Donald Rothberg, PhD, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice and the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Formerly on the faculties of the University of Kentucky, Kenyon College, and Saybrook Graduate School, he currently writes and teaches classes, groups and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, spirituality and psychology, and socially engaged Buddhism. An organizer, teacher, and former board member for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Donald has helped to guide three six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality through Buddhist Peace Fellowship (the BASE Program), Saybrook (the Socially Engaged Spirituality Program), and Spirit Rock (the Path of Engagement Program). He is the author of
The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World
and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in
Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers.
We explore in this integrative sessions, how a "thick" sense of self appears in various ways, and how we open to experience with progressively "thinner" senses of self. We also look at how anxiety and disorientation may arise at each stage, and how to understand what skillful uses of self are.
We explore the parami (or "virtue" or "perfection") of patience, including its nature and the nature of impatience, exemplars of patience, the connection of patience with other virtues (particularly wisdom and equanimity), and how to practice to develop patience.
After a brief review of past weeks, we examine the Buddha's basic teachings on self and not-self in terms of 1. the model of the "aggregate" of experience, 2. The link between a sense of self and conceptualization, and 3. practices to discern self and open to not-self.
We review briefly the last two talks and explore three ways of practicing: 1. Investigating self when it appears; 2. Opening to experiences of not-self; and 3. doing "heart practice" like lovingkindness and compassion to balance our being as we do more deeply.
After a review of last week's overview of exploring self and not-self, we look at five aspects of self: 1. a more neutral sense of "mere I" 2. Cultural conditions to be a particular kind of self; 3. the social self related to others 4. the wounded or stuck self; and 5. the subtle aspect of separation from other things are person. We suggest practicing to explore these five varieties.
We explore how the topic of self and not-self can be very confusing, for a number of reasons. We then present five perspectives for exploring this theme, a general way of making some sense of self and not-self and two initial practices to study 1. the sense of self, and 2. experience beyond limited senses of self.
We explore on this July 4th 1. The beauty and power of the vision of the 4th of democracy, equality, compassion, and happiness, 2. the contemporary problems that imperil the realization of this vision; and 3. a contemporary vision of addressing these problems and their inner and outer roots, inspired by the vision of the "new Bodhisattva."
We look at several ways to practice when strong, difficult emotions and thoughts are present. 1) Finding antidotes - ways to get unstuck if we are stuck; 2) mindfulness using various tools; and 3) wisdom.
For many Western Buddhists, it is challenging and often confusing to know how to work with views, theories (whether spiritual or social) and the judgmental mind. We explore the nature of views and judgements and how to practice with them, especially in the context of service and social action.
A second overview of socially engaged Buddhism is offered, through vignettes and stories of engaged practices, a discussion of some of the challenges of connecting inner and outer transformation, and a sense of the great creative possibilities of such an approach. With Q&A.
We look at one of the primary training areas of a Bodhisattva, one who connects inner practice and helping others ethical practice. We consider an expansive understanding of the five lay precepts, and the challenges of ethical practices.
In the context of a unit to Occupy Oakland, reflections on the importance for our times of developing our lives to connect inner and outer transformation, and of the inspiration to be bodhisattvas.
We situate the transformation of the judgmental mind in the context of the path of awakening - distinguishing reactive judgments from nonreactive discernment, clarifying why working with judgments is important and pointing to several ways of practicing with the judgmental mind.
We explore the metaphor of the "spiritual journey" to help illuminate phases of our practice, using three reference points: 1. Mary Oliver's poem, "The Journey" 2. The journey of the Buddha and 3. Our own individual journeys.
As we come near the end of a month or two months of retreat practice, we can reflect on how we might connect, as we enter the "world", our "inner" and "outer" practice. We can be inspired and energized by the figure of the bodhisattva, and by seeing the continuity of the core teachings and practices throughout all the parts of our lives.
