One of the primary causes of overeating has been identified as ‘mindless’ eating. Overeating is a cause of great suffering in our society.

Do you know someone who is suffering because of excess weight? Do you know someone who would like to end the cycle of endless dieting?

Chan Huy and Laureen Osborne (from the Mindful Coaching Clinic) are offering a community outreach workshop to the general public at the University of Ottawa on September 7th at 7PM to offer an opportunity for participants to learn mindful practices which can be incorporated into daily life.

Please see the poster for details.

About Ayya Medhanandi
Ayya Medhanandi, née Mary Fiksel, 1949, a native of Montreal, began meditating at the age of 21. Inspired by the practice, she made pilgrimage to India, met an Advaita sage, and trained with him as a nun for four years. After completing an MSc in nutrition, she designed and managed NGO projects in Thailand, Senegal, and Ecuador as well as UNICEF/WHO health intervention programs for malnourished women and children in Nepal.

Her teacher’s death in 1986 was a call to monastic life. She left her career to take her first vows as a Buddhist nun with Sayadaw U Pandita in Myanmar. Then came ten years of training at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery with Ajahn Sumedho as preceptor. Stepping out on her own, she lived as a solitary nun in New Zealand for six years before moving to Penang to continue teaching and leading retreats in the Antipodes, Asia, and the West.

In 2007, she received bhikkhuni ordination and the bodhisattva monastic precepts in Taiwan. Accepting an invitation to return to Canada, in 2008 she established Sati Saraniya Hermitage, the first Canadian monastic residence for Theravada bhikkhunis, located in Perth, Ontario.

In addition to running Hermitage programs and leading retreats, she teaches vipassana meditation courses for Ottawa area Hospice staff and volunteers. She is the author of ‘Gone Forth, Going Beyond’.

WHEN: Friday, June 17th, 7:00pm – Sunday June 26, 1:00pm.

WHERE: The Galilee Centre Arnprior, Ontario

COST FOR THE WHOLE TEN DAYS:  $680 (CDN) ($650 for members of the Ottawa Buddhist Society)

COST FOR WEEKEND ONLY (FRIDAY EVENING, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY) $205 (CDN) ($175for members of the Ottawa Buddhist Society)

RETREAT REGISTRATION INFORMATION

The Complete Registration Form is in PDF and MS Word formats.

We welcome beginners as well as experienced meditators. There is no separate programming for youth, however, we will accept individuals 12 to 17 years of age if accompanied by an adult.

Cost: $276 (residential) or $139 (non-residential)

For more information please download the Information Sheet. To register, download the Registration Form.

Then again I don’t ever feel patriotically Swiss or British either (and I have all three nationalities). So I’m inclined to explain this lack of patriotism as a generalized lack of faith in Nationhood instead.

I do understand and appreciate that immigrants from war-torn countries who have experienced untold suffering would feel gratitude to a nation and a country for refuge. Vietnamese boat-people, for instance, have a fierce love for Canada for all it has given them in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

I confess that I felt very moved by the naturalization ceremony that I was sworn in at nearly 20 years ago. It wasn’t pledging allegiance to the Queen that moved me – it was witnessing all these other people from around the world (South East Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa) who had chosen Canada as their country – the list was long. It was moving to me because people from so many of these countries have suffered so much in the 20th century and they were adopting a country who had adopted them and given them respite.

But what is it that Canadians (especially immigrant Canadians) feel gratitude for? A “country”? Really? Or is it the institutions of democracy, human rights and free speech? Or is it the friendship and welcome of compassionate people? Or is it the affluence of a rich country that can afford these luxuries?

I think it’s fair to say that democracy, human rights and free speech are luxuries of affluence. These things aren’t affordable in places where local competitiveness is cut-throat or where the poverty of a country enable it to be are ruled by corrupt and brutal military dictatorships.

There is so much to be thankful for, without a doubt. But I don’t like being thankful to a country.  ”Being Canadian” is exclusionary and divisive, at least in so far as “the other” is not Canadian. Defining one’s identity, even in part, by nationhood – or even by species for that matter (“Human Being” vs. “Cetatcean”) – creates an “us” vs. “them” kind of discrimination that separates us in ways that are at best not helpful and at worst indescribably tragic (viz. National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.)

Not that the tragic consequence of Nationalism are very likely to prevail in Canada – except in Quebec, perhaps, where Francophone Nationalists regularly try to drum up this sentiment to rally the “pure laine” of Quebec to secede from “the rest of Canada”.

