I arrived a few days before the first retreat, which is a week of silent meditation, silent meals, silent free period, so basically just silence. The transition from less than an hour of daily meditation to 7 hours (some walking, mostly sitting) plus an additional hour of chanting is a little overwhelming. My body hurt, my mind ran wild. I looked forward to the times I could gaze out the window at the beautiful property in the Green Mountains in northern Vermont.

For as long as I remembered, my body has been filled with tension, because of this it has been rigid and inflexible. I spent years doing yoga on and off with some improvements, which vanished quickly if I stopped the practice. At the beginning of the retreat, I got feedback on ways to improve my posture. The changes were very painful and hard to maintain as they required a constant focus. It was clear I needed to learn to maintain them inside the zendo (meditation room) and outside. It was painful to sit, eat, and walk, but I persevered.

I started to notice two things happen, the first was a large knot of tension in my upper back that dramatically relaxed. The week before in yoga I couldn’t put my arms straight up above my head and even come close to touching them together because of the tension. By the end of the first retreat I could easily touch them together with no noticeable discomfort. The second thing I noticed was that every time I corrected my posture, my mind gave a reason not to. Despite my thoughts I was able to do it anyway. My mind didn’t have to control my actions the way it had my entire life. Being controlled by my mind has caused immense suffering in my life. I’ve struggled with food and masturbation addictions. Like many I’ve been aware of things that can correct these issues, but my mind always found a reason not to. If my mind said it, I did it, even if that was eating four pieces of pizza past the point of feeling full, breaking every diet I ever tried, or avoiding the pursuit of things that truly mattered to me.

Both of these moments were exhilarating. During the many walking periods I spent time walking the grounds. The view is breathtaking. The monastery itself sits on a mountain overlooking an ebb and flow of forest covered mountains and valleys. The property has several ponds teeming with dragonflies, frogs and all manner of life. It was quite a contrast from my previous residence in a boxy apartment complex overlooking a Steak and Shake in Columbus Ohio.

The transition from silent retreat back into life of talking, internet, and running a non-profit between 8:40am and 6 (sometimes 7:30pm) was a little jarring. In silence, it’s much easier to maintain a meditation technique outside of the zendo, when you talk, when other people talk, and of course life itself is unexpected, so it becomes easy to lose track of the technique. I realized I had been staring at facebook during one of my free periods for almost half an hour without practicing, and that was on day one!

Mindfulness is challenging. I found myself struggling to let go of the experience of being so deep inside of myself on retreat. As I talked to the residents, it slowly became normal again. We enjoyed quite a few interesting conversations in the sauna and shared our stories of retreat, our lives and our interests. The connection to others eased the transition. There is a strange balance between a deep need for isolation during the retreats and a deep need for connections outside of them.

After a month here, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’m capable of more than I thought. While doing small tasks I found out I like fixing things with my hands. The intense schedule took so me getting used to but it turns out I do better in an environment of structure. I realized the importance of being around people who can be themselves, and allow me to be myself. Most importantly I found out I really can heal. I’m very thankful for my time so far at the Center for Mindful Learning, and I look forward to seeing where this journey takes me.

Before getting on the plane from Germany to Vermont, USA, I had spent my time studying for a PhD, doing highbrow and needlessly heady stuff. Ironically, while being in the field of “Decision Science”, I’d had a terrible time with the most important decisions in my own life. Most of my scholarly colleagues were of the overthinking type. While many of them were great at what they did and honorable in what they strived for, they often seemed to come at life from a limited perspective. I didn’t fit into the model of academia.

In the meditation retreats and other circles I had explored in the years before, some people seemed to go through life very differently. They lived in a way that I could not explain. The best word I could put to it was “richer”, and I felt like I was missing out. Deeper and more fundamental questions popped up, which I thought I had answered years ago. Looking at friends, I had become aware of how one truly becomes the average of the 7 people one spends most time with. Deciding where to work and what job to do became ever more daunting. Consistently the perception lurked “I am not in the place where I need to be right now. Where I am, I cannot learn the things I need to learn for the rest of my life. Time is running out.”

Only after coming to The Monastic Academy did I realize that what I was experiencing was hardly uncommon. In Pali it is called “Samvega”, a sense of urgency that is growing even though we don’t know why we have it. I had come to understand how valuable time was, and that I needed to commit to something worthwhile. At the same time, something within me said that I was not in a position to do that. For that reason, plans that looked appealing one day looked useless the next. My mindfulness practice had exposed many of the illusions most of us hold about how to live life, but I was at loss to find role models and an alternative.

Saṃvega: A Pali Buddhist term which indicates a sense of shock, anxiety and spiritual urgency to reach liberation and escape the suffering of Samsara. Also, really confusing.