After an analysis of the roots of suffering based on the teachings of Dependent Arising, we explore two aspects of the path of awakening. The first aspect is about gradual awakening; the second is about immediate awakening in awareness, first momentary, then gradually stabilized.
We explore (1) the nature of concentration: (2)the qualities developed in concentration practice; (3) how concentration practice (and practice in general) engenders a powerful process of purification of body, heart and mind; (4) the nature of wise effort in concentration practice (balancing active and receptive effort); and (5) the relationship of concentration and insight.
We bring in further practices and perspectives to help us work with "enemies" or "difficult persons" including various ethical, body, heart, and mind practices. We close by examining how we may sometimes project onto others our fragmented parts and thus use practice with enemies as opportunities to find greater wholeness.
We explore the pivotal practice of mindfulness of feeling-tone (vedana), by 1) understanding feeling-tone in the context of the teaching of dependent arising; 2) examining the nature of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral; and 3) suggesting a number of ways of practicing with feeling-tone.
We continue to focus on perspectives and practices to help us practice skillfully with those who seem difficult or "enemies." We give attention to further practices and some of the subtleties and complexities.
We explore the nature and roots of suffering, using in part the teaching of the Two Arrows to help distinguish "pain" and "suffering" linking the latter with reactivity.
Being mindful of suffering and reactivity, and learning to experience pain without suffering opens us to greater freedom.
We also explore further the nature of freedom and other ways that freedom may be experienced.
We explore the meaning of developing a love or loving kindness toward all, including one's "enemies," using both Christian and Buddhist resources. Four foundational practices are outlined: 1.Ffollowing ethical guidelines 2. Mindfulness 3. Metta, and 4. Wisdom practices to help contemplate emphathically the causes and conditions of difficult interactions.
The talk, given immediately following two weeks of silent practice, explores themes of remembering what is important, mystery, doing and being, and awareness "open like the sky," connecting how we practice both in retreat and daily life.
We continue to explore a number of ways to deepen practice in daily life, working with challenges difficulties, grounding in the body, working with intention, and practicing with speech and interaction as well as others.
We explore how our practice can come alive in the flow of daily life, focusing on some of the challenges as well as three areas: (1) Various supports for daily life practice, (2) the centrality of mindfulness of the body, and (3) taking difficulties and even suffering as opportunities for practice.
Metta practice is a training inclining toward the awakened heart. We explore several aspects of this training in terms of the development of a number of capacities, working through what blocks metta, and the integration of metta, mindfulness and wisdom.
At this time of earth's stillness, it can be a wonderful time to touch our deeper aspirations, correct with our visions, and set intentions. We do this through reflections, guided meditation and ritual.
At the Winter Solstice, we explore how our practice is in pat to be with the "dark" -- the still, the unknown, the difficult, the generative and fertile -- and in part to open to light , as it emerges from the dark, as we deliberately invoke qualities of light.
(There is a long pause at the beginning)
We complete our exploration of "mature" (or "right") mindfulness, focusing on how mindfulness may be disconnected from wisdom, how it can lead to wisdom, and how "mature" mindfulness is integrated with wisdom (as well as ethics and the awakened heart)
We continue to look at how mindfulness can be understood in the larger context of connection with ethics, wisdom, and the awakened heart. Here we explore how mindfulness and metta can be sometimes seen as separate, but how both practices point to a mature integration-loving awareness, mindful caring, the mindful and wise heart.
In the context of the accelerating application of mindfulness in "secular" settings, we can ask questions about whether mindfulness is sometimes presented as a mere technique. We look at the nature of "nature" or "right mindfulness" (samma sati) and the importance of connecting mindfulness to the awakened heart, wisdom, and to ethics. In this talk, we focus especially on mindfulness and ethics.
We again review briefly the meaning of "getting down to direct experience" and then explore how to use concepts and views skillfully as we are somewhat away from direct experience.
After reviewing the emphasis on grounding in more direct experience, we explore how to be skillful as we move away from indirect experience with our thinking, focusing on (1) having our thinking connected with direct experience and (2) using "views" wisely. Includes Q and A.
