Wednesday, January 3, 2018

GROUP ENDED in December 2017

The Berkeley Dharma & Recovery group had our last meeting in December 2017. This group is no longer meeting.

Visit Kevin Griffin's website www.kevingriffin.net to find similar events.

You might also want to attend some Refuge Recovery meetings. For more information, visit www.refugerecovery.org.

Many blessings on your path of recovery!

-Walt Opie

Monday, October 9, 2017

UPDATED 2017 SCHEDULE

[Group facilitator listed below. We meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Northbrae Church.]

Tuesday, November 14:   Walt Opie
Tuesday, December 12:    Walt Opie




Monday, February 13, 2017

2017 Monthly Schedule

[NOTE: This group meets on the second Tuesday of each month in Room #1 at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, CA. The group facilitator listed below is subject to change.]

Tuesday, August 8: Walt Opie

Tuesday, September 12: Walt Opie




Friday, May 6, 2016

2016 Monthly Schedule

[NOTE: This group meets on the second Tuesday of each month in Room #1 at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, CA. The group facilitator listed below is subject to change.]

May 10: Walt Opie

June 14: Kevin Griffin (www.kevingriffin.net)

July 12: Walt Opie

August 9: Walt Opie

September 13: Walt Opie

October 11: Walt Opie

November 8: Walt Opie

December 13: Walt Opie

Sunday, January 3, 2016

2016 Monthly Schedule

[NOTE: This group meets on the second Tuesday of each month in Room #1 at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, CA. The group facilitator listed below is subject to change.]

February 9: Walt Opie

March 8: Walt Opie

April 12: Walt Opie

May 10: Walt Opie

June 14: Walt Opie



Why Meditate?


The effort and commitment needed to pursue meditation is so demanding that it is appropriate to ask what value it has and where it is leading. Meditation has to do with opening what is closed in us, balancing what is reactive, and exploring and investigating what is hidden. We practice to open, to balance, and to explore.

~Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom




Photos by Walt Opie (Burma/Myanmar 2015)

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

2015 Monthly Schedule

PLEASE NOTE: We now meet on the second Tuesday of each month in Room #1 at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, CA. The group facilitator listed below is subject to change with short notice.

Tuesday, September 8: Kevin Griffin

Tuesday, October 13: Walt Opie

Tuesday, November 10: Walt Opie

Tuesday, December 8: Walt Opie




Friday, February 13, 2015

Quote on Craving from Dhamma Everywhere by Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Craving is very tricky; it’s always pushing you. Whatever you think, whatever you say, whatever you do, craving is pushing you, motivating you. There are many ways for craving to come in or arise in your mind. What do you want? Sometimes you should ask yourself: What do I want? Do I want something? There’s always wanting. Because of this wanting, desire, craving, expectation (same meaning), the mind is suffering, tense, and dissatisfied.

If the mind doesn’t want anything, it is free.

You cannot get what you want. If you understand the principle that you cannot get something because you want it and that you only get what comes from conditions, cause and effect, then desire gets weaker and weaker. Craving will be less and less. Everything happens because of cause and effect, not because you want it to happen.

Actually, you only get suffering if you want something with craving.

Peace, liberation, freedom comes because you don’t want anything.

If craving disappears, this is liberation.



[Note: I shared the quote above with the group on Tuesday, February 10 and several people requested that I post it here. Also, the photo is of Sayadaw U Tejaniya at his monastery in Myanmar, which I visited recently. -walt]

Monday, January 5, 2015

2015 Monthly Schedule

PLEASE NOTE: We now meet on the second Tuesday of each month in Room #1 at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, CA. The group facilitator listed below is subject to change with short notice.

Tuesday, January 13: Walt Opie
Tuesday, February 10: Walt Opie
Tuesday, March 10: Walt Opie
Tuesday, April 14: Walt Opie
Tuesday, May 12: Walt Opie
Tuesday, June 9: Walt Opie




Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Upcoming Schedule

Tuesday, December 16 - NO GROUP due to Family Emergency
Tuesday, December 23 - NO GROUP due to Holidays
Tuesday, December 30 - Walt Opie & Special Ritual
Tuesday, January 6, 2015 - Walt Opie



The Four Principles of Mindful Transformation (taken from The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield)

RAIN (technique for looking at our difficulties):

1 – Recognize (pause & step out of denial for true freedom from suffering—name and inwardly bow to our experience—“ah, the judging mind…”)

2 – Accept (relax & open to the facts before us, not passive; Say, “This too.”)

3 - Investigate [body, feeling tone, mind & dharma] (also called "seeing deeply"; Jack Kornfield says, “Whenever we are stuck, it is because we have not looked deeply enough into the nature of the experience.”)

