Mindful Equanimity

Udaya Sutta: Breaking the Cycle (SN 7.12)

2011-09-16T17:57:00.000-04:00

Again and again, the seeds all get planted;

Again and again, the rain-god sprinkles rain.

Again and again, the farmer farms the field;

Again and again, the food grows in the realm.

Again and again, beggars do their begging;

Again and again, the givers give out gifts.

Again and again, the giver who has given;

Again and again, goes to a better place.

Again and again, he tires and he struggles;

Again and again, the fool goes to the womb.

Again and again, he's born and he dies;

Again and again, they bear him to his grave.

But one who's wisdom is wide as the earth

Is not born again and again,

For he's gained the path

Of not becoming again.

slightly modified from Andrew Olendski's translation

Space

2011-06-05T09:42:00.000-04:00

Our minds tend to get caught up with thoughts of attraction or aversion to objects, but the space around those thoughts is not attractive or repulsive. The space around an attractive thought and a repulsive thought is not different, is it?

Concentrating on the space between thoughts, we become less caught up in our preferences concerning the thoughts. So if you find that an obsessive thought of guilt, self-pity, or passion keeps coming up, then work with it in this way—deliberately think it, really bring it up as a conscious state, and notice the space around it.

Ajahn Sumedho

Infinite Regress

2011-01-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

Two young boys were playing together. One asked the other, “We stand on the ground and the ground holds us up. What does the ground stand on?” “Oh, my father explained that to me,” the second boy said. “The ground is supported by four giant elephants.” “What do the elephants stand on, then?” “They stand on the shell of a huge turtle.” “What does the turtle stand on?” The second boy thought for a long time and then said, “I think it’s turtles all the way down.”

-Unknown

Situated not in Space but in Time

2010-10-02T10:53:00.000-04:00

It is in vain that we return to the places that once we loved. We shall never
see them again because they were situated not in Space but in Time, and
because the man who tries to rediscover them is no longer the child or the
youth who decked them with the fervour of his emotions.

The classic philosopher assumes that "our personality is built about a hard
and changeless core, is a sort of spiritual statue" which stands like a rock
against the assaults of the external world. Such is man as viewed by Plutarch,
by Moliere, and even by Balzac. But Proust shows us that the individual,
plunged in Time, disintegrates. The day comes when nothing at all remains of
the man who once loved, who once made a revolution. "My life, as I saw it, "
wrote Marcel Proust, "presented me with the spectacle of a succession of
periods so occurring that, but for a brief space of time, nothing of that
which had been one's sustaining force continued to exist at all in that which
followed it. I saw human life as a complex from which the support of an
individual, identical, and permanent 'self' was so conspicuously absent, was
something so useless for the future, so far extended into the past, that death
might just as well intervene at this point or that; because it could never
mark a conclusion that was other than arbitrary..."

The successive "selves" are so different from one another that each ought,
really, to have a different name.

The Quest For Proust
Andre Maurois, Ch. 6.

What's So Great About Now?

2010-09-09T18:22:00.000-04:00

This article by Cynthia Thatcher is probably my favorite of all time:

tricycle.com

A few quotes:

"The more mindfulness we have, the less compelling sense-objects seem, until at last we lose all desire for them."

"Our entire lives are nothing but a chain of moments in which we perceive one sight, taste, smell, touch, sound, feeling, or thought after another. Outside of this process, nothing else happens."

"We think sense-impressions desirable only because we can't see beyond the conventions to their real characteristics."

"Note the difference between saying 'The present moment is wonderful' and 'It's wonderful to stay in the present.' This is more than a semantic quibble. The first statement implies that the bare sensory data occurring in the present are themselves little bits of divinity. The second allows that, by staying in the now, one can be free from the distress that comes from clinging to those sensations."

No Meaninful Routine, No Meaningful Vision

2010-08-01T13:49:00.000-04:00

Though the emphasis may alternate from phase to phase, ultimate success in the development of the path always hinges upon balancing vision with routine in such a way that each can make its optimal contribution. However, because our minds are keyed to fix upon the new and distinctive, in our practice we are prone to place a one-sided emphasis on vision at the expense of repetitive routine. Thus we are elated by expectations concerning the stages of the path far beyond our reach, while at the same time we tend to neglect the lower stages—dull and drab, but far more urgent and immediate—lying just beneath our feet.

