Category Archives: mindfulness
on refuge + resistance | surviving to sustain skillful action
Revolution is not a one-time event.
It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity
to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses;
for instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect.
We share a common interest, survival, and it cannot be pursued in isolation
from others simply because their differences make us uncomfortable.We know what it is to be lied to.
The 60s should [have taught] us how important it is not to lie to ourselves.
Not to believe that revolution is a one-time event,
or something that happens around us
rather than inside of us.
Not to believe that freedom can belong to any one group of us
without others also being free.
How important it is not to allow even our leaders to define us to ourselves,
or to define our sources of power to us…Each one of us must look clearly and closely
at the genuine particulars (conditions) of his or her life
and decide where action and energy is needed
and where it can be effective.
~ Audre Lorde
Post-Women’s March Deep Refuge + Restoration Circle
yesterday, we marched.
today we rest, take deep refuge and restore ourselves in the full embrace of sangha
to rise up and take action again.
~t. scott-miller
sangha study schedule
Join us in February, as we complete our three-month journey along the Noble Eightfold Path with a study the faculties of Skillful Effort, Skillful Mindfulness, and Skillful Concentration. The following month, we’ll deepen our contemplation of Justice, Liberation, and Healing — the focus of our annual call-to-action, March Mindfulness — and close out our winter series with a special full-day workshop on the topic on 3/19. View: Upcoming Practice Dates.
the eightfold path: on skillful speech, skillful action + skillful livelihood
Sangha is studying how we “live into community” and the purpose of gathering as spiritual friends to build our capacity for skillfulness and resilience. To that end, we’re contemplating the Eightfold Path as a set of embodied practices that help us develop wisdom, ethical action, and various faculties that support our meditation.
The Eightfold Path is the fourth of the 4 Noble Truths:
There is Suffering.
There are Causes of Suffering (craving/attachment).
There is an End of Suffering.
The Noble Path is the End of Suffering.
The wisdom pair of Skillful Understanding and Skillful Thinking carries us to gates of the three ethical actions where we may examine how silence and discernment give shape and dimension to:
Skillful Speech — What we choose to say, how we choose to say it, and when we choose to say it. Speech is a form of action (the cause of karma) that is fueled by the quality of our understanding, thinking and intentions. It may be guided by factors that create a more skillful impact (the effect of karma) in the world.*
*(I use world here to encompass our daily encounters with people, places, and all manner of things.)
Skillful Action — How we choose to respond to the world as embodied in our conduct (direct/indirect; personal/interpersonal; private/public). The behaviors/activities we engage in and abstain from that reflect the quality of our understanding, thinking, and intentions.
Skillful Livelihood — I am compelled to expand livelihood beyond its common denotation as the work we do to earn a living. This is also coupled with a desire to suss out the snares of privilege and shame that arise when we narrow in on ethical employment without considering socio-cultural and economic factors that influence where and how we work. Looking deeply at the root meaning of the word itself unearths a broad view of how we cultivate our “way of life” and includes all the choices/actions we make to nourish and sustain a sense of living well (values, interests, experiences and relationships). Our livelihood then reflects and is informed by the quality of our understanding, thinking, intentions and actions.
Our contemplation draws on Audre Lorde’s essay, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action:
What is the quality and impact of our silence?
Where does our silence show up as fear or avoidance?
When can it cause harm? When can it be a tool for healing?
Where can it be shaped into a tool of resistance — a healthy boundary to guard against toxic communication? A way of standing in our commitment to non-violent, compassionate action?
In what ways do we use meditation and practices of discernment as skillful means to transform silence into skillful speech and skillful action?
other liberating actions of the eightfold path
on skillful understanding + skillful thinking
on skillful effort, skillful mindfulness + skillful concentration
criteria for skillful communication
Last December, I was invited to give a presentation to fellow members of my local Facilitators Guild on the 4 Gates of Speech after referencing them in one of our monthly meetings. As I prepared, I discovered overlapping ideas across various wisdom traditions and expanded my presentation into a list of Criteria for Skillful Communication below.
Cultivating skillful communication is more than an intellectual endeavor. It is an embodied mindfulness practice comprised of Deep Listening and Skillful Speech.
