Jack Kornfield on Formal Confession Practices from "The Wise Heart"

Twice a month, at the full and new moon, the monks and nuns of the (Thai) forest monastery seek release from past misconduct through formal practices of confession. They ritually gather together under the canopy of trees to confess their mistakes, seek understanding, and ask for forgiveness. Each confession ends with a commitment to start anew... In this spirit, one of the common practices that Buddhist psychologists and teachers use to help students is to listen to their confessions. When we hear their misdeeds and regrets, we work with compassion, forgiveness, and letting go. We know that this unhealthy past is not who they really are. --Jack Kornfield, "The Wise Heart"

The Lanyard - A Poem by Billy Collins

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Heather Sundberg will teach on Tuesday, July 10

We're excited that Heather Sundberg will be leading the Berkeley Dharma and Recovery group on Tuesday, July 10. She has finished teacher training with Jack Kornfield and co-leads the annual Buddhism and the 12 Steps Retreat with Kevin Griffin at the Vajrapani Institute. Here's more info about her: http://www.heathersundberg.com/about.html

Byron Katie's Four Key Questions

Here are the four questions that Byron Katie established as the key part of what she calls The Work:
(from here: www.thework.com/thework-4questions)

Step 1 Is it true?


Step 2 Can you absolutely know that it's true?


Step 3 How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?


Step 4: Who would you be without the thought?

All About Angulimala

Angulimala: A Murderer's Road to Sainthood

(*This is an excerpt from the full story here.)

Now Angulimala took up his sword and shield and buckled on his bow and quiver and he followed behind the Blessed One.

Then the Blessed One performed such a feat of supernormal power that the bandit Angulimala, going as fast as he could, was unable to catch up with the Blessed One, who was walking at his normal pace. Then he thought: "It is marvelous! Formerly I caught up with even a galloping elephant and seized it; I caught up with even a galloping horse and seized it; I caught up with even a galloping chariot and seized it; I caught up with even a galloping deer and seized it. But yet, though I am going as fast as I can, I am unable to catch up with this monk who is walking at his normal pace." He stopped and called "Stop, monk! Stop, monk!"

"I have stopped, Angulimala. Do you stop, too."

Then the bandit Angulimala thought: "These monks, followers of the Sakya scion, speak truth, assert truth; but though this monk is walking, yet he says 'I have stopped, Angulimala; do you stop, too.' Suppose I question the monk?"

Then he addressed the Blessed One in stanzas thus:

"While you are walking monk, you tell me you have stopped;
But now, when I have stopped, you say I have not stopped.
I ask you now, O monk what is the meaning of it;
How is it you have stopped and I have not?"

(The Blessed One:)

"Angulimala, I have stopped for ever,
Foreswearing violence to every living being;
But you have no restraint towards things that breathe;
So that is why I have stopped and you have not."

When Angulimala heard these words, a second and greater change of heart came over him. He felt as if the current of his suppressed nobler and purer urges had broken through the dam of hardened cruelty that had been built up through habituation in all those last years of his life. Angulimala felt now deeply moved by the appearance and the words of the Buddha.
 

Understory

By Mark Nepo

I’ve been watching stars

rely on the darkness they

resist. And fish struggle with

and against the current. And

hawks glide faster when their

wings don’t move.

Still I keep retelling what

happens till it comes out

the way I want.

We try so hard to be the

main character when it is

our point of view that

keeps us from the truth.

The sun has its story

that no curtain can stop.

It’s true. The only way beyond

the self is through it. The only

way to listen to what can never

be said is to quiet our need

to steer the plot.

When jarred by life, we might

unravel the story we tell ourselves

and discover the story we are in,

the one that keeps telling us.

Don't forget that Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time and A Burning Desire, will lead the Berkeley Dharma & Recovery Group on Tuesdays, May 1 and May 8. For more info on Kevin, visit www.kevingriffin.net.