Ornoth

In their recent marketing communications, the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center has published brief interviews with some of their regular practitioners as a kind of “get to know you” feature.

Although I haven’t made an appearance at CIMC in years, I thought it’d be fun to answer some of those questions myself, especially since today marks the 15th anniversary of my first visit to CIMC (or any meditation center).

CIMC meditation hall

CIMC: Tell us about yourself.

I discovered Buddhism around age 40, while seeking a way to live in closer accord with my inner values after a divorce, moving, and changing jobs. The teachings resonated with me, and I found CIMC’s non-sectarian method pleasantly approachable.

I was a CIMC regular and volunteer for eleven years, during which time my practice matured rapidly. In 2015 I moved to Pittsburgh, where I now support and occasionally teach two vipassana sitting groups.

CIMC: How did you learn about CIMC? When did you come to CIMC for the first time? And what program did you attend?

I first checked out a Tuesday night Beginners’ Drop-In sitting in April 2004, and followed up with a two-day Beginners’ Workshop with Maddy Klyne the following month. After that, I started going to all the Wednesday evening sitting & dhamma talks—enthusiastically absorbing everything I could—then joined some standing practice groups; formed a kalyana mitta “spiritual friends” group; and undertook retreats at CIMC, IMS, and the Bhavana Society to begin putting all those teachings into practice.

CIMC: How has CIMC or a teacher transformed or benefitted your life?

More than any single teacher, I benefited from the unbelievable diversity and expertise of the guest teachers CIMC brought in to lead weekly Wednesday night sittings and dhamma talks. In addition to our own esteemed guiding teachers, CIMC provided a rare and precious opportunity to learn from many of the most respected teachers in the world.

I knew almost nothing about Buddhism when I arrived at CIMC. The teachings I received there—combined with my own meditation practice and independent study—have transformed how I relate to every element of my life, thereby addressing my original desire to live in harmony with my values, and gave me the confidence and depth of knowledge to begin advising and teaching others.

CIMC: Are you a member? If yes, why?

Although I left Boston in 2015, I am still a member at CIMC. The urban center has immense capability to bring the Buddhist mindset to a mainstream audience who would never engage with this path of wisdom otherwise. Having received so much benefit from CIMC, maintaining my membership is how I continue to support the center, the teachers, and the mission of offering the dhamma to others.

CIMC: What’s your favorite way of supporting or engaging with the CIMC community?

I always used to stay for tea after the Wednesday evening dhamma talks, having detailed discussions about practice in the dining room with other attendees right up to (and sometimes well beyond) the center’s official 10pm closing time. The conversations were always thought-provoking, and helped me feel like an integral part of the center and supported by a community of engaged, like-minded practitioners.

For more than a decade, CIMC was one of the most important elements of my life, and I continue to benefit from the time I spent there, even though I’m no longer a familiar face at the center.

Beyond that, there isn’t a lot for me to say in observance of today’s 15th anniversary of practice; I covered most of it in my 10th anniversary blogpost.

In the five years since I wrote that post, there have been two major developments in my practice.

The most obvious has been establishing my practice here in Pittsburgh, where I have been fortunate to find two local sitting groups, and was able to sit a retreat with venerable Bhante G. at the Bhavana Society in nearby West Virginia. These have provided regular prompting for my sitting practice, as well as the continued support of like-minded practitioners.

In addition, on several occasions I have led sittings and dhamma talks for these two groups, which has been a major change from how I practiced in Boston. After a decade and a half, I now find my practice transitioning from absorbing and practicing the dhamma to sharing it with others and offering instruction. This has been a major shift, and—as I mentioned above—one I would not have undertaken without the confidence and depth of knowledge I gained during my time at CIMC.

On my recent trip to North Carolina, I was able to sit with two large, thriving groups: the Triangle Insight Meditation Community in Durham and the Insight Meditation Community of Charlotte. Unexpectedly, the leaders of both sittings claim CIMC’s founders as their primary teachers.

That experience prompted me to drop a note to CIMC’s guiding teachers, wherein I shared the following. Speaking about the teachers I met during my trip:

They provided very visible examples of how important CIMC’s teachers have been in spreading vipassana practice throughout the US. It’s a noble legacy that will persist for decades and impact thousands of lives.