Leaving NYC by train for the Monastic Academy. How did I get here…

So I was off to the Center for Mindful Learning’s Monastic Academy. After a period of nerve-wracking uncertainty, I was following my gut for the first time. To me, CML seemed like an opportunity for serious training in meditation and character building in a way that works in the modern world. I had followed the place since it had been set up a few years ago and their posts would periodically pop up in my social media feed. Each time, I was antsy that such a place existed for the rest of the day: why wasn’t I there?!? As I took the hour-long night drive from the train station to CML’s mountainside headquarters and retreat center, I was unsure; had I been projecting my fantasy onto this place?

In some ways the X-Men academy that I had imagined just does not exist. But in the important ways I hadn’t been dreaming: this place is for real. Diving into the Monastic Academy residency felt like a duck taking to water. Being at an intensive mindfulness training community was constant practice. Literally everything was an opportunity for growth on deeply significant skills. Chanting was a time to let go of inhibitions, to trust one’s own strength, to find ways to do what was needed right then. Computer work was an opportunity for struggling to maintain mindfulness while doing menial tasks, which I had always dreaded. It was very inspiring to see how people who had done this training for longer had blossomed like flowers; they were strong, kind and responsible, and able to gather energy from somewhere inexplicable. It’s hard to imagine this blossoming happening so deeply anywhere else, even with a strong mindfulness practice. Our normal tendency of avoiding physical pain and mental confusion is just too strong to overcome, without a glimpse of a role model, someone who demonstrates why we walk this path. Seeing people as living examples of what is possible helped to transform sitting in meditation through the monthly silent retreats from a battle into a hopeful journey.

Residents, blossoming together after a retreat. Glare may or may not be sunshine.

A big part of that journey was screwing up. Conventional wisdom in the academic world has it that mistakes will break one’s neck and are to be avoided at all costs. That may or may not be an appropriate mindset in some situations, however it is definitely stifling. Probably the furthest away you can get from academia would be when I had to build a laundry line structure, because…  “go do it!”. While everyone was pushing me to get the job done, it still felt healthy. Screwing up felt safe at Monastic Academy and was even encouraged. It was a constant challenge to face tasks I didn’t feel prepared to do to do, such as facing a class full of eight year olds to teach them about mindfulness, or fixing a clogged drain pipe. This was a major lesson. 

The training grounds in full bloom.

The weeks passed by in a flash. On arriving, rural Vermont was still gearing up for the summer. Shortly then, the trees in the garden and the surrounding woods exploded with foliage. Often at 5 AM, while heading to the zendo to start the day, I looked down over Lamoille county being caressed by clouds in meaningless beauty. Three retreats with three different teachers pushed my practice to new levels. It happened many times that when going to bed after a long day I noticed an unfamiliar feeling of contentment. It was finally enough – I was learning what I needed to, surrounded by people I looked up to and having a great time enjoying the summer. Finally enough.

Another commute to the office.

And now? Having arrived here on a short-term visa, I sadly return home, but with a much clearer picture of what’s important. What it looks like to live a healthy, useful life. A rough idea of where my big blind spots hide. These treasures are held together by something I found in the intense meditation practice which is expected at the Monastic Academy. An initial taste of some “thing” which goes beyond experience. Very simple but so unexpected. It made me sense that what the people who teach this path struggle to explain is actually a real thing, something worth striving for. And that all the confusion that comes from not remembering this simple experience is both understandable and tragic.

So rock on, CML. You’ve been both a pleasure and a gift. This is a truly unique organization that has not existed until now. May the gods smile on the crazy experiment that is the Monastic Academy. Something tells me it may just work.

Both close shaves and lengthy manes have been used by a wide range of spiritual practitioners for thousands of years. Native Americans, Sikhs, and Rastafarians cultivate long hair as a spiritual practice that shows strength and devotion. And remember Samson, the Old-Testament hero whose strength was derived from his seven locks? Alternatively, the Buddha instructed his devotees to shave their heads to demonstrate a commitment to living a good and holy life. Even the U.S. Army gives buzz cuts to new recruits as a rite of passage that signifies transcendence of individualistic identity.

Here at Center for Mindful Learning, we practice both Awakening (inner development and transcending the world) and Responsibility (transformative action to make the world a better place). Parallels can be drawn between Awakening and Responsibility and spiritual hair practices. On one side, shaving our hair, we shed ego-based vanity and attachment, thus expressing the principle of Awakening. On the other hand, the care required for maintaining long hair (washing, conditioning, brushing) embodies the compassionate nature of Responsibility.

