INSIGHT NEWSLETTER SPRING SUMMER 2005 Spiritual Friendship: IMS Schedules: Helping the Dharma Take Root The Retreat Center 2005 in the Next Generation The Forest Refuge 2005/06 An Interview with Michele McDonald Teacher Interview …Admirable friends, admirable companions, admirable comrades. This is the first prerequisite for the development of the wings to self-awakening. – The Buddha IMS News and Developments Michele McDonald has practiced vipassana meditation since 1975, when she attended the last two weeks of the first three-month vipassana retreat taught in the U.S. BCBS 2005 Today, she is an IMS core faculty member, who has been teaching since 1982 Course Schedule Outline and leading meditation retreats for youth since 1989. Michele has a deep interest in preserving the ancient teachings and finding ways to make them more accessible and authentic in our time, without compromising their essence. In conversation with Insight Newsletter, she explores one way in which the dharma is taking root in our culture – through the offering of teachings to young people. Michele, what drew you to being in nature. I discovered that still- vipassana practice? ness and peace arose if I sat quietly for long enough. I grew to love the shift When I was a child, I noticed that that occurred in my mind as I opened the adults in my life – both my parents to the mystery of experiencing things and others around me – were suffering directly, beyond thought. greatly. To get a break from the intensi- ty of the unhappiness, I spent a lot of As a child, I didn’t have the strength time alone at a lake near where I lived. of mind to deal with the sorrow that I’d sit by the water under the trees, surrounded me. There was a painful basically watching my breath and just gap between my experience of the (continued on page 2) THE NEWSLETTER OF THE INSIGHT MEDITATION SOCIETY dharma in the natural world and my the time, assisted Sayadaw, and I experience of deep suffering in ordi- helped as well. Steve was profoundly nary human life. That suffering grew inspired; from then on we became the with me into my teens and twenties. driving force in establishing this retreat I didn’t have any support for practice. as an annual IMS event. Also, Chandra, I felt like I was waiting for something – my teenage stepdaughter, sat the course. the chance to undertake formal training. Then, when I was twenty-four, I sat So, my family was deeply involved my first meditation retreat. I knew in IMS’s programming for teens from immediately that this was what I had the start, but I had a lot of hesitation. been waiting for. I was reluctant to face the emotional residue from my own difficult teen What inspires you to teach years, which I knew would come up. meditation? Despite my initial uncertainty, I find Touching the truth directly is like that sharing the dharma with young drinking honey – our hearts open with people stretches my heart and opens my Michele McDonald each drop. I love sharing that process mind in ways that I consider invaluable with others. Offering the teachings is a and, I hope, reciprocal. This kind of sacred privilege. With the intention to spiritual friendship is informed by an understand someone, it’s possible to understanding of what might have bring a joyful interest to whatever helped me to get through those thorny comes up for them, from boredom, to growing-up years with greater ease. karmic knots, to delight. INSIGHT The Buddha said, as mentioned in NEWSLETTER Resistance is so painful for all of us. the commentary on the Dhammapada, I find there are two ways to work with that the sooner in life we begin our A twice yearly publication of the Insight that struggle. One is to find the key to practice, the more likely we are to Meditation Society, a tax-exempt nonprofit someone’s spiritual strength, that which become fully enlightened beings. If we organization whose purpose is to foster really allows a person to relax and con- can share the dharma with people the practice of vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness) meditation, and to preserve centrate. The other way is to help a when they are young, they’ll have more the essential Buddhist teachings of liberation. person have enough mindfulness and time to develop their practice. Some of compassion to open to things as they the people who attended those early The goal of the practice is the awakening are – no matter how difficult. The art of teen retreats have now been practicing of wisdom and compassion through right both teaching and meditation practice for sixteen years. As a result, they have action and cultivating mindful awareness in all aspects of life. is learning how to find a doorway to a strong practice at a young age – the stillness and strength and then gradual- sweetest offering they can give the Editor: Gyano Gibson ly applying that ability so that we can world. It’s wonderful to be able to help Production: Éowyn Ahlstrom & Edwin Kelley awaken to everything that happens. make that possible. Cover photo: Libby Vigeon IMS Buddha Photos: Dawn Close, Libby Vigeon & Éowyn Ahlstrom You are recognized as a leading Are there aspects of teaching Design: Lux Productions vipassana teacher of teens and that are particular to working young adults in this country. with young people? Please address correspondence to: How did you come to teach the IMS, 1230 Pleasant St. Barre, MA 01005, USA dharma to young people? During that first teen retreat, Steve Phone: (978) 355-4378 and I discovered that there’s no need Email: [email protected] Sayadaw U Pandita, the renowned to teach the dharma differently to teens. Website: www.dharma.org Burmese meditation master, offered We don’t water it down – in fact, we step Printed in Canada on recycled the first IMS retreat for teens in 1989. it up. Many people think we might have paper using soy-based inks Steve Smith, to whom I was married at to change something or hold something Page 2 www.dharma.org Spring • Summer 2005 back, but we’ve found that the younger be wild, radical and question every The practice of meditation generation responds to the teachings convention. They don’t want a is becoming a part of the just like everyone else, only quicker. spiritual practice in which they lose fabric of our culture. sight of the importance of respecting What is your vision for the I find that young people today are the relationships they have. Questions dharma in the West in the more educated, talented and sophisti- about their relations with partners, coming decades? cated than my peers and I were at the friends and parents tend to be same age, but they suffer from an extremely important. The world issues facing young people incredible weariness. They’re inundated are catastrophic. The dharma is more with information from a very young Part of our intention is to provide and more necessary. We need the vision age, and our culture places high expec- a safe and sacred container for of people who value moving toward full tations on them. The pressure to be inquiry into morality. With the enlightenment and who bring the dhar- perfect is accelerating with each gener- support of the silence, precepts and ma into ordinary life. The health and ation. The drive to be successful, rich, discussion groups, as well as the non- survival of our communities, our local multi-talented and beautiful can mani- judgmental intention to understand cultures and our economies depends on fest in so much self-hatred. For many our experience, profound honesty the myriad ways the dharma expresses young people, a meditation retreat is emerges. Young people need to itself – generosity, morality, kindness their first exposure to a way of facing challenge aspects of their lives that and contentment. up to and letting go of that suffering. they find confusing, unbearable or The challenges of growing up in mod- unacceptable. In many cases our In the coming decades we need to define ern Western culture make young peo- society expects them to just believe the meaning of spiritual friendship. ple really ripe for meditation practice. a certain set of rules for life. However, Spiritual friendship makes life worth liv- they need to learn wise and respect- ing. My hope is that spiritual friendships Because the stress for young people ful inquiry. in the sangha here in the West will con- living in our materialistic culture is so tinue to grow and out of these deepen- great, I find that it’s helpful for teens As people reach their twenties, ing connections a greater understanding to be taught lovingkindness practice questions of right livelihood and of the dharma will be born. (metta) right from the beginning. social justice gain significance. Metta is crucial for dealing with feel- They’re facing the challenge of how I would like to see young people fathom ings of self-loathing. Facing the deteri- to separate from their parents – with the ancient roots of this practice as a oration of so many aspects of life on some dignity – and how to live on basis to understand reality. I hope they the planet calls for an ability to appre- their own. Many want to work less will be able to examine the ways in ciate ourselves and others just as we and consume less. Often, in their which the dharma has been transplanted are. This softens the heart and allows minds, the pursuit of a peaceful heart into our culture and change it in a way us to accept things in a healthy way.