions). The highest function of silence,' therefore, 'is revealed in the creation of a co-existential space which permits dialogue to come along'. Listening in the context of silence involves 'the renunciation of a predominantly molding & ordering activity' and represents 'the readiness to tear away ideologizing modes of reflection which define & constrict the ways of coexistence'. It can be 'a support to the hermeneutic effort whereby we seek to establish a relationship between our world and a different "world," between our own attitude and a different attitude'.  
     Listening is also 'the attitude which can unblock the creative resources immobilized by the rigidity of traditional "logical" education'. It requires considerable 'dialogic patience' to give space to the 'inexpressible,' so that 'the inner experience which is less suited to being "spoken" can be expressed in some way'. In 'listening rationality,' the person who knows is someone who transforms him/herself in order to know, rather than objectifies the world in order to recognize her/himself in his/her cognitive conceptual immobility. To reach the 'highest function of listening silence' for coexistence to be possible, therefore, it is important that we are not confined by the conceptual mind and dominant discourses which categorize, normalize, & exclude. bell hooks proposes education as 'the practice of freedom.' I suggest that is also what critical social work education is about: the practice of freedom from the predominant order of things, that is, 'to transgress' the mode of 'discursive rationality' which privileges the mind and has been governing our production of knowledge & our relations to the world."

       Wong Y-L.R. "Knowing Through Discomfort: A Mindfulness-based Critical Social Work Pedagogy." Critical Social Work 2004; 5:(1) http://www1.uwindsor.ca/criticalsocialwork/knowing-through-discomfort-a-mindfulness-based-critical-social-work-pedagogy

cgravel   www.dpreview.com

Insight Dialogue Retreat - Relating Wisely to Daily Life

     This is a uniquely beneficial retreat, ideal for those who've already attended a few silent retreats and now feel the need to more consistently bring into their daily "householder" lives those wiser qualities experienced during retreat. I had the privilege of attending last year and WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend it.

     “... breaks new ground in applying the Buddha’s teachings to our lives, relationships, and meditative understandings [...and is] of tremendous benefit to all those seeking freedom in their daily lives.”   Joseph Goldstein

4th Annual Cascadia Insight Dialogue Retreat 
with Gregory Kramer and Mary Burns
Samish Island Camp, Bow, WA (near Bellingham)

May 3 - May 11, 2014

A BUDDHIST PRACTICE FOR CULTIVATING WISDOM AND COMPASSION THROUGH MEDITATION IN DIALOGUE
Humans are relational beings.  We are pack animals, born of mother and father, raised with families and friends.  We work and live with others.  It is no surprise that much of our suffering is people-suffering.  We meditate to understand and be free from suffering.  Yet sometimes a gap arises when interpersonal suffering is being addressed in intrapersonal meditation.  We perpetuate the “island universe” of the individual self even as we seek freedom.

Insight Dialogue is a fully relational meditation practice based on Buddhist Vipassana Insight Meditation and a relational understanding of the Dhamma.  The mind is invited to stillness and keen mindfulness even as we remain in dialogue with others.  Here, we meet the shared human experience that transcends our very real differences in genetics, background, and worldly circumstances.

For each of us, the body is home. We have an unfathomably remarkable brain.   As humans, we are sensitive to light and sound and vibrate deeply with every interpersonal contact.  Recognizing our common foundations, the shared legacy of suffering is understood anew.  Through practice, loving-kindness becomes a lived experience that encompasses each and every specific person we encounter here and now -- whether he or she is a loved one or an enemy.

In this retreat, we will maintain noble silence as a support for traditional meditation and Insight Dialogue.  There will be time in nature to support ease and solitude.  Holding “retreat” as one element in the mosaic of awakening, we will live the following question throughout our time together: “How can this practice support insight right now and how can the Dhamma be carried forward into my entire life?”

