Mindfulness and Liberation True Love Global Sangha: - The ...

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true LOVEFor My Kilt-Wearing Lover (Fragment)By Janelle CombelicIt is the first day of Octoberin a golden year.Under Colorado sunshinethe abbot Thay Tinh Man –your basketball-playing monk –told us to practice loveas we walked togetheramong the pine trees.Send the Four Immeasurables he saidloving friendlinesscompassionjoyequanimityto the earth.She needs your love.We amble in procession behind himat Compassionate Dharma CloudMonastery, all forty of us.Love flows through the soles of my feetdown deep into the earthand miraculously flows back fromour original mother.I step surrounded by sangha.I see the green and golden aspen.I smell the end of summer.I breathe.I try not to think of you.I sink into this bodymade of dust and ashes and miracles.I am nothing.But the mind will have its way.In the brief bliss of emptinessgrief crashes inlike one of the trucks roaring upHighway 285like waves crashing on the beach.How can I leavemy loved ones behind –family friends church sangha?How can I leave house and home?A silent cry wells into tearsand I gaze at the impossibly bluemountain sky, the foam of clouds,the green lace of oak leaves.What can I do but turn to God?Beauty grief gratitude joywrench my heart open wider widerand I know there is room for all.weave a tartan on my heart,a perfect pattern of wholeness.I take a friend’s hand.We walk under the ponderosaswhere not an hour agowhile we sang songs in a circletwo mule deer bucksgrazedwatchingnot watchingthen scampered offinto the sun-drenched woods.Just as I hold you here inside meI shall as I cross the oceanhold all my lovesinside me.I am big enough.My pain and my happinessdance together,Janelle Combelic, TrueLotus Meditation, practicedwith Lotus Blossom Sanghain Longmont, Coloradoand at CompassionateDharma Cloud Monasteryin Evergreen. She recentlymoved to Scotland to playwith the Northern LightsSangha at Findhorn.26 Winter/Spring 2011 photo by Renee Burgard
true LOVEAAs many of us know, things can get pretty tense between teens andparents. That was the case with me (the mom) and our daughterwhen she was a teen. For various reasons, she became very unhappyand directed her unhappiness at those she loved the most.Our relationship became strained, and for a few years, I felt deepconfusion about how to help her. It became hard to show love whenI was getting messages like “stay away” or “leave me alone” fromher. She also needed her parents so much at that time. How to buildbridges and yet honor her wish for independence and separation?How to let her find her own way and yet support her when she wasso depressed by the huge problems of this world?One of our answers came from Thay in a very simple practice:hugging meditation. In hugging meditation, when my daughter andI were able to hold each other and breathe, as Thay recommended,there seemed to be an immediate lessening of tension and a recognitionof our shared love. When we could drop out of conflictand allow ourselves to just hold each other, it always seemed tohelp. At times, she didn’t want to do it and neither did I. But if wejust held each other, sometimes for a few moments, sometimes forquite a long time, something started to happen. We would relaxand feel the warmth of each other. We would remember our basicdeep love. We would sometimes cry. We often got to a deeper placewith each other, to “big mind” or that to which we all belong. Wewould get beyond our little lives for a moment.Happily, my daughter is now in her mid-twenties and is awonderful mother. Our relationship has gotten much easier. Weshare so much now that she is raising a child. My daughter andI agree that most humans are starving for true love and connection.We both cannot get enough hugs from her son. We’ve alsofound that this practice, hugging meditation, is deeper than mostpeople realize.For me, hugging does not come easily, but I often think backon my daughter’s hard teen years and remember the simple connectionwe made through hugging with real love. I hug more now,as an expression of true feeling. To hug with intention, to holdanother human (or animal) with love and best wishes, is a wayto realize our true interbeing. It can be profound, and it certainlyhelped my daughter and me through a difficult time. We cannotthank Thay enough for his teachings, his writings, and his lovefor his Sangha and the world.HuggingwithTrue LoveThay’s Presence in aMother-Daughter RelationshipBy Bobbie BosworthEditors’ note: To practice hugging meditation, you ask the otherperson if she would like a hug. If she agrees, following yourbreathing, take her in your arms and continue to be aware ofyour breathing as you hold her. You are 100% there for her andcontemplate how wonderful it is that she is warm and alive. A hugshould last for at least three long in- and out-breaths.Bobbie Bosworth and her daughterBobbie Bosworth, True Capacity of the Earth, andher husband live in a remote town in southern Utah.The natural environment is their Sangha. Bobbiewas the first Buddhist chaplain in Salt Lake City.the Mindfulness Bell 27
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Page 8 and 9: dharma TALKThich Nhat Hanh with Pro
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Page 37 and 38: true LOVETouchingthe MasterBy Aparn
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Page 48 and 49: global SANGHASpringtime inAustralia
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