This experience was an unexpected reminder of how indebted I am and how much I miss CIMC. Now, as my practice transitions from absorbing the dhamma to sharing it with others, I realize how blessed I was to have spent so many years at CIMC and learned so much from such eminent teachers.

A couple weeks ago I discovered a Buddhist book club being run by the owner of Trident Booksellers. I promptly snatched the current book from the BPL and read through it. I took a few notes to bring to the discussion, and I thought I’d post them here, as well. So here’s my notes on Pema Chödrön’s “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”.

This was the first Chödrön book I’ve read, and I can’t say it lived up to her popularity. Her writing style didn’t come across as particularly noteworthy, and what she had to say… Well, the book is focused mostly on particular practices—tonglen and lojong—which might be useful to some, but which would raise a bunch of questions for beginners. So I found the book overall of limited value. Despite that, there were a few interesting things I could pick and choose from.

One thought pertained to the defensive barriers that we establish around ourselves. Those mental and emotional barriers keep our tender bits safe, but they also distance us and alienate us from other people, as well. But the thing Pema wrote that I found interesting was that this armor we surround ourselves with, which seems so solid, so trustworthy, is really just made of thoughts that we churn out. There’s nothing to them but what we think they are. I know, it’s one of those things that is kind of patently obvious, but it’s also something that we tend to forget on a daily basis.

The next point follows a similar vein. All your past: it’s just an idea. It has no real existence. Worse yet, it’s an idea that only you hold. For example, no one I know remembers the Jimmy Castor Bunch, or their 1974 album “Butt of Course”, featuring the “Bertha Butt Boogie”. Even people who shared your life with you—your first girl- or boyfriend—have a completely different image of that “shared” past than you. You think the past is a fixed thing that defines you, but ultimately it’s just a series of ideas that absolutely nobody but you holds. So is it really all that important?

Pema also stated one of the major themes of Buddhism fairly succinctly. I’ll paraphrase it here, but the basic idea is that helping others is one of the most effective methods of self-improvement, while improving yourself simultaneously helps others. It’s kind of a feedback loop of sorts, where helping others—something that’s all but forgotten in our competitive, acquisitive society—helps ourselves much more than our secular selfishness ever could.

Buddhism encourages its adherents to give of what they have to others, in part to reduce one’s attachment to material things. Even in western cultures we think of sharing as a good thing; however, Pema suggests we go further, being willing to give away things we might really value that would make others’ lives happier. While we can all relate to sharing, giving valued things away is much more difficult because it challenges our ideas of security and possession and attachment. If you’re serious about losing your attachment to material goods, you might well consider practicing this kind of “giving until it hurts”. According to Pema, it won’t actually hurt, but give you an enduring sense of happiness.

The lojong practice includes a number of pithy sayings that one is meant to contemplate. The one that seemed most interesting to me instructs you to “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment”. That’s a very interesting instruction, because it asks us to step back whenever we feel hatred, anger, jealousy, or fear and analyze the origins of those feelings. Its at those points when we can work with the root causes of careless speech and action and overcome the unconscious behaviors that cause tension and conflict with the people around us.

The other saying that I found especially revelatory was “Don’t expect applause”. Even the best practices and living as the embodiment of lovingkindness and compassion will not guarantee others’ gratitude. Even that internal sense of satisfaction you get at having taken the moral high ground isn’t predictable. This can be incredibly frustrating, and is another emotional reaction which is worth studying. Perhaps the best orientation is to expect the unexpected and approach each situation with curiosity, rather than a sense that if you “do the right thing” you’ll be rewarded somehow.

One final topic that came up during the group discussion that I found interesting was the assertion that there’s limited value in reading about Buddhism. Buddhism is extremely practically focused, and the measure of one’s success is in how one lives, not in what doctrines one understands or agrees with or how frequently or long one sits in meditation. Most books on Buddhism echo a surprisingly small number of core tenets, and once you’ve heard them, there’s little point in further study. The real practice is in learning how to apply those beliefs to Real Life, and that’s where the real learning and growth happens. Buddhism isn’t about the books or the ideas, but about your mind, your heart, and your actions, and bringing them all into alignment.