Building on the last two sessions, we explore three inter-related aspects of ignorance or confusion: 1. How we move away from direct experience, especially because of reactivity. 2. How we develop, personally and collectively, unconscious material;and 3. How we do not fully understand impermanence, the roots of suffering and the nature of the self. We suggest ways to practice with all three forms of ignorance.
We look further at the mechanisms by which we move away from direct experience. unskillfully, driven by reactivity and papanca (conceptual proliferation). We point to practices of tracking thoughts, emotions, reactivity-that help us ground in more direct experience, leading to greater freedom and responsiveness-personally interpersonally, and collectively.
The essence of our practice is to learn ever better to respond rather than react to experience. Using the model of the "Ladder of Inference," we see how we, when reactive, move away from more direct experience-personally, inter personally and socially. We then explore practices to help us "get down."
Howard Thurman, the great African American activist, mystic, and theologian, once said: “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In the spirit of this guidance, we continue exploring how to understand and respond some of the core issues related to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. We are further guided by (1) understanding the inter-relationships between individual, relational, and collective domains of practice; and (2) taking wisdom, compassion, and courage (and responsiveness) as three touchstones of our practice, both more inner and more outer.
We begin with a review of what was covered in Part I (July 10, 2011), covering the importance of speech practice, the basics of Wise (or “Right”) Speech practice, what this practice looks like in the context of small groups, and the basics of how to approach speech practice in challenging situations. We then bring in new materials, using short presentations and exercises, that expand our capacities to respond skillfully in challenging situations. We first examine how to direct mindful attention to emotions and underlying interests or values both in ourselves and in others (using some of the models from Nonviolent Communication and the Harvard Negotiation Project on "Difficult Conversations"). We also bring attention to our stories and narratives, using the model of the "Ladder of Inference" to help clarify how we often go very quickly to stories (particularly self-centered ones, often way beyond the "data") in challenging situations. We then develop further our capacities to use these tools and perspectives in situations in which we are triggered, and to respond more skillfully.
Guided by several key teachings, particularly how we might bring together wisdom, compassion, and courage, we explore some of the issues raised in reflection on the last ten years. A focus is the parallel between personal practice and responding to larger social issues.
After a review of the material of the last weeks, we explore, partly experientially three methods of accessing extraordinary awareness: 1) dropping ordinary constructions 2) exhausting the ordinary mind 3) touching pure awareness
We focus on how practice includes that of noting impermanence, suffering, and self/not-self, leads to deconstructing the assumptions of "ordinary mind" opening us up to "extraordinary mind".
We explore the nature of "extraordinary" mind and awareness, an our "ordinary' practice deconstructs ordinary, habitual experience and moves toward extraordinary mind.
KALYANA MITTA (KM) GROUPS Workshop held Sun, Jul 10, 1:30 – 4:30 at the Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley for current and prospective facilitators or hosts of KM groups with Spirit Rock teacher Donald Rothberg and Dawn Neal. The focus was on Wise Speech in the context of small groups, and how to address challenging situations.
We continue to look at the cultivation of freedom with "ordinary" mind and "extraordinary" mind, focusing on how we actually practice to cultivate both.
After honoring the intentions for freedom linked with the 4th of July, we explore how awareness creates the space of freedom-both at the levels of ordinary and extraordinary awareness.
One Earth Sangha is oriented toward Buddhist and mindfulness practitioners seeking dharma, practices and community around care for the Earth. See their website here: One Earth Sangha
We explore (1) personal reflections on how to bring home the retreat; (2) grounding speech practice in personal practice; (3) continuing speech practice in daily life; and (4) bringing speech practice into our society - into our organizations, service, and participation in the larger society.
The essence of speech practice in difficult situations is to find ways to stay connected, in one's inner experience and use of speech, to our awareness, love, and wisdom. We focus on a number of supports for such practice, including grounding and centering in the body, being open to difficulties as opportunities for learning, understanding the judgmental mind, and, especially, cultivating deep listening.
