Be A Refuge

May. 17th, 2022 02:32 pm

Major milestones don’t come as frequently after 18 years of meditation practice, but this month provided a big one in my burgeoning role as a teacher: my first time having the honor of offering the Three Refuges and the Five Precepts.

Taking the Refuges & Precepts is the most fundamental Buddhist ceremony, and is frequently offered at meditation retreats.

Bikkhu Bodhi: Going for Refuge & Taking the Precepts

The Three Refuges are a public statement of confidence in the historical Buddha as a regular human who came to a profound and useful understanding of how the human mind works; the Dhamma, or teachings he gave based on that understanding; and the Sangha, the community of like-minded practitioners. It’s helpful for meditators to relate to these vows as more descriptive of how one feels and where they are currently at in their practice, rather than something proscriptive that someone else is imposing upon them.

How important these vows are in the context of your practice, the specific technicals details of what they mean, and the consequences of breaking them are entirely up to the individual. You can view these as a solemn public statement that you are “A Buddhist”, or you can simply consider them an unnecessary holdover from uncomfortably devotional Asian Buddhist practices, or anything in-between. The Refuges & Precepts are only as solemn as you want them to be.

The Five Precepts are voluntary ethical practices that prompt the practitioner to increase our awareness of the skillfulness of our thoughts, speech, and actions, and to reflect on their impact upon our inner wellbeing.

The Precepts in particular can be uncomfortable for meditators brought up in the Abrahamic religions, where they can come across sounding like the Ten Commandments. However, the similarity is very shallow. A practitioner can adopt all, some, or none of the Precepts. In modern formulations, each Precept not only includes refraining from a particular unskillful action, but also cultivating a corresponding beneficial one.

In addition, taking the Precepts is completely voluntary, and there’s no requirement or pressure involved. They aren’t an edict imposed by some arbitrary external authority, but something one chooses for oneself because of the value and benefit one expects to receive by working with them. And there’s no one handing out punishments for failing to keep the Precepts.

Finally, the Precepts are vague, and (I believe) intentionally so. They’re meant to urge practitioners to look inside themselves and explore the subtleties of what their heart tells them is ethical and skillful. You would think that the precept to refrain from killing living creatures would be pretty straightforward, but our modern society raises complex questions in the ethical grey area that we must all face. Does that mean you can’t kill troublesome insects? Even accidentally? Does it rule out compassionate euthanasia or assisted suicide or abortion? Does it mean we cannot eat meat? And isn’t killing plants still killing a living being? And it’s the same with all the other Precepts; they encourage us to explore our own internal values and how well our real-world actions conform with them.

So that’s what the Refuges & Precepts are. Let’s get back to me…

I first took the Refuges & Precepts in April 2006 at Cambridge Insight, two years into my practice. I’d devoted enough time and study to be confident that I’d found a good home base for exploring how to live my life in accord with my inner values. When I took the Refuges & Precepts, it was deeply meaningful for me.

Over the years I gained knowledge and experience as a practitioner, then began slowly moving into teaching. The Refuges & Precepts were always in the back of my mind, and I hoped that someday I would be able to offer the ceremony to others. But I didn’t feel confident enough to volunteer until recently, now that I’ve got five years of regular teaching under my belt.

But it was the timing that forced my hand. I’ve always felt that the Refuges & Precepts should be offered in May, on the holiday of Vesak, which Buddhists observe as the day of the Buddha’s birth, his enlightenment, and his passing. When my Monday meditation group started lining up our May teaching schedule, they granted my request to take two consecutive weeks — May 9 and 16 – to offer the ceremony.

As the date approached, I sent out an introductory email to the group. After all, this would be very different from our usual sitting and dhamma talks, so I gave people fair warning and set expectations, and sent along the translation we’d be using. It’s worth noting that following the Covid-19 pandemic, the Monday group is still meeting in an online videoconference.

I think people heeded my warning, because only six people attended the first session, about half our usual size. My goal for the evening was to go over what the Refuges & Precepts are – the information I covered above – leaving plenty of time to answer questions. The explanation seemed sufficient, as there were only a couple questions.