To adopt this attitude, however, is to forget the crucial fact that vision always operates upon a groundwork of previously established routine and must in turn give rise to new patterns of routine adequate to the attainment of its intended aim. If we are to close the gap between ideal and actuality—between the envisaged aim of striving and the lived experience of our everyday lives—it is necessary for us to pay greater heed to the task of repetition.

Every wholesome thought, every pure intention, every effort to train the mind represents a potential for growth along the Noble Eightfold Path. But to be converted from a mere potential into an active power leading to the end of suffering, the fleeting, wholesome thought formations must be repeated, fostered, and cultivated, made into enduring qualities of our being.

Feeble in their individuality, when their forces are consolidated by repetition they acquire a strength that is invincible.

Bhikku Bodhi Vision and Routine

Costly ignorance

2010-07-17T09:42:00.000-04:00

"An untaught worldling, O monks, does not know of any other escape from painful feelings except the enjoyment of sensual happiness. Then in him who enjoys sensual happiness, an underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feelings comes to underlie (his mind).

He does not know, according to facts, the arising and ending of these feelings, nor the gratification, the danger and the escape, connected with these feelings.

In him who lacks that knowledge, an underlying tendency to ignorance as to neutral feelings comes to underlie (his mind).

When he experiences a pleasant feeling, a painful feeling or a neutral feeling, he feels it as one fettered by it. Such a one, O monks, is called an untaught worldling who is fettered by birth, by old age, by death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is fettered by suffering, this I declare."

SN 36

Don't rush off for some other form of stimulation

2010-06-10T18:22:00.000-04:00

"Mindfulness practice offers the restraint necessary to overcome the tug of desire upon the senses. As we notice the mind wandering off to explore a gratifying train of thought, or as we notice the body’s urging to nudge ourselves into a more comfortable position, we gently abandon the impulse and return attention to the primary object of awareness.

We do this again and again, until the mind becomes content with being fully present with what is manifesting here and now in the field of experience, rather than rushing off for some other form of stimulation.

As the mind settles down it becomes considerably more powerful, and thus more empowered."

- Andrew Olendski

Stuff

2010-05-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

Everything in life comes and goes like apparitions in a dream.

Right now, take any object you “own”: a flower, a book, a jacket, or a car. Look at it and know that you will experience this object for only a limited time, for a few hours, days, months, or years. Either it or you will fade, crumble, or die.

When you forget this and take the object as something that is yours, you can’t enjoy it for what it is. When you remember that you don’t really own it, you are free to enjoy it while it is part of your life.

- Ken McLeod

Your greatest happiness

2010-03-30T18:11:00.000-04:00

“I ask you all to examine happiness, to see exactly where was the point of greatest happiness in your life.

When you really look at it, you’ll see that it’s just that—nothing more than anything else you’ve ever experienced. Why wasn’t it more than that?

Because the world has nothing more than that. That’s all it has to offer—over and over again, nothing more than that at all. Just birth, aging, illness, and death, over and over again. There’s got to be a happiness more extraordinary than that, more excellent than that, safer than that.

This is why the noble ones sacrifice limited happiness in search of the happiness that comes from stilling the body, stilling the mind, stilling the defilements. That’s the happiness that’s safe, to which nothing else can compare.”

Phra Ajaan Dune Atulo "Gifts He Left Behind"

Watch the breath in the Cycle, not the Body

2010-03-01T10:46:00.004-05:00

Usually the meditation teacher will say: 'No, do not follow the breath around, stay at that one place, the place where it most usually manifests.'. However, what happens when you do that is you don't notice any breath at all the breath has disappeared from there, and that is why this is a cause for the mind wandering off.

So to counter that problem I advise you to experiment with not being concerned where the breath is actually registered on the body. But just to know, just to have your perception concerned with, not where the breath is manifesting, but whether it's going in or going out, and what stage of going in or out it is.

So do not concern the perception with the place in the body, just be concerned with where in the cycle of breathing your breath is right now and you will solve that problem.