We learn to listen deeply by paying attention to our thoughts, perceptions, bodily sensations, and emotions while listening to others and while speaking. Through this process, we can discern what to say, how to say it, and when, if at all, to say it–which is the foundation for impeccable speech.
Intention: To foster understanding and compassion.
Actions: Draw upon silence in order to give full awareness to our experience in the moment and to reflect on our speech before, during, and after speaking.
__________
Before speaking, let your words pass through these gates.
__________
Origins in Philosophical + Wisdom Traditions
I. 3 Sieves/3 Filters ~ Attributed to multiple sources (i.e. Socrates, Quakers, poets).
Is it True?
Is it Kind?
Is it Necessary/Useful?
II. 4 Gates of Speech ~ Possibly Sufi; misattributed to Buddhism.
Is it True?
Is it Necessary?
Is it Helpful?
Is it Kind?
III. 5 Factors of Right Speech ~ Buddhist; from the Vaca Sutta (italicized text mine).
It is spoken at the right time.
Will it be Heard, Received and Understood? Does it Improve Upon the Silence?
It is spoken in truth.
Is it Factual, Sincere, from the Heart?
It is spoken affectionately.
Is it delivered Gently, Kindly, with Compassion, Equanimity, Empathy?
It is spoken beneficially.
Is it Useful, Constructive, Informative, Necessary, Life-Affirming?
It is spoken with a mind of good-will.
Is it offered with the Clear Intention to Not Cause Harm, to Inspire, to Comfort, to Support?
[16 December 2015]
in the dharma circle
So what does this look like in action? Following our meditation practice, Sangha exercises the capacity for skillful communication through a discussion on a selected topic of contemplation.
Our skillful speech has the opportunity to become refined by three factors: silence, bowing (gassho), and breath.
We speak from discerning through silence — using the sacred pause to garner clarity of thought/feeling and to measure those formations alongside the (3, 4, or 5) criteria named above.
We bow when we wish to speak. Sangha bows in return.
It is an embodiment of our commitment, as speakers, to speak skillfully and, as listeners, to listen deeply in order to cultivate our skillful understanding of what will be shared.
We bow again at the completion of our sharing. Sangha bows in return.
It is an embodiment of our commitment to give space for understanding to unfold and for discerning whether to contribute a subsequent insight, question, or experience.
We pause and breathe, for at least 3 full cycles, to center and ground ourselves before contributing to the dharma circle.
The pausing, bowing, and breathing not only bridge the sacred energy of mindfulness to the practical aspect of turn-taking. But these practices also disrupt common communication patterns and de-condition our habits of interrupting, cross-talking, or sparking side conversations.
Whichever of the 3 Sieves, 4 Gates, or 5 Factors resonates most with you, use these criteria to gauge the quality of your awareness and ensuing impulses to respond when holding conversations. It can be jarring for practitioners who intentionally cultivate deep listening and skillful speech to recognize how wide the gap is between how we experience and participate in communication inside and outside of the dharma circle.
on kindred practices: prayer, silence + spacious awareness
“In Buddhism, simply resting in a relaxed, open, spacious state of mind without purpose and without a goal is considered the highest form of spiritual practice…
This spacious awareness is considered both an advanced practice and a practice even the merest beginner can do.
This seems pa
radoxical, but when a beginner does it, it has the quality and substance of a beginner’s awareness, and when an advanced meditator does it, it has a deeper quality of advanced awareness.
That is why I like to call it a prayer of silence. Prayer is not really something you get “good” at, like other skills — although people who pray regularly have cultivated a prayerful attitude toward life.
A prayer is in essence a surrender and
a supplication to that which is beyond ourselves.
In this sense the Buddhist practice of spacious awareness has a universality that makes it kindred with other religions.”
~ Lewis Richmond
Aging as a Spiritual Practice
[originally posted on 15 Dec 2013 on my former site dharma yoga arts]
on the dharma shelf | december 2016
there are no new ideas, just new ways of giving those ideas we cherish breath and power in our own living.
~ audre lorde
In a given season I cycle through a stack of books and frequently exchange “currently reading” snap shots with my circle of family and friends. What and when I read depends both on mood/instinct and whose voice/ideas feel most compelling. It is a discernment that inevitably leads to discovering the message I most needed to hear!