What would we celebrate then? “The rest of Canada Day”?

loving kindness, compassion, joy and inclusiveness

“Inclusiveness” is a particularly interesting translation for the pali Upekkha, usually translated as “equanimity”.  Upekkha (along with Mudita) is also often ignored in favour of Metta (loving kindness) or Karuna (compassion).

The question of how to translate this word came up in my french meditation class a few months ago. Some students were suggesting that “equanimity” in English could be translated by the French term “impassibilite” which means “impassiveness”.  ”Right but not True”, Ajahn Chah might have said.  Some things about “impassive” (“calm”; “serene”) are close and some things are clearly not at all true (“without emotion”; “apathetic”; “unmoved”).

The usual translation “Equanimity” is preferred, I am guessing, because connotes the “coolness” of an extinguished flame – which is sometimes the image used to convey Nirvana. Serenity is also fine as a descriptive attribute, but somehow, none of these words get to the heart of Upekkha (it is a given, of course, that that no word is much good at getting at the ineffable.)

I am beginning to appreciate “inclusiveness” more and more because it encourages one to think of this as an attitude rather than as a psychological state to attain.  Inclusiveness means non-discrimination, really. It’s a receptive state of awareness of and acceptance of all phenomena such as they are – free of wanting things to be any different.

With Upekkha, the pleasant, unpleasant, good, bad, beautiful, desirable and undesirable are all contained – welcomed even – under the same umbrella of non-discriminative awareness.

I wrote some notes for the students about the basic instructions on the practice of mindfulness.  Included in those notes was a minimalist bibliography of recommended books that covered some of the basics in:

1. meditation instructions
2. the theory and practice of Buddhism
3. a range of Buddhist traditions

and preferably available also in French.

This is the list I came up with:

• Bhante Guranatana - Mindfulness in Plain English (on-line version)
  (commercial, expanded edition version)
• Thich Nhat Hanh - The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings
• Ajahn Sumedo - The Mind and the Way
• Mathieu Ricard - Happiness
• Damien Keown - Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction
• Sharon Salzberg - Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
• Sylvia Boorstein - Pay attention, for goodness’ sake: Practicing the perfections of the heart—the Buddhist path of kindness

In retrospect, I would have done well to add a few more:

• Larry Rosenberg – Breath by Breath
• Thich Nhat Hanh – Peace is Every Step

Don’t ask me why I don’t have Jack Kornfields “A Path with Heart” or Kabat-Zinn’s “Wherever You go There You Are” on the list – I’m quite sure I can’t explain that. They just don’t seem to be books I go back to or that have stayed with me.

Ayya Medhanandi 5-day Spring Retreat May 7-12 (Stillwaters Retreat Center, Lanark County)

Loving Kindness Retreat with Monastics from Blue Cliff Monastery May 15-16 (Dieu Khong Temple, Ottawa)

Ajahn Sumedho and Tisarana monks at Vesak May29th (Tisarana Monastery, Perth)

Ajahn Sumedho public Talk at the University of Ottawa, June 11

Ajahn Sumedho Ottawa non-residential retreat June 12-13 (waiting list only)

The New York Times weighed in with a somewhat cynical review that is typical of journalistic fare. The passage I found most saddening is:

… it seems unlikely that anyone who has even a slight acquaintance with the Buddha and his teachings will learn much here. And those already inclined to see Buddhism as a loosey-goosey religion that attracts Western space cadets probably won’t have their minds changed by “When this is, that is,” and Ms. Hirshfield’s wide-eyed statement on the miraculousness of drinking coffee from a mug.

In other words, the documentary fails to convert the un-initiated and fails to inform the converted with anything new.  There have been other comments of that nature on “The Buddha” Facebook page: several commentator felt the film was preaching to the converted.

The assumption behind these comments, I think, is that the purpose and value of a documentary on a religious figure is to “inform” (as in “provide more data”) or to convince – as if there were no other modes of understanding.  But Buddhism, by and large, is not a proselytizing religion and I didn’t at all get the sense that filmmaker David Grubin was trying to do that.  My sense is that he was trying to convey something about what Thich Nhat Hahn calls “The Miracle of Mindfulness”.

Of course, the film does have “information content” at one level (dates, stories, interview, narratives etc.) but I thought it was the form– the images, music and mood of the film as well the manner of being and speaking of the interviewees – that conveyed much more of the spirit of the Buddha – his thirst for freedom, his awakening and his motivation to teach – than anything that was said. That the NY Times reviewer condescends by labeling Buddhism a “loosey-goosey religion that attracts Western space cadets” because they see miraculousness in the ordinary, is, at most, proof that Gruben didn’t entirely succeed in communicating the miracle of mindfulness to everyone.