Just a practical test. Close your eyes and ask yourself: 'Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?'. The answer to that question will occur to you before you notice where the breath is positioned on the body. You don't need to ask the second question: 'Where is the breath on the body?'. You just need to answer the question: 'Where is the breath in its cycle?'.

- Ajahn Brahm

One of the eight wordly winds

2010-01-30T10:42:00.004-05:00

Praise and compliments disturb me, Sapping my revulsion with samsara. I start to covet others’ qualities,

And thus all excellence degenerates.

Those who stay close by me, then,

To ruin my good name and cut me down to size

Are surely protecting me

From falling into ruin in the realms of sorrow (Shantideva 6: 98-99).

Evil is problematic

2010-01-17T08:54:00.001-05:00

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

- Epicurus

Buddho

2009-12-29T09:32:00.001-05:00

The word 'Buddho' is a word that you can develop in your life as something to fill the mind with rather than with worries and all kinds of unskilful habits. Take the word, look at it, listen to it: 'Buddho'! It means the one who knows, the Buddha, the awakened, that which is awake.

You can visualise it in your mind. Listen to what your mind says - blah, blah, blah, etc. It goes on like this, an endless kind of excrement of repressed fears and aversions. So, now, we are recognising that.

We're not using 'Buddho' as a club to annihilate or repress things, but as a skilful means. We can use the finest tools for killing and for harming others, can't we? You can take the most beautiful Buddha rupa and bash somebody over the head with it if you want! That's not what we call 'Buddhanussati', Reflection on the Buddha, is it? But we might do that with the word 'Buddho' as a way of suppressing those thoughts or feelings. That's an unskilful use of it. Remember we're not here to annihilate but to allow things to fade out. This is a gentle practice of patiently imposing 'Buddho' over the thinking, not out of exasperation, but in a firm and deliberate way.

- Ajahn Sumedho 'Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless'

Porosity

2009-12-08T17:41:00.000-05:00

Can you make your stillness so porous that disturbances can go through without running into anything, without knocking your center off balance?

- Thanissaro Bhikku

Ego Renunciation

2009-11-03T18:02:00.000-05:00

...attachment to being right, measuring the success of your life by how many of your wants are met, being the star of your own movie.

- Phillip Moffit "Dancing with Life"

Unsatisfactoriness

2009-09-13T14:34:00.001-04:00

On another occasion the Buddha explained his earlier statement that "whatever is felt is included within dukkha" to refer to the impermanent nature of all conditioned phenomena.

The changing nature of feelings, however, need not necessarily be experienced as "suffering", since in the case of a painful experience, for example, change may be experienced as pleasant. Thus all feelings are not "suffering", nor is their impermanence "suffering", but all feelings are "unsatisfactory", since none of them can provide lasting satisfaction.

That is, dukkha as a qualification of all conditioned phenomena is not necessarily experienced as "suffering", since suffering requires someone sufficiently attached in order to suffer.

- Ven. Analayo "Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization"

Insight does not depend only on effort or on strong concentration

2009-08-23T10:23:00.002-04:00

If we concentrate on the pain to suppress the pain, this kind of mindfulness is the object of craving, rather than just observing the object.

This means that the proper mental factor for the middle path of mental balance is missing because our consciousness is turned toward our feelings of like and dislike. When we want pain to disappear, it is attachment, and when we dislike it if pain has not yet disappeared, it is aversion.

Should the pain disappear as we desired, there follows further attachment. Such practice is not the correct application of mindfulness, and the awareness is not seeing clearly the 'present' object because we wish it to be different in the future.

If it is not the 'present' object which we are aware of, then the practice is off the middle path. We can see that establishing the balance of the middle path is not easy.

For this reason, it is of extreme importance to have right understanding first. We must see that insight does not depend only on effort or on strong concentration.

Nor does it depend upon our wish to know or realize, but rather, it depends upon right awareness. If we do not achieve keen awareness, although we try to use much effort and concentration, wisdom still will not result.

- Ajahn Naeb "The Development of Insight"

Your next sense contact can only happen at 1 of 6 doors

2009-07-21T19:49:00.001-04:00

One should dwell like the snake, which sees the mouse hide in an ant-hill with six openings! By lying rolled up on the anthill - constantly watching - the snake remains on the thought: Out of which hole may this mouse appear ?!

