In Pursuit of Mysteries

No news yet

I’ve finished Day 4 on the job but I’m going away for the rest of a week. I have a trip that was planned before I was hired to go to Ohio.

It looks like I’ll be working with Juan on the next 2.0.0.x release, when it occurs, along with some of the Firefox 3 QA efforts. I’ll probably post a bit more when I have something of substance to add…

21st Century Buddhist Event This Week

For those of you local in the Bay Area this week, there is an interesting event for Buddhists in Redwood City. This teaching day brings together a master of the Mahayana Zen tradition of Japan and an abbot of the Theravadan tradition. How often do you get two masters of two very different traditions together to teach?

I’m in Ohio from Wednesday through Sunday for a short retreat. If I wasn’t going to be out there, I would definitely be attending this event.

Not Two, Not Even “One” — Non-Duality in Theravada and Zen Buddhism

Ajahn Amaro and Joseph Bobrow Roshi
Saturday, June 23, 2007
9:00 am-5:00 pm

Insight Meditation Center
1205 Hopkins Avenue, Redwood City

No Cost: The class is offered freely with an opportunity to make donations to the teachers and Sati Center.
No registration is needed. Bring lunch.

This program brings together teachers from the Thai Forest and Zen traditions to explore the experience of non-duality in Buddhist practice and everyday life. A central foundation of all Buddhist meditation practice is the capacity to observe our experience clearly. As long as we remain observers, however, examining from the outside in, a core dimension of the Buddhist path eludes us. Buddhist schools have diverse perspectives on non-duality: overlapping, complementing, and sometimes, through a playful exploration of differences, cross-fertilizing one another.

The day will consist of Dharma talks, meditation practice and the opportunity for dialogue and questions.

Theravada monks eat only what is offered to them, eating their last daily meal before noon. You are welcome to bring food to offer on this day.

Ajahn Amaro trained in Thailand with Ajahn Chah and with Ajahn Sumedho, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England. He is co-abbot of Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, a branch monastery of the forest meditation tradition, in Mendocino County. He resides there with a small monastic community.

Joseph Bobrow Roshi is a Zen master in the Diamond Sangha (Aitken-Roshi) tradition, and the founder of Deep Streams Zen Institute in San Francisco. He is also a psychologist whose writings explore Buddhism, psychotherapy, and their interplay in relieving suffering and helping us realize and embody our true nature. Deep Streams offers Zen practice; provides interdisciplinary study programs on the interplay of Buddhism and western psychology; and serves the community through programs for Iraq-era veterans and their families, and for high-risk youth.

Mindfulness in Schools

There is an article in the New York Times from last week on the teaching of mindfulness in schools. I noticed that the source program was here in Oakland, California, where I live.

An excerpt from the article:

During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the “mindful” coach, visited every classroom twice a week, leading 15 minute sessions on how to have “gentle breaths and still bodies.” The sound of the Tibetan bowl reverberated at the start and finish of each lesson.

The techniques, among them focused breathing and concentrating on a single object, are loosely adapted from the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the molecular biologist who pioneered the secular use of mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts in 1979 to help medical patients cope with chronic pain, anxiety and depression. Susan Kaiser Greenland, the founder of the InnerKids Foundation, which trains schoolchildren and teachers in the Los Angeles area, calls mindfulness “the new ABC’s — learning and leading a balanced life.”

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I do think teaching children mindfulness is an excellent activity. I’m not sure that it is an activity that is ideal for a public school. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it is not but then I have a fairly low opinion of the normal school environment.

In any case, it is interesting that there are people making an attempt at this with kids.