So. Each of these two approaches to hair represents one of the two sides of spirituality. Awesome. But how could I choose just one? Awakening without Responsibility is reclusivity. And Responsibility without Awakening leads to myopic self-righteousness. Thus, I decided to do both by coupling long, manicured locks on the top with a short, simple buzz on the sides.

However, the style itself is only part of the practice; I decided to utilize the act itself of cutting the hair as a spiritual exercise. Each month the Center for Mindful Learning’s Modern Monastic Team dedicates one week to a silent mindfulness intensive. The night before the meditation retreat begins, my Modern Monk Michael Fogleman and I gather to cut our hair. Michael has decided that the only hair he will keep is his beard (beards also have cross-cultural spiritual significance). As we cut each others’ hair, Michael and I reaffirm our dedication to realizing deep insight in the upcoming retreat. With each pass of the hair clippers, we affirm our unwavering commitment to shed our egos and recognize the true nature of reality, so that we might better serve all life on Earth. Also, it’s kind of fun. In this way, both the style of the hair and the act of cutting it become spiritual practice.

What is your relationship to your hair? What other seemingly mundane facets of daily life (like brushing your teeth or cooking dinner) could be creatively transformed into spiritual rituals? Would you like me to give you a haircut?

Credit: MCPhotographNYC

For almost two years, I lived at the Center for Mindful Learning, now located in Johnson, Vermont. It is true that, if given the choice, I would have never gone. But sometimes life is so gracious as to offer us this choiceless opportunity, to step into and out of something our conscious minds and our egos would very cleverly squirm, reason and doubt their way out of. The truth is I wanted healing, but I didn’t want to, or know how to, change the internal patterns that were wounding me.

What I learned through practice and life at CML is that you can only walk so far on the path without becoming the path. That separation, and the incredibly creative and masterful efforts we put into keeping life and our practice separate, is what wounds us.

Like many of us, I had ideas about what my life would be like. And often my practice informs these ideas, slowly changing them to be less and less about me and more an expression and manifestation of life. But even these ideas, “the good ones”, come up short.

As I leave the monastery, I find myself watching and asking with curiosity, “What is happening?” I see myself shaping ideas and incredible images of What I Will Do Now. And as soon as I gather up these delicious ideas and attempt to stand and move from them, suffering begins.

Once when I was really struggling, which I should add could be a prefix for most sentences about my time at CML, Soryu and I spoke after evening chanting. At this point in my training, I was fighting really hard, unwilling to give up an idea about the life I thought I should have. “I am an artist. I have this performance. It’s important. The world needs to see it. This is what I’m supposed to do and I can’t do it here!” Soryu never said anything about my clinging to the performance or to my identity as an artist. There’s no way I would have listened. But on this one night, months after my performance had come and gone, I’d grown so tired of holding onto this idea of who I was, that I let go… and decided, “He’s right. It’s not about the performance. It’s not about me being an artist. It’s about Walking Across the Country.”

He kindly listened to my newly discovered passion and conviction and said so gently, “Can you imagine how you would have reacted if I told you, back then, that it wasn’t about the performance?” We both laughed knowing I would have thrown a temper tantrum. And then he said, “and now I’m going to tell you, it’s not about walking across the country. It is far bigger than you can ever imagine.”

Each next image of who I am, what my life should be or the direction I am going is only as useful as the breath that gets me there. I don’t know what I’m “going to do next” and yet I trust that I’m already doing it.

I trust this practice.
I trust that there is an effortlessness that comes when I allow the practice to live me.
And in that trusting, I may never need to choose again.
We become the choiceless choice,
and life begins to live us.

A community member who is writing a book about Soryu’s teachings and the residents at CML recently interviewed my dad about my time at the monastery. My dad said, “It’s not a path I would have chosen for her, but I trust her. I had to believe that she was seeking what was best for her…”

It is true, I never would have chosen this path.
And I thank God that I don’t have to.

“You can do it.” 

[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]hat’s the mantra that Center for Mindful Learning Founder and Director Soryu Forall gave us residents before embarking for one-and-a-half months of retreat at the Sogen-ji temple in Japan. The phrase applies to many aspects of the CML Community, from sitting meditation practice to the daily operations needed to keep the organization functioning. But as one of the two new additions to the Modern Monastic team, “You can do it” related most closely to CML’s biggest and most exciting ultimatum: finding our new business model (help us with this process by signing up for a Customer Development Interview).

One of the things that drew me to join CML’s residential program was the chance to participate in the dynamic process of creating a financially sustainable contemplative community in the 21st century. Unlike many organizations that are only concerned with making as much money as possible, CML faces the challenge of crafting a business model that balances profitability with an authentic service to the world. Ideally, it would directly serve our vow to create a culture of mindfulness in the modern world.