This list comprises books that were long-ago gifted or recently rediscovered that I am re-reading(*) with fresh eyes after many years. Others were recommended or “manifested” at the right time — namely, from the juju-magick of a kiosk at my local library branch where books I don’t even know I’m looking for seem to auspiciously materialize as I pass by!
- Sister Outsider | Audre Lorde
- Reading the Bible Again for the First Time | Marcus J. Borg
- The Gilda Stories* | Jewelle Gomez
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice + Redemption | Bryan Stevenson
- Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, + Liberation | Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, Jasmine Syedullah
- How To Free Your Mind: Tara the Liberator* | Thubten Chodron
the eightfold path: on skillful understanding + skillful thinking
Sangha is studying how we “live into community” and the purpose of gathering as spiritual friends to build our capacity for skillfulness and resilience. To that end, we’re contemplating the Eightfold Path as a set of embodied practices that help us develop wisdom, ethical action, and various faculties that support our meditation.
The Eightfold Path is the fourth of the 4 Noble Truths:
There is Suffering.
There are Causes of Suffering (craving/attachment).
There is an End of Suffering.
The Noble Path is the End of Suffering.
Taking these meaty topics one by one and spending two sessions covering each (and allowing for overlaps as they are inextricably linked), we are inching our way from Skillful Understanding toward Skillful Thinking.
Skillful Understanding blooms from cultivating a receptive “big picture, fine detail” mind that sees clearly into the nature or roots of things as they arise. For example, having a skillful understanding of the 4 Noble Truths — being able to look deeply into each of these statements, turn them over, test them against experience, and create skillful actions based on this understanding.
Skillful Thinking is informed by Skillful Understanding. It is the active mind that generates wise responses to what arises, i.e. seeing the roots and conditions that create my anger in the moment and discerning how to tend to my anger.
How then do we develop these two wisdom aspects of the Eightfold Path? By asking, in our meditations, contemplations, and dharma discussions with friends:
What Is This? Is This True? Am I Sure? Is There More?
_____________
a note about semantic preference
I have a particular fondness for the use of the word skillful here as a qualifier to describe each practice of the eightfold path; whereas, readers of the Buddhist Canon will most commonly see them framed by the term “right” from the Pali word sammā.
I recall first encountering the application of the word skillful to the eightfold path back in the Spring of 2005 in Buddhism for Mothers (which was an inspiring source of guidance for me, as a fairly new auntie who was closely engaged in the care of my first-born niece…and in extending patience to her very young parents). I was enthralled by the word and immediately used it in place of “right” because of its expansive quality.
It moves us beyond the dichotomous “either/or” world view of the ultimate two — right and wrong. And into the vast field of potential where we train toward our mastery of these spiritual capacities. Where there is room for beginning — clumsy, uncertain, doubtful, resistant; for gradually becoming proficient; and for continuously growing in our competency.
I recently discussed this over coffee with a dharma friend who is a Buddhist teacher, who prefers to use wise instead. Albeit more liberating even that, I admitted to her, feels finite. And worrisome to those (particularly younger practitioners) who wonder if being wise is strictly relegated to the loathsome domain of adulting…that wisdom precludes all lapses in skillfulness. So it can become an aspiration to get to. Someday.
As one who has been a spiritual seeker all my life, I am living into my aspiration to be a wise elder right now. It has not merely been a matter of adulting or aging or waiting for my hair to become gray enough for others to perceive me as wise. Wisdom has blossomed from years of deep inquiry and of meeting, owning, and transforming my unskillfulness, again and again, until skillful, compassionate actions become an effortless response to the world around me.
other liberating actions of the eightfold path
on skillful understanding + skillful thinking
on skillful effort, skillful mindfulness + skillful concentration
restoring memory
On this Sunday without Sangha, a memory from last year (27 Nov 2015 — the day after Thanksgiving) popped up on my Facebook newsfeed.
A verse inspired by a beloved park trail where I’ve logged countless miles in a walking-running-praying meditation and, a hundred times over, awakened curiosity and understanding and mapped pathways toward reconciliation.
