INSIGHT NEWSLETTER FALL WINTER A Dharma Life: 2 0 1 0 / 2 0 1 1 The Extraordinary is Always Arising A Profile of Ruth Denison IMS Schedules: The Retreat Center 2011 Dharma elder Ruth Denison, who celebrates her 88th birthday this year, has led The Forest Refuge 2011 courses at IMS since it opened in 1976. She is one of three Westerners who received permission to teach from Burmese master Sayagi U Ba Khin, and she was the first Teacher Profile Buddhist teacher in the US to lead an all-women’s Buddhist meditation retreat. IMS News & Developments Beloved by many for her unique teaching style, she reflects here on how she came to the Buddha’s teachings and developed her own way of communicating them to her BCBS Schedule: 2011 Listing students, so that they too can taste the extraordinary in their lives. y connection to the dharma atmosphere available to us than the ordinary Mstarted early in childhood. I was way of being. I once read a woman’s born in East Prussia, where my father had description of how things looked to her a large flower nursery. To help the people after she became a nun and went to live in who came to work in the fields I would walk a monastery. It was powerful – it shifted along a row giving water to the flowers. my awareness from the ordinary way of When I looked back and saw that the water life, the ordinary way of seeing things, to was unevenly distributed, I would think, the extraordinary that is always just right “This one will be very sad” – I animated there, if you allow yourself to stop. everything and could feel the life of each being. So I would go back and bring more Many years later when I visited the water to those young shoots that hadn’t renowned scholar monk Venerable gotten enough. There was always something Nyanaponika Thera in Sri Lanka out of the ordinary in my relationship to (or Ceylon as it was then), I learned plants and to nature – I never felt separate. that the literal translation of the Pali word sati (mindfulness) is “to stop.” My family was not especially religious, but as a child I made prayers at night, and in You have to stop in order to become my teens I sensed that there was another aware of what you are doing. (continued on page 2) THENEWSLETTEROFTHEINSIGHTMEDITATIONSOCIETY ELIZABETH VIGEON After the war I came to America, to have a deeper connection with my where I met my husband, who had students as I worked with them. been an ordained monk for nine years If there is confusion or anxiety arising in the Advaita Society. I went with him I can connect with them where they to Burma where I met U Ba Khin, who are, and can guide them, calling their would become my teacher. Right away attention to feet, hands, head, skin, he told me, “You haven’t come to a heart and so on, helping them to be in religion, you have come to a scientific touch with what is happening in the way by which you can come to yourself.” body. That’s my teaching style. U Ba Khin translated the monastic One practice I have people do is to practice into a practice for householders. bring the awareness up to the head Ruth Denison To initiate my study I made a formal and feel the sensations of the life force, (continued from page 1) address to him, as the monastics do, then get concentrated and focus on “Please teach me the dharma.” From the sensations of the body’s aliveness. also learned to teach while I was still him I learned anapanasati, mindfulness At first people often need to be guided, Ivery young. During World War II, of breathing, to gather the mind, and but then they learn that when they are with the men all in the military, there then the jhanas, or states of concentration. caught up in something difficult, they was a great need for teachers. I was Over time I was able to become deeply can stop and reconnect with the experi- given a year of training and a year absorbed and concentrated, and when ence of the body right in that moment. of practice, and then I was assigned U Ba Khin saw this he said that now I This can shift us from the ordinary way to a village school with 120 students. was doing the real vipassana or insight of handling our lives, and open us to Teaching came naturally to me, and meditation practice. the extraordinary which is right there. I worked hard at it. I led classes eight to ten hours a day, everything from While I was in Burma I learned that You have three fabulous karmic effects reading to practical things like sewing retreats of seven to ten days were an or results from bringing your attention and gardening. Once a month I’d make effective way to root the dharma so to the body sensations. First you have a play from what we were reading, that lay people could develop a love for the physicists’ experience – as the old and we would perform for the mothers. it and see its karmic effect – the growth masters said, “My body is all light. It and goodness that come from its practice. doesn’t have substance.” This is anatta, When the opportunity came, it was or no-self. When you go in closer to natural to me to teach courses for lay your aliveness and your energy you INSIGHT people at IMS. I knew what it could see phenomena constantly arising and NEWSLETTER mean for them. passing away. So then you realize the A publication of great natural law of existence – the Insight Meditation Society omething else that contributed to impermanence, anicca. By seeing these my particular way of teaching was two things, anatta and anicca, you are 1230 Pleasant Street • Barre MA 01005 • USA S www.dharma.org the study of Sensory Awareness, which brought face to face with the character- 978-355-4378 • [email protected] is a way of becoming more deeply con- istic of life without wisdom – dukkha. Editors: Gyano Gibson & Daphne Slocombe nected to the experience of the body. Production: Daphne Slocombe, Marc Hamel & This is not just a matter of the senses – Getting deeply in touch with the body’s Emily Carpenter through this practice you can know aliveness is such a beautiful practice. Cover photos: Elizabeth Vigeon yourself as a moving energy field. I had Two monks brought 15 Thai women Design: Lux Productions always known this intuitively, but after who were their guests to me, and said, Printed in Canada on paper containing 50% recycled content using soy-based inks. the course this awareness allowed me “Now show us how you teach them.” P a g e 2 www.dharma.org F a l l • W i n t e r 2010/2011 INSIGHT So I spent two hours with them and afterwards one woman commented on how much her understanding of the teachings had been augmented by our work together. The main feature of teaching the dharma, and of our practice, is awareness. In our ordinary lives we already have some attention and concentration – after all, even if you want to polish a floor nicely, you have to have con- Ruth Denison (center) teaching in the Retreat Center lower walking room, late 1970s. centration. But then with awareness you shift from this ordinary way of was a stillness in me. It was tangible. Even with my nurses and attendants being into the extraordinary – you I could have slipped away, but in that there in the hospital, I injected a little know what you are doing and you moment I knew the power of mind- of the other side of life, the extraordi- know that you know. fulness, and I had no fear of death. nary that is right here. And they would I noticed that I was noticing, but it leave me little notes, “Thank you for he teachings benefit us was even more refined than that – the sharing your mind.” Tthroughout our lives. knowing knew itself. And it was so precise. Nothing could interfere. I didn’t You see, wherever I am, I am always A few years ago I had a fall. I then want to die, but I had no conflict, no teaching. developed a fever and there was a resistance. I saw that this is the way – moment when I thought, “I won’t make to stay right here, sensing the life force. it.” I saw the hindrances, close, almost When the breath came, I wasn’t pulling Ruth Denison will offer her annual materialized. But I did not allow them it in or touching it. But I was being Labor Day Weekend at IMS’s Retreat to come any closer – I was very much totally for it. I offered myself to it. Center, September 2-5, 2011. See page 21 or aware of the meaning of “Stop.” There And eventually I healed. www.dharma.org for more information. The Gift of Meditation JILL SHEPHERD OFFER A RETREAT TO SOMEONE YOU LOVE IMSGIFTCERTIFICATES Support friends or family members to participate in any IMS retreat for which they qualify. We will send a certificate for the value of the gift; it is valid for seven years from the date of issue and can be applied as full or partial payment for a selected course.