Like the Jungian hero’s journey, our business model development is a challenge that we must rise to. In some ways, our business model we choose will define not only what services or goods we provide, but who we are and the good that we are able to do for the world.

The questions we face are daunting. How can we survive and grow within a hyper-competitive economy? How can we not only maintain our current reach, but also expand? And how can we do it all while staying true to our values and fulfilling our vow to create a culture of mindfulness?

I feel privileged that my education and work have brought me so much on-the-ground organizational experience and formal training, and I’m proud to apply this to the project of determining our future livelihood. I’m grateful to be here, living and growing with a warm-hearted group and a way of life that is somehow both intensely challenging and deeply relaxing. It’s an honor to be part of this community and pioneering movement for a compassionate world.

We issue forth into uncharted territory. I envision myself as a warrior, a heroic champion of what’s right, but if I’ve learned anything as a grassroots organizer, it’s that no one person can achieve victory alone. We really are all in this together. So we’ll be calling on you to be part of this community: to help build our business model, to support us financially, to share in overcoming hurdles and celebrating victories. This is how we grow. This is why we’re here. Remember, “You can do it.”

[su_pullquote]And this is why I love the Buddhist Geeks conference. Its not simply a gathering of meditators who are also interested in technology, but a gathering of meditators who are willing to think openly and progressively about any idea. [/su_pullquote]

And this is why I love the Buddhist Geeks conference. Its not simply a gathering of meditators who are also interested in technology, but a gathering of meditators who are willing to think openly and progressively about any idea.

One morning at the conference, while ordering my morning coffee, I ran into Ann Gleig. Ann is a Religious Studies scholar who is writing a book about how the Buddhist Geeks conference is postmodern in its willingness to embrace such a variety of ideas and practices. As I had met Ann at last year’s conference and had been inspired by her work, I was excited to connect with her once again.

With steaming coffees and Boulder-esque gluten-free baked goods in hand, Ann and I sat down to catch up. We talked about a number of things, including my Geography senior thesis project in which I looked at how the Brooklyn Zen Center both reproduced and challenged the class tension that often accompanies gentrification.

To my delight, Ann complemented the balance of my analysis.  She explained that many scholars focus solely on how modern contemplative organizations reproduce class tension and that this is one-sided. Such organizations also often have a positive effect on class tensions (e.g. mindfulness can lead to increased emotional intelligence, which allows practitioners to empathize with people of different socio-economic classes).

[su_dropcap]S[/su_dropcap]uch an intersection of contemplation and social issues was a major topic at the Mind & Life International Symposium for Contemplative Studies in Boston, MA, which I attended one week later. The Mind & Life conference focused on what the Contemplative Education and the Transformative Education movements can learn from each other.

While many people reading this blog may be familiar with Contemplative Education (doing mindfulness exercises in the classroom), fewer may be familiar with Transformative Education. Transformative Education focuses on equity and social justice; it gives students the practical tools to go out and actually transform society for the better.

A take away from the discussions at the Mind & Life conference was that the Contemplative and Transformative education movements are inextricably intertwined and need each other. We can’t expect our students to go out and transform society for the better without giving them the necessary emotional skills and we can’t expect our students to be emotionally at peace without encouraging them to transform an unjust society.

[su_pullquote]We can’t expect our students to go out and transform society for the better without giving them the necessary emotional skills and we can’t expect our students to be at peace without encouraging them to transform an unjust society.[/su_pullquote]

[su_dropcap]F[/su_dropcap]or an organization that has historically focused on contemplative neuroscience, the discussion of social issues at the Mind & Life conference was a first and did not come without resistance. Many attendees expressed hesitancy to expand the scope of the conference from the ‘hard sciences’ to issues of education, leadership, and social justice. Their reasoning is that, as a field, contemplative neuroscience is just now beginning to garner attention, so it is a risky time for Mind & Life (the defining contemplative neuroscience conference) to diffuse resources toward other fields.

While I see this reasoning, I simply can’t ignore the centrality of social issues in the contemplative movement (or any movement, for that matter). Regardless of history and intention, Mind & Life now holds international attention. To not utilize such attention to help the global contemplative movement expand its understanding of suffering from the personal to the social would be unskillful.

[su_dropcap]S[/su_dropcap]erious stuff aside, one of my favorite experiences from the Mind & Life conference was going out to lunch with a group of ten or so new faces (a commonality at such events) on the last afternoon. People hailed from all over the world and were PhDs and artists, meditators and educators. I ended up spending the rest of the day with two of them. We wandered from coffee shops to museums, from kirtan chanting to watching a movie at the Cambridge Zen Center about the Mamos (an inspiring native people from Colombia).

