The Real Revolution

I believe that the Real Revolution isn't about violence.  It's about the cultivation of love, wisdom and compassion in our individual lives -- and in the world.  I'm grateful that I'm not alone in seeing that.

Last year at this time, I attended one of the early meetings of the Refuge Recovery group in Oklahoma City as they shared their first reading from the newly published book, Refuge Recovery. The book's author and Dharma Punx founder of the Against the Stream Society, Noah Levine, Rocks!  Although his teaching is geared toward those recovering from drug addiction and alcoholism, I believe it's relevant to all of us.  In this modern world where most of us are addicted to the attitudes and behaviors promoted by a highly materialistic and individualistic culture, Levine is talking Real Revolution!

Since several people have asked me recently about his incredibly insightful and valuable addition to Dharma Practice in the context of recovery from addiction, I'm reprinting last year's post about Noah Levine's work-- and adding information on local Refuge Recovery weekly sitting groups. 

I'm also adding a directory of other sitting groups in the Pioneer Valley to the MMM Website and would encourage folks here -- and elsewhere -- to seek out a local group to meditate with on a regular basis.  If you can't find one, start one.  It's how the Revolution happens!    
One Love, 
Lance

  

You Say You Want a Revolution?

First published, June 12, 2014. Revised.

“We have the ability to effect a great positive change in the world, starting with the training of our own minds and the overcoming of our deluded conditioning. Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness; it is a revolutionary stance from the inside out, 
for the benefits of all beings in existence.”
― Noah Levine, Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries

"There's a rebel within you.  It is the part of you that already knows how to break free from fear and unhappiness.  This rebel is the voice of your own awakened mind.  
It's your rebel Buddha, the clear intelligence that resists the status quo."

― Dzochen Ponlop, The Rebel Buddha

Noah Levine

My brother Hal and I played a doubleheader Wednesday evening.  After sitting with the Prairie Wind Sangha at Windsong Innerspace, we stayed around to sit with Refuge Recovery, a nascent OKC group inspired by the teachings and work of Buddhist teacher Noah Levine, the self-described "Dharma Punk" founder of Against the Stream Meditation Society.  

It made this old hippie/yippie child of the 60's heart glow.  

I came across the work of Noah Levine a couple of years ago and got my hands of a copy of Meditate and Destroy, a documentary film featuring his life -- and his life's work with incarcerated youth and drug addicts in Los Angeles.  As the old saying goes, "it takes one to know one."  
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Here Comes the Sun?

 "Things are not as they seem - and nor are they otherwise."

-- Lankavatara Sutra

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake 

is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
― Pema Chödrön

I'm awake at 4 a.m. and the birds are beginning to stir in the darkness outside the window -- an hour before sunrise. 

Sunrise? 

Calling that moment "sunrise" is, of course, a classic case of our human propensity to conceptualize things from a limited perspective.  That isn't really a problem.  The problem is that we then tend to grasp onto the words that describe those relative positions as the absolute truth.  

I imagine any number of Zen students over the years have been whacked by their teachers along the way for being so sloppy in their use of language as to appear to be claiming that they really know what is going on -- while missing the point entirely.

If I choose to believe what I have learned along the way -- and in this case I do because it seems that we have actually had some folks brave enough (or crazy enough, perhaps) to place themselves on top of a huge tin can full of explosive chemicals so that they could be catapulted high enough into the sky to look over their shoulders and take snapshots of the situation -- the sun isn't actually rising at all.  We could just as readily call that magic moment of cosmic peek a boo "earthdrop" -- although that doesn't seem nearly as poetic. 
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The Sky's the Limit

 “You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
― Pema Chödrön

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready
to abandon our views about them.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace 

Yesterday morning, I had yet another occasion to thank my lucky stars for having stumbled into the Practice years ago.

I awoke from a bevy of Full Moon inspired, somewhat haunted, dreams feeling quite sad.  Thanks to the Practice, a few moments later, I was plucked from my homemade rowboat as it skimmed across the River Styx hellbound for Hades, and wisked to seventh heaven by a guardian angel sent by God.  No lie!

WTF?

Lest I risk blowing any shred of credibility I may have garnered and/or being plucked from this perch at my favorite coffeehouse by burly men brandishing straight jackets, perhaps I better reword that.

So:

When I first awoke on the embers of a dream to a gloomy, overcast morning yesterday, I was aware that I was feeling sad.  Having spent many hours Sitting Still Doing Nothing over the years, it seems that these days at least a modicum of Mindfulness is generally available.  So, I was aware that my first thought was "something's wrong".  This was quickly followed by the thought "I'm depressed", which evoked fear and fleeting memories drawn from earlier experiences of burn-out and despair.  The next thought was "these are just thoughts."

I then shifted the focus of my attention to what I was hearing.  A bird outside the window began to sing.  It was Beautiful.  My mood lifted immediately.

I can still thank my lucky stars, right?

(Although I still may have not recouped any semblance of credibility, the burly guys just shrugged and left.)
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Standing at the Gateless Gate

"With continued practice and the right kind of firm yet gentle effort, 
calmness and mindfulness and equanimity develop and deepen on their own..."

-- Jon Kabat-Zinn,  Wherever You Go, There You Are: 

Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life 

 "As the mind becomes a little more quiet the sacredness of everything 

within and without becomes clear to us.”

-- Norman Fischer,  In an interview with Kate Olsen, 

PBS: Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Rain clouds at the bus stop this afternoon

Gratitude came easily this morning.

After a month of bone dry weather, Mother Nature graced us with rain last evening and promises more today.  The birds seem to have noticed.  The overcast morning echoes with their animated song. 

Although the drought still prevailed yesterday morning, I felt a deep gratitude then as well.  My own "inner" weather was the source of that thankfulness, though.

I had just arrived at the bus stop en route to an appointment with the eye doctor, when I realized that I had forgotten to slip my insurance card into my wallet before leaving the house.  A quick look at the cellphone verified that there wasn't enough time to return to the house to get it.  My fate was sealed.  At that moment I realized that I would have to appear at the receptionist's counter to face another moment where I'd be asked, "Can I see your insurance card, please?"

At this point, you might wonder where the hell gratitude comes in here-- unless, of course, I am outing my own masochistic tendencies.  Which I'm not.  (I don't think.)
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