The second session had seven people, as we lost one of the previous week’s attendees but gained two new ones. After a quick recap for the new people, I took a couple more questions, then segued into the actual ceremony.

In short, we read the Homage to the Buddha, the Refuges, and the Precepts. For each, I encouraged people to recite them with me in English, then I chanted the Pali version (and anyone who wanted to join in was welcome to), and rang the meditation bell. Because doing this online would have otherwise been a mess, I asked everyone to keep their microphones muted. It seemed to work out fine.

I wanted to follow CIMC’s custom of following the ceremony with a shared social celebration, and I’m really glad I did, because it helped me convey my joy and how special an event it was. For some people it was their first time ever taking the Refuges & Precepts; it was the first time the Monday group had offered them; it was, of course, also my first time offering them; it was the day of Vesak, the most important Buddhist holiday, observing the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and passing; and the Monday group’s fifth anniversary is close at hand. And talk about auspicious: there was even a lunar eclipse! It was a wonderful opportunity to share with each other the joy of our practice together, and seeing it bearing fruit.

I probably don’t need to repeat how pleased and honored I feel at being able to offer this ceremony for the first time to a dedicated group of friends and practitioners of varying levels of experience. For me, it was a resounding success, and a huge milestone in my meditation practice and my growth as a teacher.

Now I just have to turn around and teach Dependent Origination two days later to the other group I sometimes lead!

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We Are CIMC

Apr. 27th, 2019 10:03 am

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 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.

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I Think of All the Education That I Missed

Aug. 19th, 2017 08:41 pm

My meditation practice has been in maintenance mode since moving to Pittsburgh in 2015. But helping establish a new group and delivering my first dhamma talk has injected some energy.

The new group that’s starting up is organized by two women whose backgrounds include Thich Nhat Hanh, IMS, and Tara Brach. They sent out feelers looking for like-minded Vipassana practitioners, and got enough response to form a small practice group. Typically eight to ten people show up from a total pool of a couple dozen. I think we’d all like to see it grow into something more substantial, but that’ll take time and effort. And none of us are authorized dhamma teachers, so right now it feels very reminiscent of my old kalyana mitta (spiritual friends) group back in Boston.

CIMC meditation hall

CIMC meditation hall

A fair number of us—myself included—have long attended a Wednesday evening meditation group led by Rhonda Rosen. So far the two groups seem to be complementary, in that Rhonda focuses on Goenka’s guided meditations and Q&A about practice, while the new group seems more philosophical and a bit less secular.

At the first meeting, we talked about our individual goals for the group, and I think I summarized mine pretty effectively. What I am looking for is the opportunity to learn from other local meditators, the chance to invite distant dhamma teachers to visit Pittsburgh as guests and learn from them, the opportunity to share the learnings from my own practice with others, and to help build a venue where all of that can happen. And I emphasized that for me, the biggest thing I’ve missed since moving to Pittsburgh has been dhamma talks, where experienced teachers expound on the philosophical teachings of the Buddha.

Thereafter, we’ve met weekly for brief meditations—both sitting and walking—followed by some kind of dhamma talk and discussion.

As I said earlier, our biggest challenge is that none of us are teachers. So we’re sharing the responsibility of preparing material to present, whether it’s readings or recordings or original thoughts. Predictably, we began with the central tenets of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths. I was asked to lead an evening discussing the Second Noble Truth: the Origin/Source/Cause of Suffering.

Treating this as my first proper dhamma talk, I spent some time gathering notes, and found that although the subject was far-ranging, everything fell together nicely with obvious segues. I put together an outline and ran through it a couple times in my head. Ample client facilitation experience as a consultant, plus the sessions I’ve led in my old kalyana mitta group, all gave me confidence and kept any nerves at bay.

Unfortunately, I set myself a very ambitious task: explaining how the sequence of events in the Buddhist psychology of Dependent Origination give rise to the pain of desires that ultimately cannot be fulfilled, along the way touching on kamma, ignorance, the Three Characteristics of Existence, the Four Divine Messengers, the Five Recollections, and the Eight Worldly Winds (Buddhism is *all* about lists), then closing by revealing the often-unexplained link of why silent meditation is the chosen tool to reach the goal of alleviating suffering. It was pretty much the Grand Unified Theory of Buddhism According to Ornoth.