At the end of this fun day, I made a connection with a fellow who may facilitate me leading a retreat for the Gross National Happiness Youth Group in Bhutan in 2015. This was the icing on the cake and the perfect way to end my conference hopping extravaganza. This opportunity was grounded in social justice and contemplation and built from real people making real connections with the intention of going forward, helping humanity to solve its problems.

We come to the end of another year. For many of us, we’ve spent this entire year together. We began this program just under two years ago, so this was the first complete calendar year that we have functioned as a residential community and many of us have been here for that entire time.

We have in that year had the opportunity to see many of the original residents go and bring their practice out into the world. We continue to see the effects of that, to see the impacts on their lives and on the lives of those they touch. And we’ve had the opportunity to welcome new members into this community and that has been an occasion for rejoicing.

We’ve had the opportunity to spend many wonderful days together. We have joined in many wonderful experiences together. We are an amazing group, a beautiful and lovable and inspiring group of people. It’s a great honor to spend this evening with such a wonderful group of people.

And we have together, working as a team, made great progress towards impacting the world in powerful, just, caring and ethical ways. This is something that we can and should be very proud of. Here, we are dedicating ourselves, we’re throwing ourselves into letting go of our stuck, self-centered patterns and perspectives and creating a new kind of community, a new kind of economy that is capable of caring for life more fully than the dominant models that are available at this time in our history.

This is a magnificent dedication and we are living it. We are doing it. We can look back on this year and know that we’ve given this precious year to this prayer, this dedication. We can look back on this year and know that here, we have actually lived it, lived it with each day.

Of course, when I say “here” it isn’t just about a physical location, or being the official member of a certain community. Being here means being a part of the dedication, the integrity, the love for all living things, and demonstrating that with our lives. This is a kind of “here” that is true of all of us in this community, whether we are at this location or not. It’s a magnificent achievement, something to be proud of, something to be depended upon.

We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We as an organization have a vow, have a dedication that we share, and each of us has our own vow, something to be achieved in this life, something that you could say we were born to do, we’re being born to do, we’re going to die for. We each have that, we collectively have that. We don’t know what’s going to happen as a result of that, yet we are fully committed to it.

Some people say that our goals, the commitments that we have, are impossible to achieve – they say we’ll never do it. I hear this often. People say, “I just don’t want you to be disappointed. The vow that you’ve given your life to is something you’ll never achieve. I want you to face it now. I don’t want you to feel bad later.” We here have the chance to experience something beyond that.

Here – I mean in this position of awareness – HERE! In this open minded clarity, we have a way of seeing beyond that. We see, “It’s true, I don’t know if I’ll succeed at this vow. I don’t know about that. But, this vow is something I can be happy failing for. I can fail for this and die joyful.” Its better to fail at what is good and true, than to succeed at what is bad and false. I’d prefer to succeed at my vow of course, but that isn’t ultimately the point. The point is to be fully dedicated. That’s what a vow is – it is a dedication. And to live with that dedication is already success in itself. The objective success that eventually follows is a reflection of that foundational success of having made a dedication. And if the reflection in the objective world for the time being seems to be failure, then that’s okay. I’ll accept that “failure” at my vow. I’d prefer that over succeeding at something that I don’t believe in, something unethical or inauthentic or dishonest or selfish.

Now of course, we spend a lot of our time – people in society spend a lot of our time – not just not succeeding at our vows, and not even succeeding at something that’s inauthentic and uncaring, but failing even at that, don’t we? It happens, doesn’t it? We work hard to succeed at something we don’t believe in and we don’t even succeed at that.

I was teaching a class over at Saint Michael’s College and I asked the class, “So, what do you really believe in? What is it that really matters to you?” and the most common answer was, “Relationships. True Friendship. My family. The people I’ve been close to.” It was a senior seminar so I said, “Now is that going to be reflected in your decisions after you graduate?” And they said, “Yes, absolutely.”

I had a chance to go back at the end of the year and I asked everyone, “What are you doing? What decisions have you made?” And of those who had a clear answer, most were making a decision for work. Most of them were moving somewhere to make money. I asked, “What happened? What happened? You were clear, remember? Do you remember what you said to me?” They did remember then, once I brought it up. But at that moment, not even one of the students had an answer. Not one person could explain what happened over those months. There was nothing to say.

But there was one person, who for whatever reason, had tried to set his standards too low to fail. He said that, “Well, I don’t have any particular goal. I don’t have the goal of being close to my friends, or making money, or helping others. I don’t have any goal. I just want to live, that’s all I want.” Hearing that, I couldn’t help it. I had to let him know. I said, “I have some bad news for you. You’re going to fail at that. Soon enough, you will not be able to live. In a short time, a few years or a few decades, or a few days for all we know, your one goal will be impossible to achieve.”

