In the final session of this series, teachers Ronya Banks and Donald Rothberg offer a number of resources that can help one navigate these times and the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. After a brief period of meditation, we offer four teachings and practices, each first explored through teachings and then briefly guided experientially: (1) the teaching of the Two Arrows and Dependent Origination pointing to the nature of reactivity--habitual and often unconscious grasping after the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant or painful; (2) the teachings about attachment to views; (3) the cultivation of wise speech and empathy, increasingly pointing toward universal empathy and what Dr. King called the "beloved community"; and (4) practicing with difficult emotions, body states (including traumatic reactions), and thoughts. These teachings and practices are followed by a period of discussion, closing intentions, and the dedication of merit.

The Dalai Lama has said, “My religion is kindness," suggesting that the core of spirituality is both beyond any particular religion and does not require religion. We explore, in a similar way, how the basics of Buddhist teachings and practices-- related to ethics, kindness and compassion, wisdom, and touching nibbana--can be understood and expressed in ordinary, everyday language and at its heart is both shared by other spiritual traditions and potentially beyond any particular tradition. The talk is followed by discussion.

Related to the talk given after the guided meditation on the foundational practices and how we can talk very simply about them, we begin remembering our grounding in ethics, and then develop concentration, then mindfulness and wisdom, and later the kind and compassionate heart.

In session 2 of this series, Donald Rothberg and Ronya Banks will engage in dialogue around their Jewish and Palestinian identities, their family histories, and their own experiences of being Buddhist teachers navigating the complexities of the conflict in Palestine/Israel. During the course of the conversation, they will offer reflections on what has been most helpful to each of them in dealing with painful truths, strong emotions, and difficult conversations. In the last part of the session, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer reflections.

We continue with our exploration of how we contact what is "deep" in our lives and in life, and how we stay connected with our depths in our practice. We initially give a review of some of what we explored last week, recalling some of the many metaphors used for deepening in our lives in spiritual traditions, including awakening, being on a journey, liberation, seeing clearly whereas previously we didn't see clearly, coming to wholeness, among others. We recall the Buddhist emphasis on wisdom (especially the three ways of seeing that liberate--seeing into impermanence, dukkha or reactivity, and not-self; as well as touching nibbana); compassion; and skillful action. We hear also from several people sharing their experiences of their depths. We then explore a number of ways to stay connected in daily life with our depths, including several not mentioned last week. The talk is followed by discussion, including sharing of some ways that people in the group find helpful in terms of staying connected with their depths, including using phrases like "Begin again" and "Keep coming back."

How do we live from the depths of our being? We explore this question in a number of different ways. We begin by looking at some of the metaphors for "spiritual practice" (itself involving metaphors), including the sense of touching and living from our depths, becoming a "big person" (a Mahaatta in the Buddha's phrasing), awakening, being on a journey, and seeing through our conditioning, delusions, and the 70,000 veils (as is said in Islamic tradition). In Buddhist tradition, we especially connect, as in the image of the bird with two wings, with wisdom and compassion, and with ways to bring these qualities into our actions and interactions. After inviting several people to share experiences of their depths, we then explore a number of different ways to stay connected in daily life with our depths. The talk is followed by discussion.

A guided meditation connected with the talk on "Living from Our Depths," touching on exploring two of the three areas of liberating insight (impermanence and reactivity--or Dukkha) connected with developing wisdom, and practicing lovingkindness (or another heart practice), connected with developing the "awakened heart."

A central way to describe our practice is to say that we aim to touch and deepen in wisdom and in the awakened heart (particularly through cultivating the “divine abodes”: lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity), and to live and act increasingly from wisdom and the awakened heart. This is like the well-known image of the teachings and practices being like the bird with two wings—wisdom and compassion (the latter signifying the different qualities of the awakened heart). In the talk, we cover five areas exploring particularly how we connect wisdom and the awakened heart: (1) the aspiration to grow in wisdom and the awakened heart and the nature of wisdom and the awakened heart; (2) our social conditioning (including gender conditioning) about wisdom and the heart and how they can be separate in our lives or one or both may be relatively undeveloped; (3) some ways that they seem separate even in Buddhist teachings and practices, particularly in how metta has sometimes been understood; (4) how to have from different teachings of the Buddha a deeper sense of wisdom and the awakened heart as connected and integrated; and (5) how we might integrate the two in our practices, particularly focusing on the practices we explored in the guided meditation. The talk is followed by discussion.