This week: How to Dedicate Your Good Karma

This Wednesday and Friday:
How to dedicate your good karma, a led meditation and discussion of Master Shantideva's 10th Chapter on Dedication.  Share you goodness, and help others immensely without leaving your meditation seat!

For further study, these lectures, "Ripples of Light", are a powerful commentary on Chapter 10.

Chapter 9: Worksheet 3

Dear friends,

This material draws on His Holiness the Dalai Lama's text, For the Benefit of All Beings.

Click here for the worksheet.

With gratitude,
Keith

Meditation on Emptiness by Lama Marut

Friends,
Scroll to the last 14 minutes of this lecture for a great meditation on the emptiness of the self.  This is from the same lecture listed below; I highly recommend it.  We will do this meditation together this week.  With gratitude!

Great lecture on Emptiness by Lama Marut

Friends,

This has been a great lecture:
http://www.theknowledgebase-archive.com/files/teachings/dharmaessentials12/dharmaessentials12-lamamarut-03.mp3

In particular, the last 32 minutes make the topic clear.  Scroll to the right and enjoy : )

Dharma Class this Week: Wisdom

Join us as we continue our study of Wisdom in Chapter 9 in Master Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.  As Lama Marut says, we'll practice learning to "pierce through the veil" which hides ultimate reality.  We'll examine ways in which we misinterpret the world around us, assigning permanence to that which is impermanent, and self-existence to that which has no fixed existence, thus create suffering for ourselves and others.  But just as this way of seeing the world has become habit, so can a view which is more liberating, more healing, and more aligned with ultimate reality become our mode of interacting with the world.

We'll use the same worksheet as last week (9.1, listed below).  To brush up on the topics, please listen to "The Clock Teaching" by Geshe Michael Roach, and "Simple words about Emptiness" listed below.  See you on Wednesday and Friday!

Chapter 9: Worksheet 1, for classes 3/19 and 3/21

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-LTjQxRm5Ncm1lczQ/edit?usp=sharing

"The Clock" Teaching, an Emptiness exploration for classes 3/26 and 3/28

http://www.theknowledgebase.com/products/emptinessadeepdive-2010-losangeles-geshemichael

Simple words about Emptiness:

Dear friends, I happened upon this list during my studies.  Emptiness can be complex to discuss and understand, but this list put it all so simply in a way that's easy accept.  The authors are all close students of Geshe Michael Roach.  

Because things are empty, everything comes from seeds.

- Ningpo

Everything comes from how you treat other people.

- Rebecca

There is nothing in your reality that is not coming from your kindness in the past.

- Nicole

The way I see you is dependent on the karma I planted.

It all comes from how I treat others.

The way I experience you, comes from how I treat others.

- Christine

All things exist in dependence on a person observing them.

- Peter

Things exist in dependence on causes and conditions, their parts, and a mind to observe them.  Things need other things in order to exist.

- Nick

Envisioning ourselves as more than the body:

"Our feelings of isolation and alienation from our fellow human beings are in part due to thinking we are nothing other than the body.  Delinking the sense of self from one's own corporality is an important step  in re-identifying oneself as part of a larger whole, a nexus of being that joins us together."  - Lama Marut, A spiritual Renegade's Guide to the Good Life, pp. 153-154.

Ash Wednesday Class: Renunciation + finishing Chapter 8

Hi Friends,
Happy Mardi Gras!  This Wednesday we will meet to finish up Chapter 8 (using worksheet 8.4) and discuss Renunciation, the bedrock of the spiritual path.
With gratitude,
Keith

"Renunciation in this instance is not just throwing things away but, having thrown everything away (or given everything up), we begin to feel the living quality of peace. This peace is not feeble peace, feeble openness, but it has a strong character, an invincible quality, an unshakable quality, because it admits no gaps of hypocrisy. It is complete peace in all directions, so that not even a speck of a dark corner exists for doubt and hypocrisy. Complete openness is complete victory because we do not fear; we do not try to defend ourselves at all."

