Weekly Email 3-8-23

Dear Common Ground Friends,

The Buddha taught that it is our not deeply understanding dukkha–the pervasive and sometimes subtle unsatisfactoriness that characterizes experience, that is the cause for the stress and mental pain we experience in life. Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of our delusion is that we think we already know all there is to know about our experiences of suffering. We mostly live with a profound lack of curiosity about the conditioned nature of the stresses, gross and subtle, we experience in life. When was the last time we remember bringing a fresh, clear, open attention to an experience of frustration or stress? Instead, we tend to fall into an unacknowledged arrogant fixed idea about what is going on. For example, thinking that the cause of my distress is that, “You are making me mad!”

With our dharma practice, we train the mind to relate to experience in a clear, deep and open way. We learn not to be so identified by any preexisting habits of interpretation and perception. This more bare and open way of experiencing, allows us to relate to moments of happiness and unhappiness simply as something being known. The mind can even be trained to allow all of the underlying feelings to be seen and felt without imagining that any feeling is more or less than what it is, simply feelings being felt. The mind begins to open to the flow of experiencing without adding or projecting anything extra. With sincere, patient and courageous practice, an insight arises that experience is empty of what is not here. The reverberation of this deepening insight is a greater lightness, ease and freedom in life that isn’t dependent on the particular circumstances that come and go. This is the fruit of deepening insight into the empty nature of experiences of both happiness and unhappiness.

Shelly Graf, Meski Mebatsion and I will be teaching a Living the Practice Workshop on Dukkha and Emptiness on Saturday March 25th. Please join in if you are interested.

Peace,

Mark Nunberg
Co-Guiding Teacher

Registrations Open:

Buddhist Studies: The Three Refuges
Three Mondays: March 13th – April 3rd | 7:30-9:00pm
In-person and on Zoom
Register here

Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation with Shelly Graf
Six Tuesdays: April 4th – May 9th | 7:00 – 8:30pm CST
In-person and on Zoom
Register here

Weekly Programs
To view a complete list of our regular program offerings, visit our upcoming programs page on our website. As always, our online calendar is the best way to find correct times and Zoom links. 

Open Meditation
In person meditation is now available, M-F, 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:

• Audio and YouTube Volunteers: We’re looking for volunteers to join our audio processing and YouTube editing teams. It’s easy to learn! No previous experience in audio or video necessary.
• Office Volunteers: We are looking for one or more people with 1-2 years experience at the center and with prior office experience to help us with office tasks and bulletin board maintenance. Experience with G-Suite and general comfort with computer technology would be helpful.
• 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.
• Retreat Center Wishlist: If you would like to donate a specific item to Common Ground Retreat Center, you can view our wishlist on this document.

Community News 

Volunteers in Prison
A few Common Ground community members are working with prison facilitators to re-start meditation and Buddhist programs that were suspended during the height of covid. If you are interested in volunteering with this community group, you can read more here.

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.

Greed and Hatred Arise From Ignorance
Greed and hatred
arise out of ignorance.
What is ignorance?
It is just not seeing
what is really happening in the mind.

 Thanks to The Daily Tejaniya for this quote