Skillful practice with thoughts and emotions is explored, including (1) taking responsibility for our experience, (2) finding balance if we are reactive and out of balance, (3) using mindfulness to investigate thoughts and emotions, and (4) making connections between these approaches and our speech practice.
We explore (1) the importance of speech practice; (2) its place in the path of awakening; (3) the nature of awakening and the path to awakening; and (4) the specific teachings on speech from the Buddha, particularly on the four ethical guidelines of truthfulness, helpfulness, kindness, and appropriateness.
After considering how cultivating equanimity helps us to release and find balance with our conditioned patterns, we explore the powerful principle expressed by T.S. Elliot as "Ours is in the trying, the rest is not our business."
After a review of our first two sessions, we explore, both through an overview and through experiential exercises, bodily-based practices to help cultivate equanimity.
A continued exploration of the nature of equanimity, how we cultivate it in formal practice and in action. with a particular focus in the last part of the talk on "The Eight Worldly Winds"
We explore how mature equanimity is expressed through wisdom, the open heart, and the body. We examine some of the qualities of equanimity and how we develop it in the midst of action, as well as on the cushion.
We explore through stories, teachings and poetry two basic ways of transforming judgments:
1. through mindfulness, reflection, inquiry and other tools we directly investigate judgments and their roots.
2. through developing the awakened mind, heart and body we come to rest more in our deep nature, helping in multiple ways to transform judgments.
Exploration of the major themes of a just completed retreat, including focusing on the essentials of life, practicing fully and opening to the deeper truths.
We step back to look at how we develop the three meditative path factors separately, and how, as practice deepens, the factors become interwoven, and we move forward a kind of mindful, concentrated, effortless effort.
We review our previous exploration of concentration practices with further treatment of 1) wise effort, 2) how concentration deepens toward the Jhanas, and 3) the relationship of concentration and insight practice.
We review the basics of concentration practice,and then focus on concentration practice as a path of purification, and then on wise effort in concentration practice.
We begin four weeks of attention to the three meditative factors of the Eightfold Path, starting with concentration, and including a concentrative exercise and attention to wise effort in concentraton.
As we do on the cushion, we practice metta in daily life in widening circles. We explore sustaining individual formal metta practice, metta in our relationships, and metta in the larger world. (Followed by questions and responses.)
In this second talk of the retreat, we explore further the spirit of metta, through teachings and stories, focusing as well on the themes of metta as a concentration practice, as opening a process of purification, and, as it matures, as increasingly embodied and wise.
At this time of Winter Solstice we explore a number of ways that our practice is to open to the dark (as nature's stillness and silence, as the unknown, as the difficult and as fertile and generative) and to evoke the light, learning better how to hold both.
We look in more depth at the path of gradual awakening and its complimentary path and practice of immediate awakening, suggesting a variety of ways to practice.
We examine the nature of generosity and gratitude and both how to cultivate them , and what stands in the way of their expression through stories and teachings.
We explore 1) The nature of intentions, 2) The importance of intentions in our practice, 3) karma and intentions, and 4) how to practice with intentions.
An exploration of metta practice and how it works-to develop the capacity to lead with the heart, develop in concentration, purify our being and touch our deeper nature.
Wisdom across many traditions is understood as a clear and deep seeing of human experience; a seeing that cuts through conditioning and delusion. We look at the relationship of wisdom to mindfulness and the caring heart, particularly at how we see more clearly suffering, its roots and impermanence.
Mindfulness plays a central role in our practice of living with wisdom and compassion. We explore a number of the qualities of mindfulness as well
as the obstacles to mindfulness.
It is helpful to connect with our deeper aspirations to practice - at the beginning of a retreat as well as before practice sessions. Twelve different responses to the question of why we practice are explored.
We continue to explore the twin practices of studying and deconstructing the separate self, and opening to interdependence, in part through a number of practices.
