Ruth Dennison

Ruth is nearly 90, and after repeated falls in which she broke her legs and hips several times, she leads us around the property with no cane nor walker. Her will and determination, like the Marines next door, is almost unshakable, and she tells us how for months she focused her meditative attention on each step until she could walk again. She seems to live and breathe Dharma, every difficulty and joy is a teaching, an opportunity to embody fearless and compassionate presence. She talks about being close to death in the hospital, and how after willing her breath to continue, she then had to surrender, and let go to see if her breath would continue on its own. It did. I think the King of Death found her a little too feisty to take yet.

Ruth’s bodhisattva spirit has wedded her to a life of natural unstinting service, and until this year she has continuously led retreats in the desert and at all the major Vipassana centers since their beginning. Over the years, whoever came to Dhamma Dena, ardent seekers and Buddhist nuns, homeless people and mental patients, all were embraced. Ruth respected their spirit, and fed them the medicine of the Dharma, expecting discipline, courage and lovingkindness. Her teachings were demanding and dignified and continuous. She taught that awakening and freedom of spirit is possible here and now. You can find freedom in yourself wherever you are. The Buddha called these teachings of awakening The Lion’s Roar. In the Lioness of the Desert you can still hear the Buddha’s timeless voice.

There are only two things:
you sit and you sweep the garden.
Zen

We sit together, 160 of us amidst the vast landscape of the Joshua Tree desert. I am grateful to have come to this desert for 34 years and to wander among cactus and creosote bushes, craggy red rocks and sunning lizards. Today’s afternoon golden sunlight illuminates barrel cactus, yucca, rabbits, antelope squirrel and distant snow capped San Jacinto Mountains dazzling above the desert floor. Four foot high spiky wild Cholla cactus hold woven nests for cactus wrens, baby birds held safe from all predators. And meditators sit quietly on their zafu nests held safe in the arms of the dharma.

One year the owls made a nest just outside the meditation hall and practitioners looked up to see fluffy chicks waiting for food as they did their slow walking practice. Another year a desert tortoise walked into the meditation hall to visit. Hot days, cool nights, windstorms, occasional hail and some years spring carpets of flowers. At night coyotes howl and owls “whoo” from the tallest pine trees.

The desert can also be harsh as are some of our restless and painful meditations. Certain days have scorching heat and in the twilight coyotes devour mice and rabbits. And we sit in the midst of it all, with our anxiety and loneliness and the endless thoughtstream of modern life and our concerns for the world and the joy and gratitude that open as our minds quiet and our heart is available to love.

We sit in this marvelous desert not to run from the world but to reconnect to ourselves and to the earth, to bring a loving awareness and a caring heart to it all. You can see this renewal happening already, eyes becoming clear, faces more serene and younger (we call it the vipassana face lift), and a steady presence.

Renewed, restored, refreshed, meditators will return to sweep and tend the garden of the world, bringing with them a quieter mind and a wiser more caring heart. You too can make a place to sit amidst the winds of life, to become restored and refreshed, to bring a caring heart to the world. We will be sitting with you.

I’ve been posting musings on my Facebook page, and now that I have a blog page, they will be posted and saved here.

I hope you enjoy this – I always enjoy reading your comments.

Blessings,

Jack

The Mindful Lawyering Conferences include judges and professors, lawyers and law students from around the country. This follows on the Spirit Rock/IMS retreats for lawyers that have been held for years, and now it has grown in new ways. At Berkeley there were teachings on restorative justice, mindfulness in training trial lawyers, compassion and mindful trauma training in human rights work, and how to stay humane and balanced in a system of conflict and overwork.

One of my favorite pieces was read about a judge who had an established meditation practice before he was appointed to sit on the bench. He realized he already knew how to “sit”. Wanting to bring a spirit of mindfulness and caring to the courtroom, here are the kind of instructions to the jury his practices suggested:

“I want you to listen to what will be presented in this courtroom with total attention. You may find it helpful to sit in a posture that embodies dignity and presence, and to stay in touch with the feeling of your breath moving in and out of your body as you listen to the evidence. Be aware of the tendency for your mind to jump to conclusions before all the evidence has been presented and final arguments made. As best you can, continually try to suspend judgment and simply witness with your full being everything that is being presented in the courtroom moment by moment by moment. If you find your mind wandering a lot, you can always bring it back to your breathing and to what you are hearing, over and over again if necessary. When the presentation of evidence is complete, then it will be your turn to deliberate together as a jury and come to a decision. But not before.”

Take a breath. Relax for a moment. Smile at these instructions. And know that though not in court, you too will be listening to other people’s concerns today. Remember compassion for yourself, and for others. You can be mindful, present, balanced, kind. What a gift!