I bring this up because this is serious. Our lives are serious. So precious. It’s essential for us to see the extraordinarily precious nature of each day. This is partially for our own benefit. Each day is miraculous, and each day, seen this way, is filled with joy: to be able to see and hear and feel and know and love and, yes, fail! All of that is a miracle. All of that is incredible and so for our own benefit it’s important to know how precious each day is. And yet in a bigger picture than that, each day is precious because we have something to give. We have a song to sing, we have a dance to dance, we have a vow to fulfill! And there is very little time to do that. There is not much time. Life is passing very quickly. It’s passing very, very quickly.

It’s important for us to be clear about this. Because if we see how precious our lives are to the world – how precious our true authentic life, a true loving life, is to the world – then we gain what I talk about so much: we gain a sense of urgency. It’s not a sense of urgency that’s based in panic and becomes a frenetic frantic contortion. It’s a clear and smooth and energetic slice straight through the obstructions, to the fulfilling of our vow, our gift, our unique and precious way of fully receiving and using this unique magnificent joyful moment, that we have waiting to be unveiled for the world. It’s essential that we clarify the precious nature of our vow, of our commitment, of our love, of our creativity. We must have DEEP faith so that we can make use of each day. Make use of each day!

Time is passing. Here we are at the end of this year. Time is absolutely merciless. It’s absolutely merciless. We can play games in our minds and pretend we have time to spare, but there comes a day when we realize, “Where did that time go? Where did those minutes go? Those hours go? Those days go? Those months go? Those years go? Where did they go?” Where did this past year go? Well, it’s gone … that’s where. Its just GONE. It cannot be retrieved. We can’t gain enough power and money to buy it back. It’s gone.

The passing of time is merciless. Here we are at the end of this year and it’s important to be clear that this ending is an indication of the end of our lives. It’s a clue about our nature.

This was the essential shift for the Buddha. He was a prince – moving towards the fulfillment of his vow as a bodhisattva – and he realized this shift the first time he saw that we die. People say, “Well, that’s ridiculous. You can’t not know that you die. Come on, you can’t be in your late twenties and not even know that people die.” And yet how many of us get to our late twenties, how many of us get to the end of our lives, without noticing that we die, without seeing that death, meaning time, is absolutely merciless.

There is no way to argue and say, “Wait! Just a second, I’m confused, I don’t know what to do! Just wait for a second! When I figure this out then we can keep on going with this life.” There’s no one to say that to.

This year is ending. It’s important that we see that as an indication of our own end – our end that is in process – that is happening and that is coming – coming coming coming without any interest in our opinion about that.

It’s important that we see this clearly because we so often, we so easily get off track. We worry about things that have nothing to do with what we wish to give this life to. We get worried about this and we get worried about that. We get caught up in this and we get caught up in that. But if we see the precious nature of this day, the precious nature of our lives, then we’re in a position to slice through that. Yes, we may get caught up again but we can slice through it again. In this way, we move closer and closer to the fulfillment of our vow.

The essential component of this path is a true willingness to die. This death is, if it’s merely a physical death, the thing that prevents us from fulfilling our vow in this lifetime. But if it’s the death of our selves, then it’s what enables us to fulfill our vow in this lifetime. Everything that obstructs us, the summation of all those things that obstruct us, that has a name. It’s called “self”.

It says, “I can’t do it. I shouldn’t do it. Who am I to do it? Look at the big world out there, it’s so real. That’s the real world, I’m in this little container here. It’s not real. I’m just a fake person anyway. I’m just making this up. I don’t even know how to do it. This isn’t even going to work. There’s no way. I’m just going to fail at this.”

It’s so easy for us to get lost in that. But even if we avoid that, our selves can obstruct us anyway, tricking us into holding onto fixed views, getting lost in conflict. “I believe this is right, I’m holding on to this belief. This is what I’ve concluded through the logical pounding out of views. I’m right. Everyone else is wrong. Now I’ve got something that I’m going to hold onto and believe in.”

And yet, right here, if we see clearly the merciless passing of time, the precious nature of time that, if we befriend it, enables us to fulfill our vow – in just the same way that time, if we don’t befriend it, prevents us from fulfilling our vow – then we see our relationship with time as the essential component in our lives. We see that CLEARLY! Each obstruction that comes up becomes simply the next purification, the next awakening, the next insight. Then, we’re more able to completely die, to completely let go of everything! So that, in letting go of everything, there’s nothing more that can obstruct us from being true to ourselves, from being true to our love.