Even so one thinks: Through which sense door may the next contact appear ?!

- Unknown

Self, empty

2009-06-26T16:55:00.002-04:00

You are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all, everything depends on everything else, your body depends on the environment, your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the environment, your emotions are largely from the reptillian end of your DNA, your intellect is a chemical computer that can't add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator and even your best side is a superficial piece of social engineering that will fall apart as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in the joint account or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack, or you get conscripted into some idiot's war, or they give you news about your brain tumor, to name this amorphous morass of self-pity, vanity, and despair SELF is not only the height of hubris but it is also proof (as if we needed any) that we are above all a deluded species (we are in a trance from birth to death). Prick the balloon and what do you get? Emptiness.

-- John Burdette "Bangkok Tattoo"

Removing enchantment

2009-06-06T11:07:00.000-04:00

When seeing these types of kamma simply as events - rather than as raw material for delight - one is struck by how inconstant and evanescent they are, totally dependent on causes and conditions that are also inconstant and evanescent. This gives rise to a sense of disenchantment for them, thus making it easier to abandon progressively subtler levels of passion and delight for new kamma and the process of becoming, until ultimately the moisture for becoming is all gone.

- Thanissaro Bhikku - "The Paradox of Becoming"

Heap

2009-05-10T08:17:00.000-04:00

To provide a practical illustration of the five aggregates: during the present act of reading, for example, consciousness is aware of each word through the physical sense door of the eye. Cognition understands the meaning of each word, while feelings are responsible for the affective mood: whether one feels positive, negative, or neutral about this particular piece of information. Because of volition one either reads on, or stops to consider a passage in more depth, or even refers to a footnote.

Ven. Analayo "Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization"

My kind of run-on sentence

2009-03-28T12:02:00.000-04:00

"[Satipatthana] has the depth and the breadth, the simplicity and the profundity for providing the foundation and the framework of a living dhamma for all, or at least, for the vast, and still growing, section of humanity that is no longer susceptible to religious or pseudo-religious sedatives, and yet feel, in their lives and minds, the urgency of fundamental problems of a non-material kind calling for solution that neither science nor the religions of faith can give."

Nyanaponika Thera "The Heart of Buddhist Meditation"

In Touch With Ourselves

2009-03-06T18:01:00.001-05:00

When we are well with ourselves, then whatever happens, it really doesn't matter, because we have equilibrium and stability. We don't feel any lack of confidence. If not, we're always on edge, waiting to see how someone reacts to us, what people say to us or think about us. Our confidence hangs on what people tell us about how we are, how we look, how we behave. When we are really in touch with ourselves, we know ourselves beyond what others may tell us. So these three qualities - a good heart, stability, and spaciousness - these are really what you could call basic human virtues.

-Sogyal Rinpoche Tricycle Summer 2008

Fast moving impermanence

2009-01-25T10:25:00.000-05:00

The only reality we can be sure of is this particular moment right now; and this particular moment as you must be able to be aware of has already passed and this one has passed and the next one has also passed. See how they are all passing! That is the impermanence of it all. Each moment passes, but we cling, trying to hold on to them. Trying to make them a reality. Trying to make them a security. Trying to make them be something which they are not. See how they are all passing. We cannot even say it as quickly as they are doing it.

- Ayya Khema

My body may be sick, yet my mind will not be afflicted

2009-01-19T20:24:00.001-05:00

"...This suggests a sense of dissociation from the experience of pain, as if the affected part of the body did not belong to one. Although one continues to be aware of the pain as an objective phenomenon, this act of dissociation or de-identification diminishes or even removes the affective impact of the pain on the mind."

Ven. Analayo "Sattipatthana: the Direct Path to Realization

Karma

2008-11-07T18:10:00.003-05:00

"The crucial factor influencing how well we can respond in any given situation seems to be the level of mindfulness we can bring to bear upon the moment. If we don't care to be present, unconscious decision-making systems will function to get us through to the next moment, albeit in the grips of (often flawed) learned behaviors and conditioned responses. If, on the other hand, we can increase the amount of conscious awareness present by manifesting mindfulness, we expand the range of our possible responses. Even if disposed to anger, we can choose to act with kindness. This is the essence of our freedom in an otherwise heavily conditioned system."