We conclude our six sessions on wise speech by focusing on perspectives, practices and guidelines that help us be more skillful with difficult speech situations. The talk is followed by a guided exercise and discussion.
In the context of wise speech practice, we continue to explore being aware of feelings and needs and introduce skillful ways to identify "how things are" through "observations."
After a review of last time, of the importance of speech practice and the ethical guidelines for wise speech, we explore two ways of cultivating mindfulness in our speech, concluding with an exercise to cultivate inner and outer attention at the same time.
A discussion of the importance of speech practice and of the four ethical guidelines for wise speech, inviting initial practice of cultivating wise speech.
Our speech practice deepens when we take difficult speech situations as becoming opportunities. We explore the centrality of working skillfully with reactivity; the possibility of becoming more skilled with finding non-dual approaches to conflict and how there are always openings for practice, even when the other seems uninterested in communication.
We explore three increasingly subtle aspects of wisdom and the speech practices related to each of them: (1) the wisdom to know what is wholesome and unwholesome, particularly in an ethical context; (2) the wisdom to know suffering and the roots of suffering, and freedom and its roots; (3) the wisdom to know the nature of more direct experience and the nature of concepts. In all types of wisdom, the basis is the close study of experience, leading to insight and clear seeing.
The Buddha spoke often of the centrality of speaking lovingly from the heart- "affectionately...with a mind of good-will". We explore the importance for speech practice of working directly with mind and heart, learning through metta practice to "lead" with our hearts. We also in the process touch more and more our radiant hearts, transforming what gets in the way of these hearts.
We continue exploring the nature of speech practice, following last night's introduction, focusing on five kinds of mindfulness practice that supports speech practice. Following an overview of mindfulness, we examine (1) connecting inner and outer attention in the midst of speech, (2) the importance for speech practice of mindfulness of the body, (3) mindfulness based on following the ethical speech principles, (4) NVC interpreted as a refinement of mindfulness practice,and (5) mindfulness of the thoughts and emotions.
We continue exploring the nature of speech practice, following last night's introduction, focusing on five kinds of mindfulness practice that supports speech practice. Following an overview of mindfulness, we examine (1) connecting inner and outer attention in the midst of speech, (2) the importance for speech practice of mindfulness of the body, (3) mindfulness based on following the ethical speech principles, (4) NVC interpreted as a refinement of mindfulness practice,and (5) mindfulness of the thoughts and emotions.
In this talk, we locate speech practice in the context of the path of awakening, first explaining the meanings of awakening and path. We then suggest a map of three broad types of interrelated speech practices, focusing on the first type - using ethical principles to guide our speech. We'll explore the others in further talks.
We continue to explore the Tibetan based teaching of the Four Reflections (or reminders) which help us turn more fully to the Dharma, giving a brief review of 1) the preciousness and rarity of human life, and 2) impermanence and suffering, then moving to examine in more depth 3) how our actions and thoughts matter and leave imprints- or karma, and 4) the importance of knowing and turning always from our habitual tendencies leading to suffering.
We explore the first two of the traditional Tibetan "mind-turning" reflections on the preciousness of human life , and on impermanence and death, with suggestions on how to practice these reflections and how this may quicken and deepen our practice.
We examine the twin tracks of transformation - (1) going into what is difficult, into our suffering and wounds; and (2) cultivating awakened states. We explore the resources of (1) wisdom, through examining the the Four Truths and the arrows; (2) mindfulness as a central tool leading to wisdom; and (3) heart practices such as lovingkindness - all with an eye to their roles in helping us to transform distress.
We build from last week's identification of four broad ways of deepening formal practice: 1) developing simplicity, focus and a sense of clear priorities in one's life; 2) developing a strong support structure in various ways; 3) cultivating, in practice, qualities like mindfulness, metta, wisdom etc.; 4) developing a wise and compassionate sense of the path. We explore what these also mean in two other domains- everyday life (work relationships, family, community, the flow of our days); and our service and action in the larger world.
