Weekly Guiding Teacher Reflection

Dear Common Ground Friends,

For many of us these are disturbing times. I have experienced real fear and heartbreak due to the violence and mistreatment being acted out in our community and our wider world. I feel at times, both the impulse to hide and the impulse to blame and hate. It feels important to acknowledge how often my response to suffering ends up setting more suffering in motion. How do this world and our hearts, so often animated by the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion, heal, and instead learn how to express deep wisdom and compassion? Our Buddhist practices are designed to reveal a profound capacity for balance, clarity, and tenderness, right here in the middle of this suffering world. The cycles of ignorance may go on and on; we don’t know how things will unfold. However, I have confidence that it is possible to develop a heart that can be more and more open, wise, and skillfully responsive no matter the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion burning around us. If you have found that your Buddhist practices have supported you in engaging your life and the wider world more skillfully and compassionately I would appreciate hearing from you: mark@commongroundmeditation.org. I find real inspiration in hearing people’s stories on how their practice is supporting them. I am deeply grateful that my own practice is helping me to stay more open and responsive to all that is difficult in my life and in my world.

May all beings understand the causes for suffering and the causes for release,
Mark Nunberg
Co-Guiding Teacher