-Andrew Olendzki - "Karma in Action" Tricycle Magazine Winter 2008

Desire traps

2008-10-09T17:06:00.001-04:00

...Know it in line with its truth. Don't resist it. Don't set up any desires, because the setting up of desire is a deficiency, a hunger. And hunger, no matter when or what the sort, is pain: Hunger for sleep is pain, hunger for food is pain, hunger for water is pain. When was it ever a good thing?

- Ajahn Maha Boowa

Less proliferation to make room

2008-04-08T17:02:00.000-04:00

Some people have an idea that peace and happiness are synonymous with doing nothing, having no duties or responsibilities, being looked after by others. That's rather a result of laziness. To gain peace and happiness one has to make unrelenting effort in one's own heart. One can't achieve it through proliferation, by trying to get more, only by wanting less. Becoming emptier and emptier, until there is just open space to be filled with peace and happiness. As long as our hearts are full of likes and dislikes, how can peace and happiness find any room?

- Ayya Khema

Present

2008-03-15T17:32:00.000-04:00

They do not lament over the past,
they yearn not for what is to come,
they maintain themselves in the present,
thus their complexion is serene.

Samyutta Nikaya 1.10

Helping others

2008-02-24T09:33:00.001-05:00

If a man going down into a river,
swollen and swiftly flowing,
is carried away by the current -
how can he help others across?

Sutta Nipata

Inside-out

2008-02-06T17:45:00.000-05:00

There is no opening in us through which peace can
enter. We have to start within and work outward. Unless that becomes clear to us, we will always find another crusade.

- Ayya Khema

Separate kamma

2008-01-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

"Do not torture yourself for the wrongdoings of others."

Accidental Dharma

I guarantee you can use this to counter the actions of a rude person you come in contact with. It should take no more than 24 hours. It's so cool to feel the freedom that you are able to accept bad things vs. the habitual leap to righteous indignation that only hurts yourself. I've used it twice today :)
-xinu

Not focusing attention on the CONTENT of awareness

2007-12-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

There can be thinking and feeling, but we don’t forget ourselves. If, for example, pleasurable feeling is arising in the meditation and the thought ‘I like this’ appears, we don’t lose awareness and become limited by our identification with pleasure. We refrain from setting the focus of our attention on the content of awareness and, through not grasping, we cease to become lost in the joys and sorrows of existence.

Ajahn Munindo
"Unexpected Freedom"

It's like this

2007-12-08T12:18:00.001-05:00

Here and now, body/mind, judgment-free awareness.

This moment is entirely adequate.

Just Sit

2007-12-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

Usually when I sit in meditation I do nothing. I assume a conscious posture and simply observe what’s happening; maybe the mind is all over the place thinking about the liquorice I had the other night at somebody’s house, or about how it’s a pity the sun has gone in, or about how I will be in Beijing this time next week, or about how the monks at Harnham sent an e-mail asking whether they should use gloss paint for the doors in the monastery kitchen, and so on. Such thoughts might be going through my mind; they’re nonsense, but I do nothing with them. Absolutely nothing, until I start to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and then I watch to see where that discomfort is coming from. It is always coming from the same place: ‘I shouldn’t be this way. I should be ... My mind should be clear, I shouldn’t be ...’ Once this movement is identified, a settling occurs. When we identify that which takes us away from our natural feeling of centredness, we come home. This is not the same kind of effort one would be making in goal-seeking practice.

Ajahn Munindo "Unexpected Freedom"

Drop the rock

2007-11-30T21:17:00.000-05:00

We tend to think of Sisyphus as a tragic hero, condemned by the gods to shoulder his rock sweatily up the mountain, and again up the mountain, forever.

The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock. He cherishes every roughness and every ounce of it. He talks to it, sings to it. It has become the mysterious Other. He even dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward. Life is unimaginable without it, looming always above him like a huge gray moon.