~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

"Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism"

Excellent Audio for the Exchange of Self and Other:

Dear dharma friends,

These audio lectures are an excellent complement to our study of the Exchange of Self and Other (Chapter 8, Meditation).  They are from 2004 and focus entirely on the end of the chapter.  The first time I was exposed to this book, the lectures were similar in topic and style.  I highly recommend these and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

On transparency:

"From what I have been saying, I trust it is clear that when I can permit realness in myself or sense it or permit it in another, I am very satisfied.  When I cannot permit it in myself or fail to permit it in another, I am very distressed.  When I am able to let myself be congruent and genuine, I often help the other person.  When the other person is transparently real and congruent, he often helps me.  In those rare moments when a deep realness in one meets a realness in the other, a memorable "I-thou relationship," as Martin Buber would call it, occurs.  Such a deep and mutual personal encounter does not happen often, but I am convinced that unless it happens occasionally, we are not living as human beings." - Carl Rogers, A Way of Being.  

Many thanks to Laura Hasenstein for sharing this quote during her class! 

Chapter 8: Worksheet 8.4

For classes on February 19 and 21, 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-Lci1DMmkyMnM4Ujg/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter 8: Worksheet 3

For classes beginning 1/29/14

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-LVkpKTUtSdzU4Rjg/edit?usp=sharing

A bodhisattva's job description:

"If you're an artist, you make paintings

If you're a sculptor, you make sculptures.

If you are a carpenter, you make beautiful tables.

But if you are a bodhisattva, you make happiness in other people.  And that's what you do for a living.  That's your product. What you produce is happiness in other people's hearts.  And that's your job.  That's what you do.  People say, what's your product?  What do you make in your factory?  You say, we make happiness, happiness in other people's hearts." - Geshe Michael Roach, ACI Course 11, Meditation chapter recording #3, 1997, NYC.  

Re: Martin Luther King, Jr

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/29/1011562/-Most-of-you-have-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did#

Liberation Upon Hearing (by Robert Thurman)

"Suffering is false, bliss is truth, and truth is more powerful than bliss." - Robert Thurman

A free 2 min audio sample, touching on many themes from Master Shantideva:

http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Liberation-Upon-Hearing-in-the-Between/208.pd

6 x a Day Book Guide, 2014 Version (with gratitude and super-sizing)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-LNTlTUktZd0E5ZlE/edit?usp=sharing

6 x a Day Book Guide in Spanish

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-LR0ZxOWd3YnRHNWs/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you so much, Sarah Couture, for your translation work which made this possible.

Meditation (by Cindy Lee from Jackie, thank you!!)

 http://mahasukha.org/ALLAUDIO/Depression_Causes_Cures/Depression_Med_Melb_09.15.10.mp3

Chapter 8, Worksheet 2: Meditation on the Equality of Self and Others

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-LMFh4UlBnV2N1NnM/edit?usp=sharing

Root text link, with final portion missing

Friends, here is the link for a translation of the Bodhicaryavatara, or Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, by Master Shantideva.  The translator is Stephen Batchelor.  The text can also be purchased (in full) on Amazon.  This is the translation which His Holiness the Dalai Lama uses when he teaches this sacred text.

I will bring copies of the missing verses to our dharma class sessions.

http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Authors/Shantideva/A%20Guide%20to%20the%20Bodhisattva's%20Way%20of%20Life%20-%20%20Stephen%20Bachelor%20tra/A%20Guide%20to%20the%20Bodhisattva's%20Way%20of%20Life.pdf

Chapter 8, Worksheet 1

Hi dharma friends, here's the worksheet we'll use to analyze the obstacles to meditation

"Sky Burial" video, to describe the impermanence of the body

Dear dharma friends,

This powerful video reminds us of the fragility of the body and the uncertainty of the time of our death. It may be useful in our discussion of Chapter 8.

http://vimeo.com/58678621

also:

http://www.theartandritualofdeath.com

Lecture on Compassion as presented in Chapter 8, Bodhisattvacaryavatara, Master Shantideva

Dear dharma friends,

Please enjoy this lecture.  Let's share our reflections in dharma class.
Our next meetings are: Weds Jan 8, Weds Jan 15, and Fri Jan 17, 2014.  Peace.