Weekly Email 12-15-22

Dear Common Ground Friends,
I’m spending some time this week, supporting a friend in Durango, Colorado. Where I am, the sun is strong. Even though the air temperature is well below freezing, the fresh snow is melting and the pavement glistens as patches of ice turn to water. I stood in the sun this morning, just to feel it but also found myself turning away to soften its impact. Nature is a powerful teacher, surprising us in moments and reflecting that experience is always emerging into existence and passing away, often mysteriously right before our eyes. As we approach the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year or the emergence of light, depending on our perception, may we remember that how we see things impacts how we live through them. During the days ahead, may we learn the lessons of nature, to meet life with a sense of wonder and a renewing interest in creatively and flexibly softening to life’s many impacts.

Please join me in joyfully welcoming Mark Nunberg back from retreat this Sunday. He will lead both Weekly Practice Groups then. There will be a community potluck immediately following the Sunday morning practice group. All are welcome! There are a number of new program offerings as we invite 2022 to a close. Here are a few highlights but please see below for more information. We will have an all night solstice retreat on December 21st and will once again host a New Year’s Eve celebration on December 31st with music by Common Ground’s own, Gabe Keller-Flores and Ellis! Nancy Boler will once again lead an annual New Year’s Day yoga class. Our Buddhist Studies and Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation classes begin in early January. We are also grateful that Nan LeRoy will be teaching a virtual MBSR class to begin mid January.

Warmest Wishes,
Shelly Graf
Co-Guiding Teacher

Weekly Programs
We are experimenting with new ways to get information out about upcoming programs. You may see this weekly email changing some over the upcoming weeks. To view a complete list of our regular program offerings, visit our the upcoming programs page on our website. As always, our the online calendar is the best way to find correct times and zoom links. 

Open Meditation- NEW TIMES!
In person meditation is now available, M-Th, starting at 6:30 a.m. Check our online calendar for additional times and details. There are many In-person as well as virtual opportunities for silent meditation, 7 days a week. Visit the calendar for times and details.

Weekly Practice Groups

• Sunday mornings, 10:30-11:45am in-person and on Zoom with Mark Nunberg
• Sunday evenings, 7:00-8:30pm in-person with Mark Nunberg
• Wednesday evenings, 7:30-9:00pm on Zoom with Shelly Graf

The Practice of Generosity

Continuing in the tradition of Buddhist monasteries in Southeast Asia, all programs at Common Ground are offered free of charge in the spirit of generosity. This offering is possible because of the generosity of people like you—from the Buddha on down to all the people in our community—who contribute their practice, time, and financial resources to support the continuation of the center.

To learn how to support the center and our teachers, visit this page. Let us know if you have any questions.

Current Volunteer Needs 
Please contact Robin Major at robin@commongroundmeditation.org if you are interested in any of these volunteer opportunities:

• Snowblowing and Shoveling: ‘Tis snow season! If you would like to help Ollie and Rob keep the sidewalks and parking lot clear, please contact Ollie at: ostocker1@gmail.com. Ollie and Rob will be happy to train you in with the snowblower if you have not used one before.
• Adopt a Cleaning Task for the Common Ground building! Our meditation home is welcoming more traffic these days. If it would feel good for you to pick up a work task and give to the community in this way, please let Robin know a specific time you would like to come in and we can identify a weekly 15-45 minute cleaning task for you to do.
• Website Volunteer: We are hoping to re-do our website in the coming months. If you have experience building websites and are interested in helping with this, please write an email of interest to Robin.
• Plant Pots: We are looking for two large terracotta, ceramic, or nicely made resin pots for plants at the retreat center. The pots should be at least 15in in diameter.

Community News 

Community Potluck!
Our next Community Potluck will be on Sunday, December 18th from 12:00pm – 1:30pm. If you’d like to help out during the event, you can sign up for a volunteer slot here.

An Evening of Kirtan (Sacred Chanting)
January 7th | 7:30pm – 9:00pm
In-person only
Join Temple of Light for an evening of kirtan. Kirtan is from the Bhakti yoga tradition. It is sacred chanting of mantras and the names of the divine set to music. For many it leads into deep blissful states.

Calendar Page Captchas
If you have been experiencing difficulty opening the calendar page, you are not alone! We are working to update our calendar page and hopefully will have it fixed soon. Accessing the calendar through Google Chrome, or another non-Safari platform, works best.

Weekly Tejaniya

Sometimes it is not helpful to
say, “this is not me,” or “this is
not mine,” because the mind finds
it very hard to accept. To say “this
is a process of nature” may be
much easier to accept.

 Thanks to The Daily Tejaniya for this quote