4 - Non-Identify (notice how we identify it as “me” or “mine” + awareness)


Monday, July 7, 2014

Upcoming Schedule

Tuesday, July 8 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, July 15 - Jeff Lindemood
Tuesday, July 22 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, July 29 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, August 5 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, August 12 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, August 19 - Walt Opie
Tuesday, August 26 - Walt Opie

Monday, June 9, 2014

Nothing Extra by Joan Halifax


[This is a quote from last week's talk that seemed to resonate with people. -w.o.]

Nothing Extra by Joan Halifax (Zen teacher):

"Some years ago, walking across the Himalayas, I realized I would never make it over those mountains unless I let go of everything extra. That meant I had to lighten up my mind as well as my overloaded daypack. It all came down to one simple sentence: Nothing extra! Just as these two legs carried me across mountains, those same words carry me through complicated days. They always remind me to let go. They also remind me of the weightlessness and ease of a whole and dedicated heart." 

(From "Being With Dying," by Joan Halifax Shambhala Publications, 2008. Image below by AniMac.)



Monday, April 21, 2014

A Few Quotes from the Last Talk

Here are a few quotes from last week that people really liked and requested:

From As Bill Sees It:
“We recovered alcoholics are not so much brothers in virtue as we are brothers in our defects, and in our common strivings to overcome them.” –letter by Bill W. in 1946 

From Small Boat, Great Mountain by Ajahn Amaro (pg. 91):
Even when we’re getting the axe internally, such as intense waves of greed or waves of fear and anxiety or waves of nostalgia and longing, it’s that gesture of turning towards these experiences and accepting them as they are that allows the heart to be free. True wisdom, far from being beyond the practice of kindness, actually depends on such undiscriminating acceptance of the beautiful and the ugly alike. When we stop running away from things that are apparently painful, even unbearable, and fully engage in the gesture of acceptance and surrender, there is a magical transformation. We transform the so-called difficulty and move into an entirely different state.



Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Upcoming Schedule

Tuesday, April 22 - Walt Opie

Tuesday, April 29 - Jeff Lindemood

Tuesday, May 6 - Kevin Griffin

Tuesday, May 13 - Walt Opie

Tuesday, May 20 - Walt Opie

Tuesday, May 27 - Walt Opie 


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Acceptance & Serenity: Daylong for People in Recovery at EBMC on 4/13/14

Join Shahara Godfrey and Walt Opie for a daylong at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in downtown Oakland on April 13, 2014 from 10 am - 5 pm. The topic of this daylong for people in recovery is Acceptance and Serenity. Click here for more information.

During this daylong for people in recovery, we will explore how our Buddhist practices of mindfulness meditation and the four Brahma Viharas (or Divine Abodes), especially Equanimity, can help us cultivate greater acceptance and serenity in our daily lives. No meditation experience is necessary. All are welcome.

Registration: Registration is required and space is limited. Click here or on the link below to register:

http://eastbaymeditation.org/ebmcreg/?event=apr14recovery

Cost: Dana (donation only). There is no registration fee for attending this event.  


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Take Refuge in the Island Within Yourself

Here's a link to a talk by Thich Nhat Hanh on the "Island Inside" suggested by Paul from the Berkeley Dharma & Recovery group:

http://youtu.be/1un_agCuMzw

And here's an written excerpt of the talk (with thanks to EricaZen):

There are days when you feel that it’s not your day. Everything goes wrong. And the more effort you make the situation becomes worse. Of course you have gone through days like that in your life. You fail in everything, you suffer, you get angry, people blame you, you are not happy… you are frustrated. And you tell yourself that you have to make more effort, but the more effort you make, the worse the situation becomes. And now it is time to stop everything, it’s time to go home to yourself and take refuge.  You have to close your windows: the eyes, the ears… you should close your windows. You should not be in touch with the outside any more. You have to close the windows of your hermitage because there is a hermitage within yourself that is the island of self that you are going to discover. If you continue to be on the outside, you continue to suffer. That is why in moments like that you have to go home to the island of self. And the first thing you do is exactly the same thing that I did at the hermitage, to close the five windows: Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind. Don’t look, don’t listen, don’t touch, don’t think… stop everything, to prevent the strong wind from the outside to continue to blow in and to make you miserable. Because the eye is a window, the ear is a window, the mind is a window, if you keep them open the wind of disturbance will blow in and make it worse and worse. Don’t try anymore… STOP TRYING and shut the windows, you shut also the door, and you go to the chimney and make a fire. You want to get the feeling of warmth, comfort… by practicing mindful breathing, going home to yourself, and rearrange everything, your feelings, your perceptions, your emotions, how they are all scattered all over, it’s a mess. You can now recognize each feeling, each emotion, and you have to collect them, like I collected the sheets of paper that were scattered a little bit all over. Practice mindfulness and concentration and tidy up everything inside yourself. Everyone has a hermitage within.