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.