Although ambitious, I think the idea was really worthy; but with so much ground to cover, the execution wound up being a bit strained.

After the talk, the verbal feedback I received was all very positive. The two founders were both effusive in praise, as was one of the new practitioners who admitted an intellectual inclination. But two longtime practitioners and the three new practitioners were all silent during the Q&A, which tells me that my own impressions about overreaching myself were probably correct.

Specifically, I tried to plow through way too much material for a single dhamma talk. I didn’t need to go into quite so much detail, nor be so technical. The delivery wound up being a lot more intellectual than I had hoped, and I think I lost some of the attendees as a result. Although that probably happens at every dhamma talk to one extent or another. Still, I should tighten up my material and make more effort to keep people engaged in future talks.

Giving such a long talk—40 minutes plus a few minutes of Q&A—was surprisingly tiring. But I’m really proud of the ideas I presented, especially explaining the mechanics of how and why Buddhists use silent meditation to address the suffering we all experience.

Preparing and delivering my first dhamma talk was novel and fun. But more importantly, I found it deeply rewarding to share some of my insights in hopes that they might help others along the path—whether experienced practitioners or relative newcomers. It was very satisfying, despite my inexperience in a teaching role.

Of course, the one thing that cures inexperience is practice. So it’ll be interesting to see whether I will enjoy and grow in proficiency in that teaching role, and to what degree my knowledge and experience can be of meaningful value to others. I look forward to that exploration.

It wouldn’t be the most entertaining use of your time, but if you’re truly curious, I’ve shared a written transcript of the talk. And if you’re truly masochistic, here's the 44-minute audio MP3, although be forewarned that the audio quality is low.

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A State of Enlightenment

Apr. 26th, 2016 01:02 pm

Think you’re gonna find Buddhism in Steeler Nation? I didn’t. When I moved to Pittsburgh, I didn’t expect to find many meditation centers; certainly not the diversity and convenience that I had enjoyed back in Boston.

I easily found Pittsburgh Shambhala, but Tibetan Buddhism is radically different than the Theravada Buddhism that speaks to me, and I’m uncomfortable with how they venerate their teacher, the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, to a fault.

Searching online, I discovered the Pittsburgh Buddhist Center, a small center run by three monks from Sri Lanka: one of the three primary Theravadan countries, together with Thailand and Burma. PBC even stream their Wednesday evening sittings, so I could get an idea what it was like before visiting. So that was the first place I checked out in person.

Their center is 40-minute drive out of town, which makes it inconvenient. The sangha is small, split about evenly between locals and Sri Lankan expats. Because of this, the practice retains a lot more of the Asian cultural context than the Americanized Vipassana centers I’m used to: there’s incense, offerings, extensive chanting in Pali, and their meditation sessions feature a lot of verbal instruction, which I don’t find helpful. Because of the Sri Lankan cultural influence, I haven’t felt especially integrated with that group.

On the other hand, they’re solid Theravadan, which is great to find in this town where refinement amounts to stuffing french fries inside your sandwich. And they’re the genuine article: fully-ordained monastics straight from Asia, rather than watered-down secular American teachers with no monastic experience. Even in Boston, being able to discuss practice and philosophy with a monk was a very rare and precious thing, and I never imagined that ongoing weekly contact would be available to me in Pittsburgh.

So PBC has pluses and minuses, but it seems like a place I’ll visit occasionally.

During my first visit to PBC, I was given a small pamphlet that listed the Buddhist groups in the area. That was a great resource, and one of the entries intrigued me. It was for something called “Vipassana Sitting Group”, which meets (at a Jewish temple, ironically) only a couple blocks from my apartment. Anachronistically, it listed no website and no Facebook page; just the personal email address for Rhonda, the organizer.

