How boundless the cleared sky of Samadhi!
How transparent the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom!
At this moment what more need we seek?
As the Truth eternally reveals itself,
This very place is the Lotus Land of Purity,
This very body is the Body of the Buddha.
– Song of Meditation, Hakuin Ekaku Zenji
As with many spiritual traditions, Buddhism emphasizes cultivating compassion as vital to a spiritual life. Most of us want to be compassionate at heart yet at times we may struggle to manifest it skillfully in daily life. What happens when we see a homeless person on an empty street and we recoil rather than feeling a warm prod to reach out and help? Maybe a family member needs our support but we’ve had a long history of conflicts and misunderstandings and we struggle to extend a hand. Perhaps a co-worker who always seems aloof or combative has a tragic loss. Instead of feeling a sense of caring and interconnection with their suffering, we feel neutral, detached.
At times like these our response to misfortune and suffering is misaligned with our ideals. When we see this gap, we may feel even more separate. This can easily turn into self judgment and criticism: “I’m not a very compassionate person;” “I don’t have the courage to help;” or even, “that person doesn’t deserve kindness.”
When our response doesn’t conform to our ideals, it helps to remember that compassion won’t blossom until we accept our immediate reaction. This is the gap—when our response and our ideals are out of sync. Instead of identifying only with our ideals, or judging ourselves for an unwanted response, we can learn to stay in the gap, the open place where we can experience our fear, our hurt or our frustration when our desire to help goes nowhere. This is where compassion begins. Returning to this place, our bodies, our hearts, what is truly arising at this moment?
If you’re walking down the street and encounter a homeless person, can you see the moment aversion arises and just experience it? It may not happen immediately, but once you’re aware of it, take a few breaths and stay in the midst of your experience. As you learn to do this, your conditioned response will begin to diminish, even dismantle. The contraction of fear will soften, the sense of separation, born of that fear, will also dissolve. As we lose identification with ourselves as a separate entity, we experience the homeless person’s suffering directly. We know its not different from our own, just another flavor made manifest. Maybe there’s nothing we can do in that moment to help. Sometimes the correct response is to distance ourselves if the situation seems unstable. But if there’s no immediate threat, perhaps simply a smile, an acknowledgement that we actually see this human being, is the kindest response. Longer term, we may seek out concrete ways to help if we feel moved in this direction.
The roots of suffering run deep. As we learn to stay in the gap, not turning away from our fear or aversion, a skillful and compassionate response is closer at hand. As Ajahn Chah puts it, “There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.”
This past Sunday we completed our fifth residential retreat at Bethany Hills. Hard to believe its already been five! This was our smoothest retreat yet. Perfect weather and a solid, committed group of practitioners. Their practice backgrounds spanned the range from new meditators to a few with 25 + years of meditation and retreat experience. Wildlife was abundant and active at this retreat with the birds and frogs supporting our meditation through their beautiful symphonies.
Dogwoods in Full Bloom, Bethany Hills Camp.
We were fortunate that the ticks weren’t out yet as spring came a little late to Bethany Hills. From Thursday evening to Sunday morning we witnessed the greening of the grounds and surrounding woods. As I first walked around the pond Thursday afternoon, seeing the hints of spring, I felt deep gratitude and joy for the time those of us attending had set aside to remove ourselves from everyday busyness and distractions, to take the weekend to connect deeply with our hearts and minds. Its a true gift to offer this to ourselves.
A good retreat will challenge its participants. Like all retreats, there were many who struggled to meet their unwanted guests or unexpected demons. At times like this, the way through is in, with compassion and courage. Facing the demons at this level can bring about transformative insight that is life changing. I’ve seen it happen time and again, and after 25 years of practice, I can say that this process still makes a difference in my own life. But what’s most rewarding to me now is watching others do what they believed impossible and witnessing the joy on their faces once the struggle has dissolved into open space.
If you’re inclined but you’ve yet to dive in to a residential retreat, its well worth it!
Starting June 12, 2014 at12 South Dharma Center
Led by Lisa Ernst
This intermediate, five session course is designed for those who wish to support their meditation practice with a deeper understanding and practical application of the Buddha’s teachings in daily life. The curriculum is based on the Eightfold Path and will emphasize mindful and abiding awareness, interconnection with all life, right effort, wise speech and compassion.
This course is ideal for students who have prior meditation or study experience such the Basics of Meditation Course and/or daylong and weekend residential retreats. Classes are taught as a mix of practice and study so that students gain experiential insights into the Buddha’s teachings while deepening their practice. You will receive study materials and suggestions for practice at home. The classes will include plenty of time for group support and interaction.
Course fee is $125. Two reduced fee spots are available in the case of financial need. Class will begin on Thursday, June 12, 7 – 8:30 p.m. Following Thursday meetings are: June 19, July 3, 10 and 24. A makeup session is available with Lisa if you have to miss one of these dates. Paypal is here. If paying by check, make it out to One Dharma Nashville and send to: 12 South Dharma Center c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue South, suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Be sure to include your email address. For questions or to reserve your spot, please email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.
Lisa Ernst is a Buddhist Meditation teacher in the Thai Forest lineage of Ajahn Chah. In her teaching, Lisa emphasizes both transformational insight and everyday awakening as an invitation to embrace all of the path’s possibilities. Lisa is the founder of One Dharma Nashville and she regularly leads daylong and residential retreats, private meditation training and classes.
Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die
– Basho
Guest meditation teacher Lisa Ernst from One Dharma Nashville will lead The Joy of Presence: A Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at
The Yoga Center of Huntsville
This workshop will help you learn effective techniques to establish or deepen an ongoing mindfulness meditation practice. You’ll learn correct sitting postures and concentration as well as how to work with thoughts and emotions. You also learn deep listening and mindful communication, along with powerful forgiveness and loving-kindness practices that you can offer to yourself and others. The workshop will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, instruction, discussion and Q & A. Appropriate to beginners as well as more experienced mediators who wish to refresh and deepen their practice.
Lisa Ernst is a meditation teacher and founder of One Dharma Nashville. She has been practicing Buddhist meditation for 25 years in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions. In her teaching, Lisa emphasizes both transformational insight and everyday awakening as n invitation to embrace all of the path’s possibilities. Lisa leads daylong and residential meditation retreats and has taught meditation in universities, corporations and prisons. She also offers individual meditation instruction and guidance. For more information about One Dharma Nashville, visit http://www.onedharmanashville.com.
Session duration: 12:30–5 pm
Pre-registration price: $85 (if registered and paid by Friday, March 28)
Drop-in price: $95 (if registered after March 28 until day of workshop)
To register, email Annette Beresford at annetteberseford@hotmail.com or call
256-658-9748.
Frozen Water with Reflection
All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.
How sad that people ignore the near
And search for truth afar:
Like someone in the midst of water
Crying out in thirst.
– Hakuin
Bubble freezing in the midst of popping!
Photography by Lisa Ernst
Diamond Sutra
So you should view this fleeting world
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream
Many people, myself included, come to Buddhism because we can’t find an escape from our suffering. Full of fear and uncertainty, we find that Buddha’s Four Noble Truths provide some mental relief. There is suffering. There is a cause to suffering. There is an end to suffering. The is a path out of suffering (the Noble 8-fold path). As we learn to walk this path, to let go of our resistance to the endless arising and passing away of conditions, we begin to experience this moment just as it is and we see our suffering diminish. The path opens up, we see that Buddha’s teachings are applicable in our own lives. The dharma works. But the mind is a tricky little fox and soon the very path that was leading us to liberation may become yet another thing to cling to, something to keep us safe from the inevitable storms of life. We probably don’t even see this subtle shift until we’ve strayed far from the path.
A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
This is our life, we will never be protected from the tigers and the vine will whittle away until we fall to our death. No one has ever escaped death. So what is our response? If we use this practice to keep us safe, it will fail us. Genuine practice isn’t safe.
If you’ve gotten comfortable with your practice, you need to examine with total honesty the boundaries you’ve created. Has the practice become a container or bubble that keeps your heart sheltered from the darkest realms of your own existence? Has it tipped that way without your even knowing it? What happens if you burst the bubble, the boundary that you dwell in? Are you suddenly face to face with what you most fear, what you hoped would protect you from falling, from failing? Can you then, in this very moment, reach for the strawberry right in front of you and enjoy it, no matter what you fate, savoring the perfect sweetness that permeates your whole being? If so, you’ve found your true path, genuine freedom, your home.
The End of The Path
photography by Lisa Ernst
Once again this year, One Dharma will a Refuge and Precepts Ceremony each December for committed practitioners. If you’re interested, here is some general information:
About the Refuge Ceremony
Taking refuge means relying wholeheartedly on the Three Jewels of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha to inspire and guide us toward a constructive and beneficial direction in our lives. The real taking of refuge occurs deep in our hearts and isn’t dependent on doing or saying anything. Nevertheless, we may wish to participate in the refuge ceremony by requesting a dharma teacher to formally give us refuge. The refuge ceremony is simple: we repeat the passages after the teacher and open our hearts to make a strong connection with the Three Jewels. The ceremony also “officially” makes us a Buddhist.
About Taking Precepts
Precepts are a joy, not a burden. They aren’t designed to keep us from having a good time and to make us feel deprived. The purpose of taking precepts is to give us internal strength so that we won’t act in ways that we don’t want to. Having understood that killing, stealing, selfishness and so forth only lead us to harm ourselves and others now and in the future, we’ll want to avoid these. Taking precepts give us energy and strength to do so. Therefore, it’s said that precepts are the ornaments of the wise.
To help people overcome their disturbing attitudes and stop committing harmful actions, the Buddha set out five precepts. During the refuge ceremony, in addition to taking refuge in the Three Jewels, we can take any or all of the five precepts, and become a lay Buddhist.
The five precepts
1. I observe the precept of abstaining from the destruction of life.
2. I observe the precept of abstaining from taking that which is not given.
3. I observe the precept of abstaining from sexual misconduct.
4. I observe the precept of abstaining from falsehood.
5. I observe the precept of abstaining from intoxicants that cloud the mind and cause carelessness.
The refrain “I observe the precept of abstaining from …” which begins every precept clearly shows that these are not commandments. They are instead codes of conduct that lay Buddhists undertake out of clear understanding and conviction that they are good for both themselves and for society.
If you are interested or have questions, please contact ernst.lisa@gmail.com
The Lotus Blooms in The Mud 