We train to become able to completely let go of whatever comes up, to totally let go of all of it. And then we find out, “Is there anything left? Is there any motivation beyond clinging? Beyond fear? Beyond resistance? Is there any other reason to do anything? Is there anything more basic than that? More foundational? Before that and after that, faster than that and slower than that, above that and beneath that, is there anything at all?” If we find that out, then we have broken the obstruction. It then may require a lifetime to clear away the wreckage of it, but at least it’s not growing. At least it has a fatal wound.

This is our opportunity. We’ve given ourselves this opportunity so that we can give our greatest gift to the world. We can feel the enormous confidence that comes from the experience of giving that gift and seeing directly that the experience of GIVING that gift transcends whatever success or failure may be stuck on us by others, or even by ourselves.

Let us dedicate ourselves as this new year opens. Let us dedicate ourselves to completely breaking through, completely letting go of everything we’re holding onto, so that there can be nothing left to obstruct us from actively living our love, our truth, our vow with a confidence that goes beyond success and failure. We live with a confidence that goes beyond entanglement in time, but which does not separate from time. This is our opportunity.

I’m very grateful to be giving my life to this opportunity and this community.

-Soryu Forall

On March 1st the Center for Mindful Learning will be moving to beautiful Johnson, VT and expanding our residential program. There we will spend the next year in an experimental phase focused on answering the following question: What does a socially engaged and economically sustainable monastery look like in modern America? We are interested in answering this question because we see the establishment of a fully modern form of ‘the deep end’ of mindfulness practice as a central component in the radical shift in humanity that current personal, social, and environmental circumstances demand.

As this is no small task, we need to form an effective team. We are specifically looking for a marketing director, an education director, and an assistant meditation teacher. However, anyone who is passionate about meditation and social justice should learn more about the program and is encouraged to apply.

As a small organization, we need your help to get the word out. You can help by posting a link to this page on your social media or emailing people who would interested in the program with a link to this page.

With your help, we will build a modern monastery that will produce the ethically grounded and inspired leaders that our world desperately needs.

Learn more about CML Residential

Learn more about the marketing director position

Learn more about the education director position

Learn more about the assistant meditation teacher position

[su_quote]Things have independent proprieties and are there if we are looking at them or not. Why not believe this?[/su_quote]

It seems to fit with our experience of reality – I look at something, turn around, and it’s still there when I look again.

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]T[/su_dropcap]here is mutual agreement between many people on the proprieties of various objects, the description of experience.

Take the earth for example, there is now common consensus that it is round.

From this perspective, it”s not such a far leap to conclude that there must be something fundamental about “reality” – something that has nothing to do with me – something that I just come in contact with … right?

Not so fast!

From the stand point of a radical empiricist it’s important to explore what it is that we really experience.

[su_quote]What do we really perceive – the object itself or our mental relationships to it?[/su_quote]

Do we perceive water or are we aware of the sense perceptions that our interaction with the water creates?  This is subtle but if reality is made up of matter, independent of our perceptions, I’d like to be shown evidence from something outside, I’d like some non-perceived evidence. Has anyone seen this matter?

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]A[/su_dropcap]toms and molecules are theories – concepts based on scientific frameworks and modes of inquiry. All we know of them is what we can write down, say in relation to our sense perceptions, and information that we can extract from them.

So what are we left with?

A reasonable conclusion might be that physical reality is empty of inherent existence – it doesn’t exist all-by-itself, and all there really is our mind and perceptions…

But wait! Not so fast. How do we account for the changing of the seasons, the growing of a plant, the decay of organic matter. That happens on its own without any obvious mind needing to perceive it.

If there is only mind, who has ever seen this mind?

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]W[/su_dropcap]hen we practice meditation we look deeply into the nature of the mind itself. What does that mean?  When you can attend to the mind with awareness and concentration, you can ask, if and where there is a mind independent of concepts – independent of perceiving.

[su_quote]Is the mind something solid that you can hold on to?[/su_quote]

When we apply the same consideration to mind as we do the physical world, we ultimately come to the same conclusion:

Mind is also empty of inherent existence – even it does not exist all-by-itself.

What are we left with? No matter.. no mind.. Is reality nothing at all?

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]T[/su_dropcap]his is where the wisdom of the middle way comes in. Let us not ask questions that are unknowable in principal – we will never be able to know of matter and mind independent of our own conceptual framework of them, because that is all that is available to our experience.

[su_quote] If we are having sensory experience – internal, external – there is always an observer, an object being observed and a relationship between them.[/su_quote]

If any one is missing the other two can not exist.