It turns out that Rhonda Rosen was of the same circle as people like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield and Larry Rosenberg: American hippies who practiced in Asia and returned to establish centers like CIMC and the Insight Meditation Society in Barre. Rhonda studied under the late Indian teacher S. N. Goenka, who is widely known for his rigid but effective teaching style. It turns out that she has run this small, unaffiliated meditation group under the radar for decades, generally following Goenka’s model.

Much like CIMC, her group is entirely made up of Americans with very diverse levels of practice experience, and she too has stripped off all the Asian cultural baggage in favor of a familiar secular, earnest, practical focus. She also maintains running verbal instructions during meditation, which runs sequentially through anapanasati, body scan, and metta.

Being so similar to my previous practice at CIMC and IMS—and conveniently located in my neighborhood!—I’ve attended Rhonda’s group more regularly, and have found it a lot easier to integrate with. My biggest frustration is that I can’t attend both her group and PBC because they meet during the same Wednesday evening time slot!

With attendance varying from 8-24 people each week, Rhonda’s group has a new and interesting dynamic for me to explore. It’s sort of halfway between the large-group formality of CIMC and the small-group informality of my little kalyana mitta spiritual friends group.

What do I mean By “formality”? At places like CIMC and IMS, most discussion is Q&A, where students pose questions that are addressed by the teacher, but students are usually discouraged from addressing one another’s questions directly. It’s a more centralized model where the teacher is the sole authoritative voice. In contrast, my KM group had no teacher, was completely egalitarian, and individual practitioners simply kicked ideas back and forth.

I’ve been carefully sussing out whether Rhonda wants her group to be more centralized or more open, and she has consistently encouraged me to offer my own ideas and experiences during group discussions. And with twelve years of study and practice under my belt, I often have useful ideas to contribute and experiences to relate.

With things to offer and encouragement to contribute, this group feels like a safe little laboratory for me to test the waters and find my own voice as a potential future teacher. That’s not a vocation that I intentionally pursued, but as people express appreciation for my comments, I become more aware of the value I can share, and more confident in my ability to articulate it in a way that others can receive. It’s a very new and interesting place to find myself, and so far I’m enjoying it.

This past weekend Rhonda’s group held a one-day retreat at the Zen Center of Pittsburgh, which sounds lofty but it’s really just an old farmhouse twenty miles out of town. I attempted to bike out to the retreat, but broke a spoke and had to abort my ride and drive out.

The retreat itself was nice, with about twenty people attending… And also three cats who live there, which I found delightful. One even came by to meow inquisitively a couple times during one of the sittings! It was nice to share a little more of an experience with Rhonda’s “regulars” beyond our short Wednesday sits.

For myself, I did have one minor insight, although it takes a bit of explaining to convey.

We’re all familiar with the geeks who desperately try to score points by knowing more about everything than everyone else, who turn even casual conversations into opportunities for one-upsmanship, to everyone else’s annoyance.

Behind their lack of social grace, all those people are trying to do is win others’ respect and admiration; they think that people will like them if they can show how much they know.

I’d use the word “mansplainers”, but that is a hatefully sexist term that does an injustice to most men and fails to address the women who exhibit the exact same behavior.

Those of us who realize that people don’t respond well to unwanted corrections have largely given up on offering them. A more fatherly approach that I usually take is to offer information only when it is useful or expressly desired.

Even though I’ve long-since abandoned the impulse toward parading my knowledge and one-upsmanship, I was surprised to realize that I still expect that being knowledgeable and competent will cause people to like me.

But that’s not necessarily true. In Rhonda’s sitting group, I’ve been trying to offer advice, suggestions, and insight to less experienced practitioners… no more than once per day, tho! My contributions have been really well-received, so my image in that group is generally one of knowledge and competence. But does that mean they like me? Not at all.

Maybe they like me, and maybe they don’t. Probably people’s impressions vary from one end of the spectrum to the other, based less upon how I present myself, and more determined by their own character and backgrounds. Demonstrating knowledge and experience isn’t a requirement for being liked, and actually doesn’t correlate well with social favor.

I’ll try to keep that realization in mind as I continue to build relationships with the people in the group and explore my own voice as an experienced practitioner.

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