Initial questions for reflection

1/19/2021

What’s drawing me to consider beneficial action at this time?
What is it about my issue(s) that makes it(them) a particularly compelling dharma gate for me?
What teachings seem to make the biggest connection between me and my issue and my practice?

Mark Howell

2/1/2021 04:14:12 pm

1/25/2021 10:44:50 am

At this time, I am interested in beneficial action both as an extension of my practice and in response to the condition of in our society at large. Recently, I have been working on Dogen’s Joyful Mind as a koan: when does joyful mind arise as an unconditioned state? “Beauty” is one answer that was presented to me unexpectedly, in voice on a podcast. My hope is that sharing observations during the exploration of this koan will be a beneficial action.

It’s been a difficult year. Our country has endured the pandemic, unprecedented political strife, and societal chaos. Suffering has ensued- both suffering we did not create and suffering we imposed onto ourselves. My fear is that the extremes of the social-political spectrum will overwhelm the wisdom of the Middle Way. I can think of no greater beneficial action than to engage in conversations which address principles and values that are shared in the middle. From this common ground we may find paths forward.

So, beneficial action looks like sharing my thoughts on these topics in the form of essays and written conversations. Writing will be a new practice for me and hopefully will benefit others in some way.

Sawyer Jisho Hitchcock

2/1/2021 04:16:58 pm

1/26/2021 08:33:41 am

Hi all -- Feeling encouraged and energized thinking of our first gathering last night. Feels like a beginning of something unknown, but doubtless good together. I'd like to piece together some responses to the above dharma reflection questions, but for now, an early and somewhat time-sensitive offering:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-the-good-earth-vonnegut-and-the-environment-tickets-136013206161

Tonight (Tuesday, Jan 26th) at 7PM, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis is hosting a virtual kickoff event for their own beneficial theme for 2021 -- "The Good Earth: Vonnegut and the Environment." (For any who don't know of Kurt Vonnegut, he was a writer from the 50s through the early 2000s, born in Indianapolis. Deep heart for the suffering of beings and a keen mind for exposing some of its societal causes... not without laughs and quirky science fiction imagination.) Tonight's event is supposed to be a panel discussion including Janet McCabe (Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute and recently appointed #2 for the Biden Administration's EPA!) and Jesse Kharbanda (Director of Hoosier Environmental Council) as well as other national artists and thinkers.

Here is the Vonnegut Library's event calendar for 2021, much of it in relation to the year's theme of environmental care (which could perhaps be added to the resource page?): https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/2021-calendar/

Given its locality and scope, this yearlong program feels ripe for beneficial community engagement. I'm especially drawn to it personally for its fusion of artistic expression with awareness of our deep ecological troubles right now. These feel like dharma gates to me.

Hope any of you see this in time for tonight and can attend, but anyway they've got a year's worth of events too. I'm looking forward to learning about some hopefully somewhat local opportunities for "earth care" and also to coming back to Vonnegut, who I haven't read in a few years. So it goes...

Thanks Mark for the koan of Dogen's Joyful Mind, arising...

Rev. Dennis McCarty

2/1/2021 04:19:08 pm

1/30/2021 09:47:07 am

I applaud the folks who joined the opening session and really appreciated the informative/sometimes inspiring conversation.

I mentioned at the time--I'm a compulsive writer and my current book project is on racism and the various ways our society pushes a variety of different folks to the margins: People of Color and Indigenous, the "disabled," women and folx of BGLTQI and "non-binary" sexuality. Title is "Ahnungslosigkeit: the Education of a Clueless White Man.: (The first word is German for "cluelessness." There's a story about that.

Anyway, that's my project for now: a descent into my own history of ignorance about the issues other people face.

Also studying the Saturday class on the Heart Sutra. (Noticed Russ there, also. Hi Russ. As it happens, discussions there get into some of the same issues I face in looking back at my own history of ignorance about race, gender, etc, and efforts to overcome it.

Shoryu, who's teaching the Heart Sutra class, also encouraged us to not be afraid of our own ignorant thoughts as they come up. That was a good serendipity for the topic I'm on right now. "Delusions are endless. I vow to cut through them all." Well--cut through a few, anyway. What's impressed me is how they turn up where I didn't look for them.

I got made a facilitator. But I think y'all are teaching me more than the other way around. Thanks to all. The biggest learning of this class--and my book, so far, is that I never know where the next teacher may appear, how much it will turn out that I didn't know, or how challenging it can occasionally be to confront my own ignorance.

Reply

Ryan Murphy

2/1/2021 04:21:33 pm

1/31/2021 02:34:39 pm

Following our first meeting last Monday, I have been reflecting on what is currently drawing me toward beneficial action and, perhaps, one actionable way to start making changes within myself.

During the overview discussion about offering, Hoko mentioned something that made me pause. When describing the ways that offering can be accompanied by attachment to self, I was jolted into a kind of introspection. Offering/giving seems benevolent and caring, but it is clear that it can also be a way of asserting power or creating indebtedness, specifically when our attachments to self accompany the offering. This prompted me to think about some of the other practices I’ve been working on that could also be susceptible to this kind of attachment. The one that really struck was gratitude.

For several years, I’ve incorporated gratitude practice into various aspects of my life, from journaling or telling a family member or friend I appreciate them to reminding myself to be grateful when times are rough. But after Monday’s talk I started thinking that gratitude, like offering, can be clouded by ego attachment. This is most clear when I make a list of everything I am grateful for and it happens to be that everything on the list directly benefits me. Offering and gratitude go hand in hand, and for right now, I’m motivated to re-consider my attitudes and practices around gratitude.

One approach that I would like to try is an introspective practice called Naikan. I first encountered this concept in Sensei Alex Kakuyo’s book Perfectly Ordinary (noticing Mark Fraley has recommended one of Sensei’s Dharma talks in the resource page).

Naikan means introspection and is based on asking three questions. First: “What have I received?” Second, “What have I given?” And third, “What troubles and difficulties have I caused?” I’m noticing now that offering is the basis for the second question, and gratitude is the basis of the first question. My hope is that by turning to these questions regularly (instead of the much simpler question “what am I grateful for?”), I will be able to better recognize the ways I have ego-attachment in offering and gratitude.

Finally, one resource I might suggest (in addition to Kakuyo’s book) is the book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax. I appreciate the psychological richness of this book in explaining how different states can transition from supporting the Dharma to becoming destructive or “go over the edge”).

Thank you, Sangha. Palms together—bowing.

What's Here

We'll post one or more questions each week for reflection and discussion. Please actively contribute to the discussion by posting your reflections and responses and engaging with the posts of others. Your posts need not be text only if you prefer to share artwork, songs, videos or other forms of expression. Click on the title of the post to bring up a comment form that you can full out and submit.

Year of Beneficial Action:
Discussion