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It is wild plum blossom spring here in California, snowy winter in the heartland and perennial summer with weekly rainbows on Maui. I returned last week from Maui, writing and resting, and joyfully visiting with my old friend Ram Dass. A small group of us “spiritual” folks went to join RD at his house to watch the Super Bowl – lots of excitement and laughter. Being from Boston, Ram Dass rooted for the Patriots. Oh well.

A couple of weeks later RD and I did a telecast together, including a teaching on the Wise Heart. Because of his major stroke 15 years ago, Ram Dass’s eloquent and poetic speech is now slow and limited. And so he has dropped down from his brilliant mind to his heart. And what a big heart – he’s all love. He says he loves everybody (his altar has some of the most disagreeable political figures next to portraits of dozens of his favorite saints). He says he loves it all, people, trees, houses and trash,  bankers and yogis,  organic food and garden pests, birth and death, joy and sorrow.

What is wisdom anyway, if not also love? We talked about how, when we remember, we can so easily tap into loving awareness, wisdom itself. Spaciousness.  Vastness. Mystery.

It is one deep breath away. Feel the vastness even now as you read these words. With a single spacious breath the mind can quiet, the heart can soften, we can become loving awareness. We can hold the sorrows of the world in compassion and offer love without measure to the incandescent beauty of reality.

These are the Buddha’s instructions:

“With a heart full of love, continuously pervade the whole wide world, above, below, everywhere around with loving wishes, abounding, sublime, beyond measure.”

Try it. You will be glad you did!                Blessings, Jack

The compassionate ideals of this whole new generation of technological visionaries spoke of using social networking and online life to promote skills for conflict resolution, healing, individual empowerment, extending a sense of community and care for others around the world, as well as in schools, medicine, healing, environment, politics, leadership and business. It was forward thinking, caring and illuminating…. the wedding of technology and wisdom is just beginning, and this creative conversation gives me enormous hope.

To connect with Wisdom 2.0 go to <wisdom2summit.com>.

“you can pick all the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring”

Pablo Neruda

Greetings on this beautiful morning from a writer’s retreat in the Sandwich Isles. I am visiting Ram Dass and decide to go hear him teach at the Maui Mystic Festival. He is seated like an honored elder under a spreading tree on a blue water, whale watchers Beach outside of Lahaina. The festival camp is inhabited for three days by a temporary tribe of 175 tie-dyed, crystal wearing, loving new-agers. It feels like an eco-reservation for the last remaining hippies, filled with good vibrations, fragrant scents and innocence. Ram Dass uses silence as much as words to evoke sacred presence, a loving awareness of all that is. He looks deep into every eye he can catch with love and wonder and reminds us that we are not our bodies, nor our gender, our race, our role or history. We are souls taking incarnation, born into the mystery of humanity. We are here to learn, to awaken compassion, to remember who we really are.

Wherever you are, join in. Take time today for a few sweet mindful breaths, walk aimlessly for a few steps. Open to a big perspective, invite a sense of wonder. There is an unshakable spirit in you. It is a moment away. Quiet your mind, open your heart, serve the earth and remember what matters in the end is love.

Jack Kornfield, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and one of the most well-known teachers of Buddhism in the West. He’s a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in California. Here, he talks about meditation, his signature loving-kindness practice, an upcoming Kripalu retreat, and why he loves to teach.

What’s at the core of the trainings you teach?
The trainings are centered in equanimity and balance—it’s the training of the heart and mind to stay balanced. I teach a series of steps for equanimity, beginning with reflections on the vastness of time and changing circumstances, ever-changing winds of gain and loss, praise and loss, pleasure and pain. Training has to do with reflecting on the value of keeping a peaceful heart and envisioning others with compassion. We realize that people can love enormously, and that you can’t love on behalf of someone else; we try to understand the limits of love. It’s also using a series of deep intentions: May I live with peace in the joys and sorrows of the world. May you find peace.

What transformations can people have when they practice meditation?
There’s a glow people have, a “meditation facelift” that leaves people profoundly refreshed, their eyes open and skin clear. You don’t have to become a card-carrying Buddhist. You can tend to the beauty that’s awakened in yourself from meditation practice in moments, by skillful use of intention, and the practice of loving-kindness. You can do this anywhere—in the airport, supermarket, or workplace. In any circumstance, even tending young children, having the skills of wise intention is invaluable and makes that circumstance more alive.

Body-based practices, such as being aware of the breath, can help you embody the power of mindfulness and live fully in the present, whether you’re jogging or cooking. The result is the ability to live your life in the reality of the present, rather than in the worries of the future and regrets of the past. And you have the flexibility and ability to respond to your circumstances with a tremendous sense of inner power.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT KRIPALU.ORG

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