Visit our Website!
|
|
|
Click the icon
above to visit LuminousMind.net or click on one of the Quick Links above.
New content is
added weekly!
|
|
Greetings!
Last week's event with Dr. Mario Martinez was brilliant and insightful, with many gasps of "unbelievable" and "wow" heard throughout the evening. When the DVD is available, it will be announced here.
Friday night Dharma Study resumes Friday, October 23rd, 7-9 pmPiggybacking on our special event, we will begin a series with Pema Chodron on the Four Immeasurables and cultivating bodhichitta - the open, basic good heart. More information below. Introduction to Buddhism - Sunday, October 25th, 3-5 pmInvite anyone you know who would like to connect with the foundational teachings of this ancient path in a relaxed atmosphere. For a flyer on both the above, click here.Weekly classes and Introduction to Buddhism are held at my home in the Belmont/Hillsboro neighborhood, 1716A Linden Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212. 615-463-2374. Click here for map. |
"Noble Heart:"
Exploring the Four Immeasurables
A 12-week series beginning Friday, October 23, 2009
Following on the heels of our special event with Dr. Mario Martinez, our next series will focus on embodying the Four Immeasurables in our direct experience.
Our study will center around audio teachings by Pema Chodron in her series, "Noble Heart: A self-guided retreat on befriending your obstacles." This is the best teaching on awakening bodhichitta that I've ever heard and has been a life-changer for me. Bodhichitta means "awakened mind" and is often referred to as that soft spot in the heart of all beings that allows us to express love, compassion, and joy.
We will listen to the teaching, discuss it together, and integrate the practice through meditation, with relevant books available for reference. Dr. Martinez will stay in touch to help us with any questions of how to integrate the practice using biocognitive techniques. Handouts will be available every week, also posted on our website.
This series gives practical methods for integrating love, compassion, joy, and equanimity in our immediate experience. It is appropriate for anyone, no matter what spiritual path or lack thereof.
Description of Noble Heart
You can't get away from suffering. That's the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences - perhaps more than anywhere else - you will find the seeds of your awakening. On Noble Heart, this bestselling author and Tibetan Buddhist shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource on the path through life's difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart - one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight. Recorded live as it happened within the peaceful shrine room of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Noble Heart is structured so that you can create your retreat at home or at your meditation center. Here are treasured teachings from this beloved acharya (master teacher) - a full 12 session curriculum of meditations, practices, teaching stories, and real-life examples presented in clear, easy-to-follow language. Noble Heart invites you to! discover for yourself the compassion and wisdom that have established Pema Chodron as a leading voice in American Buddhism.
Highlights:
- The four great catalysts of awakening, and how to begin integrating them into your life today
- The basic goodness that nothing can take away from you
- Authentic Tibetan Buddhist chants for generating gratitude and compassion
- Where to find and how to build your inner strength and trust
- The maitri meditation that multiplies love
- How the Three Noble Principles can enrich everything you do
- Why you need your soft spot to awaken spiritually
- When "don't know" mind is wiser than all the teachings in the world
- The Three Lords of Materialism-and how to diffuse their power
- The antidote to aggression
- A melting practice you can use to undo isolation and anxiety
The 12 weeks of classes:
1. The ground of Bodhichitta Practice - ego, 3 noble principles
2. Cultivating unconditional friendliness through meditation - posture, calm abiding (shamatha), working with thoughts, non-grasping mind
3. Developing inner strength and trust - Experiencing reality, the Four Immeasurables (loving kindness, compassion, joy, & equanimity), spiritual materialism
4. The Practice of Maitri (Loving kindness) - The roots of suffering and happiness, ignorance
5. The Aspiration Practice of Compassion - Your "soft spot," ego's weaknesses, addiction and obsession, dualistic thinking, far & near enemies of practice, pity/overwhelm/forgiveness
6. Unlimited Joy & Equanimity - Stages of practice, openness, melting practice, big sky mind
7. The Practice of Tonglen (sending & receiving) - Shunyata--openness of being, awakening Bodhichitta, stages of tonglen practice, dissolving the armor of self-protection
8. Meditation & Wisdom - Post-meditation, purity, categories of meditation, prajna (wisdom/understanding)
9. Generosity, Discipline, & Patience - Categories of them, undoing deep-seated patterns, antidote to aggression
10. Joyful exertion - The nondual paramitas ("perfections"), contemplation, exertion, nonduality
11. Shunyata Meditation -Groundlessness, nature of mind, opening mind, contemplating equanimity, nongrasping
12. Bodhichitta to the world - Connectedness, limitless compassion, dissolving barriers, the Dharmic habit, Bodhichitta slogans
|
Sunday, October 25 · 3:00-5:00 p.m.
1716A Linden Avenue in the Belmont/Hillsboro neighborhood of Nashvile | Click here for map
Home of Rita Frizzell · (615-463-2374)
Learn the basics that Buddha taught over 2,500 years ago. The word "Buddha" means "awake," and the methods that he taught involve working with one's own mind. They are not inherently religious and can be beneficial to all. We will explore the Four Noble Truths, the foundation of Buddha's teachings in a relaxed environment with lots of opportunities for questions.
|
|
October Schedule
Friday, October 16
No study group this week
Friday, October 23
Begin new series on the Four Immeasurables by Pema Chodron
Sunday, October 25
Introduction to Buddhism
Friday, October 30
Study Group
|
|
Quote of the Week
Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, . . . we shall harness . . . the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
- TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
|
|
Let's wake up!
With love,
Rita Frizzell
Luminous Mind
P.S. To share this email with others, click "Forward email" below. If you would like
to edit your subscription to receive only certain emails, or if you
would like to unsubscribe, please see the links below.
|
|
|
