This morning I fell
into a well of silence.
Not a push, not a jump,
just a breath and an instant
and all is still
like a snow covered morning
at first light.
Before the mind stirs
Before the heart wants
something else
this silence
enters me, washes me away
into the joy of this
undying moment.
– Lisa Ernst
Deepening Your Practice
Saturday, March 9, Harmony Landing Retreat Center
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Led by Lisa Ernst 
Please join us at a beautiful location just west of Nashville for a day of sitting and walking meditation. We will cultivate insight and lovingkindness through awakening our minds and hearts to the present moment.
Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat will focus on mindfulness meditation. We will train our minds in present time awareness by bringing attention to the breath and sensations in the body, cultivating awareness of the myriad states that arise. Through this practice we gradually embrace the truth of the constantly changing nature of things, and we learn to respond with compassion and friendliness to all that arises.
This retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators; it will include sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions, and a dharma talk.
Cost: $50, plus dana (donation) to the teacher. A deposit of $50 will reserve your space. Paypal is available at this link. Use the first “donate” button. Directions and additional information will be emailed prior to the retreat. Please contact onedharmaretreat@gmail.com with any questions.
What happens when you resist? Have you spent some time in your practice cultivating true intimacy with your mind and body in a state of resistance? You probably know where you hold your tension, where your body contracts and how your mind seeks diversion. But the true payoff comes when you take an even closer look. Can you become truly intimate with the tension in your body? Get to know it like a mate or a best friend? Open your heart and mind wide enough that it penetrates every cell, every infinitesimal particle of time and matter. When you can do this, you will taste complete freedom. This is where transformation occurs; in a moment of full surrender, when your resistance dies, you die. But your great nature, your true self that embraces all and leaves nothing out, remains. What is this true nature? You can only find out for yourself. Just let your Bodhicitta, your inherent desire to wake up, guide the way.
– Lisa Ernst
A sliver of moonlight
against a slate sky
wakes me up
offers no words
but pierces my heart
breaks it open,
tears, silence.
A screech owl
penetrates the stillness.
Then another,
back and forth they shriek
then silence, tears dry.
The moon fades
as dawn lights the sky.
Misty Winter Morning at Radnor Lake
Even if you have a regular meditation practice, you probably encounter moments when you feel overwhelmed and challenged to sit in the midst of your experience. Especially when strong feelings of anxiety or fear arise, the mind’s tendency to identify with thought and avoid the present moment is particularly strong.
What is your resistance point? When do you reach the precipice of overwhelm, when you believe you can no longer stay present? Cultivating awareness of this tipping point, when you exceed your capacity for presence, can help you expand your awareness beyond any imagined self limitations you have.
How? First it helps to remember and practice this core teaching from the Buddha:
“Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as “I” or ‘mine.’ Whoever has heard this truth has heard all the Teachings, whoever has realized this Truth has realized all the Teachings.”
You may ask how Buddha’s teaching of non-clinging applies to resistance and emotional overwhelm. As our practice deepens, we begin to recognize when we cling to desired things such as relationships, possessions, health and happiness. But we may overlook how we cling to our unwanted mental states and interpret them as “I” and “mine.” It’s all too easy to perceive depression, shame, fear and anxiety as part of who we are. As soon as we create this self-identification, the emotions feel fixed and personal. Letting go, releasing our clinging, is challenging.
When I speak of letting go, I don’t mean trying to get rid of anything, but instead allowing our emotions and mind states to be exactly as they are, without self-identification. This is how we begin to loosen the knot. As soon as we quit identifying with these feelings as “me,” we see them for what they are – the temporary and changing mosaic of thought and emotion that we experience throughout our lives. If these emotions and mind states were only a kaleidoscope of color passing by our eyes, we wouldn’t identify with them as ourselves; we could allow them to simply come and go. No resisting and no clinging. When we cultivate this attitude toward emotions we invite equanimity and non –identification. We may still feel the anxiety or sadness, perhaps even more deeply, but we don’t interpret them as “I” or “mine.” They are simply part of the moment, along with the sounds, scents, and physical sensations, everything that is here. We have room for it all. This is a heart at rest.
Saturday, February 2
10 a.m. – 4 p.m., 12 South Dharma Center
Led by Lisa Ernst
Please join us for a day of mindful writing and meditation practice. We will cultivate writing inspiration through meditation and exercises that help us open our hearts to the truth of what we most want to express. These practices will also help us to communicate more eloquently from our authentic voice, both in written and verbal from. In addition, we will have an opportunity to share our writing in an atmosphere of compassionate support. This workshop is suitable to beginning and experienced writers and meditators.
The class will be limited to twelve participants. Cost is $75. Two reduced fee spots are available for those in financial need. Registration is due by Friday, January 25. Please make checks 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. If paying by PayPal, go to this address and use the first “donate” button. For more information or to confirm your spot, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.
