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Insight Newsletter About the Themes, Teacher Interview Developments and Challenges That Lie Ahead for Western Buddhist Practitioners

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Insight Newsletter About the Themes, Teacher Interview Developments and Challenges That Lie Ahead for Western Buddhist Practitioners INSIGHT NEWSLETTER F ALL WINTER 2003/2004 The Emerging IMS Schedules: The Retreat Center 2004 Western Buddhism The Forest Refuge 2003/04 An Interview with Joseph Goldstein BCBS 2004 Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder and guiding teacher of IMS, and author of Course Schedule Outline One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism. He has been teaching Buddhism for almost 30 years. Here he talks with Insight Newsletter about the themes, Teacher Interview developments and challenges that lie ahead for Western Buddhist practitioners. IMS News Joseph, IMS is soon to enter the value of an environment where its 29th year of operation. experienced practitioners could and Developments Together with Sharon Salzberg, undertake longer-term personal you have played a key role in meditation retreats. the organization’s growth. What is your vision for its IMS is now at the stage where we need next decade? to nurture and support these existing programs, rather than further expand Since Sharon and I started teaching the facilities. This involves many areas in the West in 1974, there has been a of current activity, including teacher remarkable growth of interest in the training, greater outreach to diverse Buddha’s teachings – the Dharma – and communities, and upgrading of older in meditation practice. What started as buildings. But most strategically, we a fringe, off-beat endeavor has since want to create and sustain a solid become familiar to the mainstream of financial base that will provide access our culture. IMS has responded to this to the retreat experience and the growing interest in different ways: teachings for future generations. initially with the Retreat Center, which My hope is that over the next decade provides structured group retreats, and we can build an endowment that will then more recently with The Forest ensure a lasting legacy of everything Refuge. The creation of this later that has gone before. program came out of recognizing (continued on page 2) THE NEWSLETTER OF THE INSIGHT MEDITATION SOCIETY DENISE MACHADO As Buddhism unfolds in our unconsciousness of deep feelings. Rather, contemporary society, what is it’s the full experience of the particular its relationship with Western mind state, but without building a psychology? Are there areas superstructure of self on top of it. of overlap and influence? Each emotion arises out of conditions and is simply expressing it’s own nature. Both Western and Buddhist psychology The ‘I’ and ‘mine’ are extra. offer profound insight into the mind. It is helpful to understand where the Do you envision a time two paradigms overlap, where they when there will be only one complement each other, and where they Dharma? Will any of the diverge. We can see the relationship of richness within each tradition the two approaches clearly in the arena be lost if all are merged of afflictive emotions. This term is one into one? translation of the Pali word kilesa, which Joseph Goldstein also translates as ‘defilement’ or ‘torment As Western Buddhist students returned of mind’. I prefer ‘afflictive emotions’ from Asia over the last 30 years, and as because it points directly to those mind different Asian teachers came to the states that cause suffering, such as West, the three major Buddhist depression, fear, hatred, anger, jealousy traditions established themselves here, and so on – it’s a long list! with each presenting a unique system of teachings. This allowed many of us the For example, if there’s envy or jealousy opportunity to study with teachers in the arising in the mind, the first step in both different schools of Theravada, INSIGHT Buddhist practice and Western psychology Mahayana and Vajrayana. I don’t believe NEWSLETTER is to recognize what is arising. The second that the direction we are going in will step is cultivating an acceptance of the lead to these traditions melding into one. A twice yearly publication of the Insight emotion. We explore what the emotion is That would be a tremendous mistake; Meditation Society, a tax-exempt nonprofit and practice being with it without self- each needs to preserve its own integrity organization whose purpose is to foster judgement, without condemning the state and richness. the practice of vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness) meditation, and to itself. So, there is recognition and preserve the essential Buddhist teachings acceptance – key elements common to However, once we’re established in our of liberation. both traditions. practice, and if we are so inclined, then being open to teachings of other schools The goal of the practice is the awakening Now we come to an important difference. can be immensely enriching, since each of wisdom and