Retreat cost:
U.S. or Canadian $500, After April 1:  $530
The registration fee includes accommodations for 8 nights and 24 meals.
Partial scholarships available on first come first-served basis. We invite participants to offer dana (freewill donation) at the end of the retreat to support the teacher and the teachings

For more information:
www.cascadiainsightdialogue.com
cascadiaretreat@gmail.com
Register online:
http://goo.gl/2JEJz
More about Insight Dialogue: www.metta.org

Gregory Kramer has been teaching Vipassana and Loving-kindness meditation since 1980.  He is the director of Metta Programs and a visiting faculty member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.  Gregory is the co-creator and developer of Insight Dialogue.
Mary Burns, senior teacher of Insight Dialogue, leads retreats worldwide and offers teachings online through Metta Programs.  A long time student of meditation and yoga, Mary is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker; she teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and has studied and practiced for 3 decades at the intersection of western and eastern healing traditions.

Head & Heart can be Miles Apart

     It's amazing how much one can read & know (facts) about a religion / philosophy of life, without this knowledge having any appreciable affect on one's way of living, and thus, quality of life. People can be very smart, and at the same time, be far from living wisely. For transformational learning to take place, learning has to be welcomed in & embraced by mind, heart, emotions, body - all that we are.
     But, for many of us, (with apologies to Vegas) 'What happens in the head, stays in the head'. Many of us remain "scientific materialists" at heart. We may accept the Buddhist ideas we read and hear about, but don't actually believe in them. "Instead, we live as if the world were dead and this (material) reality the only one that exists."

       Ray RA. Indestructible Truth. The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala, Boston, 2000.

Martin Kristiansen   www.dpreview.com

Congruent Healing Metaphors Transform

     "At the heart of any healing practice are metaphorical transformations of the quality of experience (from feeling ill to wellness) and the identity of the person (from afflicted to healed). 

     metaphorical thinking conjoins sensory, affective and motivational levels of representation in ways that can help account for psychophysiological effects of symbolic interventions. Imagine a hierarchy of mental representational ‘spaces’ in which the lower levels correspond to the processing done by phylogenetically older parts of the brain involving sensory qualities and basic motivational valences, whereas other levels or layers correspond to representations of experience in terms of emotional states and more abstract conceptual structures. Metaphors transform our perceptions and representations by moving them through sensory, affective and abstract conceptual spaces. According to how this movement occurs within these independent spaces, any communication gives rise to multiple interpretations.These hierarchically stacked levels of meaning are text and subtext, literal and metaphorical strands of meaning in communication and action. Importantly, these multiple levels of interpretation go on in parallel and may reinforce each other, giving experience profound depth and resonance, or contradict each other creating complex experiences of irony, ambivalence and ambiguity."

       Kirmayer LJ.  The cultural diversity of healing: meaning, metaphor and mechanism. Br Med Bull 2004; 69: 33-48.

Photo: Bill Bentley   www.dpreview.com

Transformative Learning

     Transformative learning can be achieved in three stages: 1) reflecting, 2) directly experiencing, and 3) knowing. Reflecting involves critically examining a statement to see if it makes sense. When you intellectually know that a statement is at least logical and theoretically possible, then you go to step 2. Directly experiencing is immersing yourself in the statement. Through mindful compassionate awareness, see if the experience is valid for you personally – in your body – as a felt experience. Here theory becomes a living wisdom rather than a philosophy. Step 3 is knowing – mindfully integrating what you have just learned and felt into your daily life. In scientific terms, this is referred to as “knowledge translation / utilization”. Without this crucial last step, you return to old habits ie there is no real benefit.

       Moffitt P. Dancing with life. Buddhist insights for finding meaning and joy in the face of suffering. Rodale, 2008.

     "There are three kinds of wisdom: Sutamayā paññā, cintāmayā paññā, and bhāvanāmayā paññā. Sutamayā paññā is information you get from reading, from listening to Dhamma discourses, or from discussions with teachers. Cintāmayā paññā is intelligence or knowledge acquired through thinking, reasoning, or intellectual analysis. Bhāvanāmayā paññā is insight or wisdom gained through direct experience. In short, we refer to them as information, intelligence, and insight."

       Ashin Tejaniya "Dhamma Everywhere: Welcoming Each Moment with Awareness+Wisdom."

http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

Photo: Geza Radics   flickr.com/radicsge