Lisa began her meditation practice in the late ’80’s in the Zen Buddhist tradition, studying closely with two Rinzai Zen Masters and attending numerous meditation retreats. Lisa has also studied and practiced in the Theravada tradition since the late 90’s. In 2005 Lisa was given authorization to teach by Trudy Goodman, founder and guiding teacher of InsightLA. Lisa received full dharma transmission from Trudy in 2010 in the lineage of the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn Chah. Lisa has written for magazines, newspapers and newsletters since 1990. She was the technical editor for the current edition of Meditation for Dummies. Her blog includes many essays and poetry: www.thelotusbloomsinthemud.com.
This is from an InsightLA blog post by my teacher and friend Trudy Goodman:
Live It Up!
Recently I’ve been teaching about women in the dharma, about the “Feminine Principal,” as Andrea Miller wrote in her article in Shambhala Sun this past month. I want to tell you a story about Maurine Stuart Roshi, who was my heart teacher from 1979 when I first met her until she died in 1990. A story for this holiday season.
One February night in Cambridge, Maurine was resting on the couch in her living room. It was one week before she was to die. I came over to bring her some supper. I felt close to her. We were intimate in the way you may know from sitting together — you know this from letting go of whatever holds you back, from stripping down to the aliveness and radiance of who you truly are.
Straightening up the cooking magazines on her coffee table, I decided to go for it — maybe it’s my last chance to ask her what I most wanted to know: “After a whole life of Zen practice, teaching and deep enlightenment, what’s the truest thing you can say to me now?” And she didn’t miss a beat. Speaking with her usual authority and power, she said simply, “Live it up!”
I was surprised. After all those years of sitting in the fire….“Live it up!”? This is the wisdom of my Zen teacher, so close to her dying…but what does she mean, exactly? Eat, drink, be merry?
True mindfulness IS living to the hilt, living it up — because it includes everything. When our mindfulness gets strong, nothing is too crazy, too weird, too exciting, too scary, too sad, too upsetting, too tragic, too overwhelming or too huge to be held in our loving awareness. Living it up is living fully, taking the time to look deeply, making the effort to recognize and stay with what’s true for us moment by moment. Like a mirror reflecting just what’s happening, like the water of a pond reflecting the blue sky and the passing clouds. Only here the mirror is awake and sees, and the water is responsive. Our mindfulness, this loving awareness, is our own consciousness actively participating in the ongoing process of being alive — Live It Up! And may your week be graced by moments of boundless love and freedom.
Trudy Goodman
The Power of Intention: Clarifying Your Path for the New Year
January 1, 2013, 8:30 a.m. – Noon, 12 South Dharma Center
Led by Lisa Ernst
“One of the Buddha’s most penetrating discoveries is that our intentions are the main factors shaping our lives and that they can be mastered as a skill.”
– Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Please join us for a half day of sitting and walking meditation at the 12 South Dharma Center. At the beginning of a New Year, it is customary to take stock of our lives, to review the previous year and set our intentions for the upcoming twelve months and beyond. Bringing this evaluation onto the cushion, to look with fresh eyes and an open heart, can help us refine and clarify our direction and to live from the truest part of ourselves.
Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, the retreat will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, dharma talk and discussion. Cost is $35 and is due by Monday, December 24. You can bring your payment to one of our meetings or send a check, made out to One Dharma Nashville to: 12 South Dharma Center, c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue south, suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. You can also pay through Paypal here. Please use the first “donate” button. For questions or to reserve your spot, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.
If you’re a regular meditator, chances are that you sometimes feel restless, wishing for the allotted practice time to end. If you have a clock handy you may peek once in a while. I confess that I have done this myself occasionally when I’ve been in a very busy or challenging time in my life. But I discovered an antidote to the restlessness that may seem counterintuitive. When I see that I’m checking the clock or longing for the meditation time to end, I extend it. I’ve learned that when I squeeze my meditation into a parameter of time, I cut it off, make it small and constrain my mind from the infinite and unfettered nature of this moment.
Sometimes I may only extend the meditation session five or ten minutes, depending on my schedule, but I’ve extended it longer on mornings when I have time. The actual length of time isn’t that important, even a few extra minutes can make a difference. As soon as I change my orientation from “hurry up” to “I’ll be here for a while,” my entire demeanor changes. I relax and let go of time. I settle into whatever I was resisting. The moment becomes interesting again, no matter how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. The illusion of some other time or some other place vanishes. There is only this moment, perfect and complete.
You’ve been with me
for what seems an eternity.
A shadowy presence,
keeping me up some nights
bringing an edge to my day
and nothing I do makes you go away.
Always here but you won’t show your face
until now.
This morning we met,
as if for the first time
I saw you without the veil,
not so dreadful after all.
Grateful, I welcomed you in
with an open heart.
We sat together like the best of friends
until the incense burned out
and the sun lit the sky.
We rose as one with a smile.
The Lotus Blooms in The Mud 