❤ today, another verse for remembering to remember…for tending to our wholeness and seeing a feast in all things:
i walk for clarity
to release those deep + wordless groanings
that tense my muscles, pluck-stretch my nerves, + accelerate my pulse.
movement is prayer — pleading, seeking, remembering, communing,
soothing heart + spirit
is it my favorite posture of meditation — fine-tuning my capacity to listen, discern, + take skillful, compassion-centered action
clearing up space for love-wisdom to prevail
#TouchingTheEarth #EmbodiedPrayer #EmbodiedWisdom #TheHeartAtRest
Related:
Native American Girls Describe the Real History Behind Thanksgiving via Teen Vogue
The History of Thanksgiving You Weren’t Taught In School via attn:
skillful communication | anti-oppressive communication webinar
the empty seat at your table
It’s astonishing that people are actually coming out of their faces to say that voters didn’t intend to cause harm or to condone violence when they elected a demagogue.
Please tell me what multiverse are you living in?
That man’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-disabled, anti-poor, anti-everybody-who-has-a-heart-for-what-is-just-and-equitable rants were not whispered behind closed doors and later leaked into the public sphere after folks were good-and-bamboozled by his charisma and hope-filled messages.
He was loud, boisterous and unapologetic about his oppressive views. He attracted and continues to be endorsed, lauded, now flaunted and paraded by white supremacists with confederate flags, swastikas, and full KKK regalia.
The hate and violence that fueled the campaign has escalated since Tuesday.
His “win” has become a “license to lynch” — with numerous accounts of children, women, LGBTQ persons being physically attacked, taunted, harassed and threatened.
(I will not link those articles here. Instead, I encourage you to take good care of your mental/emotional well-being with your consumption of these images and stories. You can be informed without overexposing yourself to the toxicity).
The terror is real. The breech of trust is real. It is happening in your neighborhoods and schools and was, in fact, sanctioned by decent, well-intentioned folk who just wanted to “Make America Great Again”…nevermind the true cost.
I’m intelligent enough to get it. I’m committed to skillful understanding and have the capacity to see through my outrage and fear to look into theirs.
I know they felt seen, heard, and understood for the first time by, unfortunately, a “pulls-no-punches,” plain (and vulgar) language-talking reality-tv tycoon who, unlike the career politicians we’re accustomed to, doesn’t fit neatly into the shiny 4-cornered presidential candidate box.
Yes, our system is broken. Yes, it often feels like two steps forward, 10 back.
But you can’t set my house on fire just because you think it’s a raggedy eyesore blocking your view, then say “whoopsie!” when you realize I was still inside.
(By the way, the flames are raging because you keep adding more accelerant.)
What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
–Matthew 16:26 NIV
Now here comes the cultural gaslighting — from the passive-aggressive (“We’ve survived 44 other presidents. It’s not the end of the world.”) to the outright manipulative dismissals and trivializations (“You’re exaggerating. It’s not that bad.”). In. The. Face. Of. Facts!
Beyond the undeniable evidence of these egregious acts of violence, there remain personal truths. And, I refuse to let you tell me what my experience is or should be.
Own your actions. Own the consequences of your vote.
If you voted for hate, just look me in the eye and say: Fuck you, Tara, and every breath that you take! so I know where we stand.
Understand that with your vote, you were willing to risk not just relationships with people you know and love, but to also risk the safety and very basic human rights to millions of people who, like you, simply want to live.
You cannot be surprised or offended that relationships have been lost or compromised.
You wanted more for yourself? You got it!
Look across the table to the empty seat.
Feast on what remains when your friends, neighbors, and family decline your invitation to break bread. They deserve to protect themselves from being exposed to the consequences of your self-interest.
And if you’re in any way moved by their absence, it’s time to examine your discomfort.
If not, well, then enjoy the extra elbow room.
He who argues for his limitations
gets to keep them.
— Richard Bach
suprised? curious? confused?
why the stakes are high for me
10 Tips for Christians Supporting Trump
more on gaslighting
6 Unhelpful Comments That Gaslight People in Conversations About Social Justice
On Women’s Rights: Yeah, Yeah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Whatever
Gaslighting Is a Common Abuse Tactic
tscottmiller 