What emptiness is telling us, is that things are dependently originated (they don’t exist by themselves but only in relationship).

Meaning, mind and matter neither exists nor do they not exist. They arise together, interconnected.  They cannot be thought of as something independent of our interpretation of them.

[su_quote]Our very perception make mind and matter what it is and at the same time and in the same way that mind and matter create our perception. The two can not be separated.[/su_quote]

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]Y[/su_dropcap]ou may ask, “Who cares?”

Well, good question! These fundamental assumptions lie at the very root of and directly impact how we perceive ourselves and the world.

If we believe that our mind and the world have an independent inherent existence, meaning they just “are” the way they are and there is nothing we can do about it; that we have to just put up with external circumstances, because, after all, they are “really” out there, whether we like them or not; then we live our lives as victims to circumstance.  THIS IS INCREDIBLY DIS-EMPOWERING.

We may never question this – never think there could be another way.  Indeed many people do not.

If, however, we come to see, through direct experience*, that our minds and the world are empty, meaning they only exist in relationship to an observer perceiving them and our conceptual understanding about them THEN THIS IS INCREDIBLY EMPOWERING.

It gives us freedom, it gives us choice. We see directly that we can transcend our experience as an observer observing phenomena, and then we do.  We transcend our conceptual understanding and in this way we become free from our minds and the world.

We also see directly that if we change “this” observer, if we restructure our conceptual understanding based upon that direct experience – then we literally change our minds and the world without anything needing to be different “out there” or “in here”.

When we change our relationship to experience, the power is in our own hands and there is freedom.

*Direct experience is a reference to the kind of understanding that we know from meditation and mindfulness – an understanding that is not conceptual or abstract – an understanding that we know with certainty for ourselves and that we can trust and rely upon.

1. Resolutions

Resolutions are extremely powerful ways to enchance the quality of our meditation practice.

How often have you found yourself finally finding yourself on the cushion only to think about the bills you have to pay, the dog you have to walk, or the pain in your knee?

[su_quote]I have found it extremely valuable to state to myself at the beginning of a meditation session exactly what it is that I am doing and why.[/su_quote]

I do this loudly, formally and specifically with words in my head.

One of my favorite resolutions is something along the lines of “For the next one hour (or however long) I resolve to see clearly the true nature of the sensations that make up my experience of reality in order to experience liberating insights for the benefit of myself and all beings.”

Create a resolution that works for you in your specific practice and see what effect it has on your daily practice.  Intentions are hugely powerful. Use them to you benefit and fight the floudering that so often happens when our intentions for practice are unclear.

2. Contemplative technology

There is an emerging field of contemplative technology. These devices can track, measure and assist you in developing and deepening a contemplative practice.

While there are many such technologies out today, a few of the more popular consumer devices are:

• Melon headset
• Spire
• Buddhify

3. Social noting

One of the most difficult aspects on the path is knowing if you’re ‘doing it right’. Because of the inherently subjective nature of meditation it is much harder than say, tennis, to really know if you’re making progress. This is one of the major reasons why noting is such a killer technique. If you’re noting what’s happening you’re doing it. That’s all that’s required.

Social noting adds a social, or you might say peer pressure, dimension to the technique of noting–and it is fantastically effective. Some of my deepest experiences on the cushion have taken place in the context of social noting practice and it’s easy to see why. The feedback loop inherent to the practice of noting is enhanced by the presence of another person who depends on you for their practice. This means that for the duration of the practice you are completely present, the whole time. Try it. You won’t space out. It’s amazing.

Here’s a good primer on how to practice social noting: http://kennethfolkdharma.com/2013/06/1571/

And, if you don’t have any friends around to practice with, there’s an app for that! BuddhaPong pairs you with another willing meditator to engage in ten minutes of social noting. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/buddha-pong/id897707690?mt=8

5. Increase your neurogenesis

Neurogenesis is the birth of new neurons in the brain. A brain with a high rate of neurogenesis will adapt quickly to training and is the ideal soil for mindfulness to take root and transform the life.

There are a number of behavioural, environmental, pharmacological and biochemical factors that affect this process, many of which we have considerable power to influence. Neurogenesis is also linked to changes in neuroplasticity, which is referring to changes in synapses and neural pathways in the brain. Use this to your advantage to build a healthy brain! A healthy brain changes adapts quickly to training

6. Practice Kindfulness

A spoonful of kindness helps the mindfulness medicine go down. One way to make this real is to periodically do a kindness check in your practice. A few times during the course of a session simply ask the question, “is kindness present?” Simply asking the question is often enough for this skillful quality of mind to arise. If it doesn’t, intentionally generate some kindness towards yourself and towards your mind.