Dear Common Ground Friends,
The Buddha’s path has a particular flavor to it, the flavor of inner relinquishment of attachment. The resulting freedom reflects the unbinding of one’s heart. The process of relinquishment goes against our conditioned habits to grasp and struggle with our views and all the circumstances of life. The following excerpt is from an interaction between Mahapajapati Gotami and the Buddha. She was the first Bhikkhuni or Buddhist nun. She was also the Buddha’s aunt who raised the Bodhisatta (Buddha to be) after his mother died in childbirth. After she was ordained she asked the Buddha to offer her teachings in brief so that she could practice wisely. Mahapajapati took these teachings to heart and soon became one of the awakened ones and an important leader in the early Buddhist monastic sangha. This is the essence of what the Buddha offered in reply:
‘These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to fewer desires, not to more desires; to contentment, not to discontentment; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma (truth of the way things are), this is the training, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’” (AN 8:53)
Notice what a comprehensive value system this teaching creates for a sincere practitioner. Although we are not monastics, there is nothing in the way of us directly exploring and integrating any or all of these qualities into our daily lives. As the Buddha advised, “Ehipassiko”, come and check it out and see what this orientation sets in motion.
Wishing all beings the ease of non-clinging,
Mark Nunberg
Co-Guiding Teacher