Director's Message for June 2008

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Greetings,

Yesterday I was reviewing my notes from the Heart of Meditation retreat I attended seven years ago. It was facilitated by a husband and wife that were devotees of the spiritual teacher, Osho (aka Bhagwan Shree Ragneesh). During an evening Darshan we watched a video of one of Osho’s discourses. It commenced with one of his followers speaking to him about her frustration with her process. She said, “Beloved Osho…there is a confusion in me that keeps coming again and again. The message I have gotten from you more and more is to relax with myself, to watch and wait, but I also feel this urgency to wake up now; and then another part screams, ‘BUT HOW?’ What do I need to do? Do I need to push myself through this wall? Could you make this clear to me?”

I was struck by the simple and yet poignant plea of this Chela (devoted student), and it echoes the expressed sense of urgency that I experience from so many in search of personal enlightenment. That is why I was moved to offer the series of Mindfulness Practicums as a follow up to the Colloquiums in which many authentically expressed their concerns about their lives today. I wanted to offer some practices that underlie the Mindfulness concepts that are espoused by enlightened teachers like Osho.

Osho’s response to this woman was clear and concise. He said, “The mind is confusion; it is not that you are in confusion. And there is no way for the mind to be not in confusion. Mind’s whole structure is based on confusion. Mind is duality; it is always split. There is no single point on which the mind agrees in totality. Half of the mind will agree and half of the mind will disagree, and whatever you choose you are choosing only the half. The remaining half is going to take revenge. The unchosen part, the leftover, will wait for its chance to show you that whatever you have chosen is wrong. But it does not matter which part you choose. Choice itself is wrong.”

Osho went on to explain, “So the first thing to be understood is that there is no mind which has ever been without confusion. Have you ever considered that peace of mind has never existed? Peace of mind is intrinsically impossible. Peace happens only when mind is not. It is not peace of mind; it is peace beyond mind.” He offered an illustration, “It is almost like a lotus flower: it grows in mud and water; it is a miracle of nature that out of dirty mud and water it brings out one of the most beautiful flowers in existence. But mud and water are not the lotus flower. The lotus flower blossoms only when the lotus plant has gone beyond the mud, beyond the water, has transcended both – then it opens up to the sun, to the sky, and releases its fragrance to the wind. Although it comes from the mud, it is not mud anymore.”

He went on to say, “The same is true about peace. Mind is muddy; all kinds of relevant and irrelevant thoughts are jumbled there. It is a crowd, with so many fragments fighting with each other that you can call it a battleground. Mind cannot be at peace. But you can go beyond mind because you are not the mind. You can transcend and become a lotus flower. And then there is peace, there is beauty, there is bliss, and all that you have always dreamt about but have had no experience of.”

Osho’s message to this student and to all those that followed his teachings was to relax, watch and wait. He said, “The message remains the same, because that is the only way to transcend the mind. The watcher is always above the mind. The watcher is never part of the mind. The mind is just like a TV screen on which thoughts, dreams, imaginations, projections, desires, and a thousand and one things go on passing. The watcher is not on the screen; he is sitting in the movie hall. But the problem arises when the watcher becomes identified with something on the movie screen.”

In order to not become triggered by what one identifies with it requires the ability to refrain long enough to make a discerning choice about the most appropriate response to the stimulus. In the first Practicum we worked with the practice of Non-Resistance. In the second Practicum we explored the practice of Patience and in our third meeting we surrendered into the practice of Stillness. On July 26th we will work with the practice of Refraining.

Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, in her book Uncomfortable with Uncertainty offers these words about the Mindfulness practice of Refraining, “Refraining is very much the method of becoming a dharmic person. It’s the quality of not grabbing for entertainment the minute we feel a slight edge of boredom coming on. It’s the practice of not immediately filling up space just because there’s a gap.”

She emphasizes, “Refraining – not habitually acting out impulsively – has something to do with giving up the entertainment mentality. Through refraining, we see that there’s something between the arising of the craving – or the aggression or the loneliness or whatever it might be – and whatever action we take as a result. There’s something there in us that we don’t want to experience, and we never do experience, because we’re so quick to act. The practice of mindfulness and refraining is a way to get in touch with basic groundlessness – by noticing how we try to avoid it.”

On July 26th, we will observe how to use this helpful practice in our relationships and just how we can improve our communication process and intimacy quotient with those with whom we positively engage as well as tend to become entangled with from time-to-time.

I have offered the Colloquiums last year and the Practicum series this year as opportunities for you to meet with your brothers and continue the work in between the semi-annual four-day retreats. Rich, Mitch and I take no money personally from these offerings. All registration fees are left in the account to pay the operating costs of the company, Sacred Path Productions, that makes these events possible.

Now, I have a request of you. I would like to have a minimum of 20 participants for each Practicum and have found that there has been some inconsistency in the numbers of attendees over the past couple of years. In January we had 20 participants, in March we had 17 and in May there were 14. I know that those of you that have attended one or more of these events have gotten a lot out of the experience. You have told me so. I also know that we all have busy schedules and many options to choose from…we can’t do everything that we want to do all the time. But, my request of you is that you consider that by supporting these events you are helping to keep the money in the account to be able to offer future events and you are also furthering your own personal growth. Please consider that even though a Practicum with 14 participants may feel intimate and just the right size, it falls short of bringing in the needed funds to meet the on-going monthly expenses. So you 6 guys that thought of signing up for the Practicum but didn’t, we wish you had; and those of you that haven’t considered the benefit of your participation in these events, please do. It’s just as easy for Rich, Mitch and I to facilitate an event that has 20 participants as 14. The preparation is the same but the outcome is different. Please be mindful of how you can support the ongoing programs by allowing yourself to participate in these events. We create these events with you in mind. Mindfulness gives rise to further mindfulness.

On a final note, the Men's Center would like to help where we can and, in addition to our support of at-risk youth through our Call to Adventure Retreats, we are planning to launch a new program to aid veterans returning from the war zone in Iraq and Aphghanistan. Please read Dan Franklin's article in this newsletter regarding his recent participation in a very powerful conference and some information concerning our intention to give back to our Vets.

Ho,
Stephen

For further information on the July 26 Practicum, click HERE