compassion through right action and cultivating mindful awareness Buddhist teachings point to the tradition highlights different aspects of in all aspects of life. experience and realization of anatta, or the Buddha’s teachings. For example, selflessness. All experience is empty of self. the methods of mindfulness training in Editor: Gyano Gibson Within the Western psychological the Theravada schools are very precise Cover photo: Libby Vigeon IMS Buddha Photo: Dawn Close framework, this may be an unusual and highly developed. In The Pali Canon, Design: Lux Productions concept, with greater emphasis usually the Buddha called this the direct way given to building-up and reinforcing the to awakening. So we might say that Please address any sense of self. training in mindfulness is one of the correspondence to IMS, 1230 Pleasant St. specialties of Theravada practice. Barre, MA 01005, USA The third step in working with afflictive Phone: (978) 355-4378 emotions, where the Dharma can offer a In many of the Mahayana schools, Fax: (978) 355-6398 unique contribution, is practicing non- the understanding of bodhicitta – that Email: [email protected] Website: www.dharma.org identification - not taking the emotion to motivation of compassion to awaken be ‘I’ or ‘mine’. This radical view needs for the benefit of all beings – is highly PRINTED IN CANADA careful guidance and instruction. It’s not emphasized. This was, for me, a rich a dissociative state of denial, nor is it an addition to my vipassana, or mindfulness Printed on recycled paper using soy-based inks Fall • W inter 2003 / 2004 practice. I always knew that the results clear on this, that wisdom is born of activities? What value do we place on of my practice would inevitably help concentration; if our minds are scattered spiritual practice? Do we squeeze it in others, but the teachings of bodhicitta and restless, it is difficult to see clearly. between other things we are doing or is put this motivation up front. This helped it the priority in our lives? I believe we energize and broaden my efforts. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama has said: are in the middle of a great experiment: “My true religion is kindness.” If we also lay women and men exploring the There are cautions, though, in drawing include the practice of lovingkindness, possibility of genuine freedom. Here at on teachings from different traditions. of compassion, of bodhicitta, in our IMS, we are discovering that the Retreat It’s not something we should rush into spiritual journey, these qualities in turn Center and The Forest Refuge are both part and take a little from each without a grow stronger within us. We can learn to of indispensable support systems for those strong foundation in any one of them – be both kinder to ourselves and to others. who do want to actualize this aspiration. that can lead to confusion and lack of We shouldn’t confuse kindness to depth. And for many people, the clarity ourselves with self-indulgence; it means The third challenge, then, is recognizing and consistency of staying within one seeing clearly what is necessary or the need to awaken from our deeply tradition serves their practice perfectly helpful in the moment, including, at conditioned patterns of mind. Whether well. But exploring the one Dharma of times, really heroic effort. we subscribe to the school of sudden or freedom that underlies all the Buddhist gradual enlightenment, true liberation schools can open doors that expand our What are the greatest does not happen without a tremendous view and deepen our understanding. challenges that face dedication and the strengthening of right practitioners in the West? effort. This effort can be expressed in Can you say something different ways – whether it’s the effort to about the fruits of practice? One of the challenges we face is our purify the mind of the afflictive emotions, How does the path unfold? cultural belief that results should be or the effort to stabilize the recognition instant. If we don’t see amazing benefits of the nature of awareness – it still takes The unfolding of the path is quite after the first week of practice, we begin a sustained application of energy. variable, depending on the regularity of to question the possibility of daily practice, the amount of intensive, transformation and liberation. We need Can you shed some light long-term meditation, and the effort we to understand – contrary to a letter we on the teachings regarding make to develop the various paramis, received in the early days addressed to Right Speech? such as generosity, morality, the Instant Meditation Society – that this lovingkindness, and so on, in our lives. process is not instant; although the seed Right Speech is part of the Buddha’s When we are dedicated to our Dharma of enlightenment is always within us, it Eightfold Path – those essential steps practice in these ways, we begin to see takes dedication and commitment for the to help us become free from suffering. positive changes in our minds. There is fruit to ripen and mature.
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