He doesn't realize that at any moment he is permitteed to step aside, let the rock hurtle to the bottom, and go home.

Tragedy is the inertial force of the mind.

Stephen Mitchell "parables and Portraits"

On practising the sweeping form of meditation

2007-11-20T20:46:00.001-05:00

...Not only do we experience their impermanence but we realize that we can only know whatever we fix our attention on. If we take that realization into our daily affairs, life becomes much easier. We do not have to put our attention on things that are troublesome, making life difficult for ourselves. When we experience negativity, we do not need to keep that in our consciousness. We are free to move our attention to that which is absolutely true, namely impermanence, non-satisfactoriness, and non-self. Or we can relate to the pure emotions of loving-kindness, compassion, joy with others, and equanimity. It is entirely up to us where our attention is focused. As an outcome of meditation we learn that we can choose what to think, which is a new and valuable approach to our states of mind. This is also how we can eventually change our consciousness into Dhamma consciousness at all times. We will have learned to let go of those thoughts that are not in line with absolute truth. practicing

-Aya Khema

All one

2007-11-17T19:20:00.000-05:00

We can use mindfulness to observe that everything in existence consists of the four elements, earth, fire, water, air; and then check out what is the difference between ourselves and all else. When we take practice seriously and look at all life in such a way, then we find the truth all around as well as within us. Nothing else exists.

-Aya Khema

Meditation video - Jon Kabat-Zinn

2007-11-14T19:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc

Refuge

2007-11-12T18:09:00.000-05:00

We don't need to take refuge in mother or father again, someone to protect us and love us and say, "I love you no matter what you do. Everything is going to be all right," and pat us on the head. The Buddha-Dhamma is a very maturing refuge, it is a religious practice that is a complete sanity or maturity, in which we are no longer seeking a mother or father, because we don't need to become anything any more. We don't need to be loved or protected by anyone any more, because we can love and protect others, and that is all that is important. We no longer have to ask or demand things from others, whether it is from other people or even some deity or force that we feel is separate from us and has to be prayed to and asked for guidance.

Ajahn Sumedho

Relative vs. absolute

2007-11-09T20:12:00.000-05:00

Live in the nowhere that you came from,

Even though you have an address here.

-Rumi

Joy

2007-11-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

Joy at last to know there is no happiness in the world.

Does anyone know who this quote is from? I've seen it attributed to Ajahn Chah among others.

Impermanent impermanence

2007-11-07T18:52:00.000-05:00

Anicca vata sankhara
Impermanent, alas, are all conditions

Uppada vaya dhammmino
Arising and passing away

Uppajjitva nirujjhan'ti
Having been born they all must cease

Tesam vupasamo sukho
The calming of conditions is true happiness

-Buddha

Impermanence

2007-11-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

The birds have vanished into the sky

And the last remaining clouds have passed away

We sit together the mountain and me

Until only the mountain remains

-Li Po

Pain

2007-11-05T17:44:00.000-05:00

Suppose I’m feeling uncomfortable during the sitting, and I turn to that dukkha and ask: “What is the cause of this suffering?” “It’s because the body is uncomfortable,” comes the answer.

So I decide to move. But after five minutes, I find the body is uncomfortable again. So this time, I look at the feeling a little more closely. And I notice something more: “I don’t want discomfort. I want pleasant feeling.”

Ah! So it’s not the painful feeling, that’s the problem; it’s the not wanting the painful feeling. Now that’s a very useful insight, isn’t it? That’s a bit deeper. I find that now I can be at peace with painful feeling and I don’t have to move. I don’t get restless and the mind becomes quite calm.

So I’ve seen that the cause of the problem isn’t the painful feeling; it’s the “not wanting” that particular feeling. “Wanting” is quite tricky stuff.

Bhikkhu Viradhammo

Creeping forward tentatively

2007-11-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

I'd like to focus this blog on a Buddhist oriented quote of the day (or month or somewhere in-between). Since I'm no expert I'll rely on quotes from authoritative sources. I will draw heavily from Access to Insight. It isn't intended for beginners to Buddhism but all are welcome. I have a bias toward the Theravada school but I'd like to aim for a western Goldstein "One Dharma" approach.