A more subtle critique of the film came from Clark Strand’s blog post “How to be a Buddhist in America“:

I found its treatment of the life of Shakyamuni, historical founder of the world’s fourth largest religion, haphazard, impulsive, and at times visually disjointed. It seemed it couldn’t decide what kind of film it wanted to be or what aspect of the Buddha’s message it most wanted to convey. Likewise, with the exception of the Dalai Lama and Tibet activist/Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, the panel of experts seemed to have been assembled at random, without much thought given to recent scholarship or any sense of modern Buddhist culture.

One does indeed wonder about how the panelists were chosen given the abundant and stellar firmament of Buddhist scholars and practitioners of all stripes.  It is true that there seems to have been a preponderance of Tibetan Buddhists, but I expect that a lot more people were interviewed than made it into the film. It appears to me that the editing of what the talking heads said was for the primary purpose of explaining the narrative of the Buddha’s quest and realization.  And that, I thought, they all did quite admirably.

Strand’s qualms with the movie, it turns out, have more to do with how Buddhism is being assimilated in America.  And with that I have more sympathy, though not a lot of understanding.

I found “The Buddha” problematic precisely because, as an American Buddhist, I still find Buddhism problematic–profoundly problematic. Even as I practice and teach it, I live in conflict with it. What do we do with a religious founder born to privilege who names his son Rahula (literally, “fetter”), abandons his wife and newborn child, starves himself within inches of his life, and thereafter preaches almost exclusively to a celibate order of men and (after holding out against them for as long as he could) women–women who are required to follow twice as many monastic rules as the men and are subsequently regarded as a threat to male monastic authority and, yes, male monastic celibacy?

My reply would be – does it matter (much) how this teaching came into being? It was born of suffering, surely – loss of a mother as a baby, an over-protective father, not to mention the abandonment of his family.  Yes, of course there are several aspects of Buddhism – all religions for that matter – that are problematic, particularly in the way in which they have been assimilated into (problematic) cultures.  But why does one have to be in conflict with Buddhism because of it?  I guess I just don’t understand the need for one more thing to struggle about, particularly when these very teachings show the path to freedom from stuggle.

Personally, what I enjoyed the most was the music. It conveyed a mood that is just right for understanding some of the core elements of Buddhism – equanimity, compassion, kindness.  There were many well-chosen snippets from eloquent but also very “real” and “present” speakers (my favourite, besides His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was Mark Epstein).

I liked some of the silences too – it wasn’t too packed with views and opinions – this vs. that – no shortage of things that can go wrong in that department.

For my personal aesthetic, I could have done with less of the mythology – the Buddha’s “miracles”, struggles with Mara and so on – but then where would Grubin have been with the visuals?  It was good that these segments were in cartoon form – that device showed by its structure that the stories can (and in my opinion should) be taken allegorically.

I also liked the respectful context-setting: the religious and cultural backdrop of India at the time.  That in itself could have taken 2 hours, but there was enough to show how revolutionary the Buddha’s teaching was.

Unfortunately, I missed significant chunks of the film such as the segment on the 4 Noble Truths (I trust Grubin wouldn’t  have skipped that part!). In short, for the pieces that I saw: two thumbs up!

I also made a small donation to a Buddhist monastery and I was considering two questions: “how much should I give?” and “to whom should I give?”. What is more beneficial? The practices of liberation of the heart or helping to feed hungry children in a disaster zone?

The 13th Mindfulness training of the Order of Interbeing says, among other things:

[I] will practice generosity by sharing [my] time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need.

But it doesn’t make any recommendations about how much time, energy and resources to devote to those in need or which needs are more important than others. In that way, Buddhism is, as a monk I know once put it, a “do it yourself” religion. You need to figure out these details for yourself.

One contributing factor is: what is it possible for me to do, under the circumstances? I live in Canada, and I earn a good living, so I can help Haitians best by donating money to organizations better equiped than I am. But at home, perhaps, I can better donate my time and energy to help others with information and experience.

But the question – one that haunts us as western nations as well as individually – is how much is enough? Clearly selling my house, donating the proceeds and leaving me and my family with no shelter is not a sensible extreme. Nor is the extreme of not caring at all and not making any effort to contribute to relief organizations.

So what should it be? A percentage of your income? If you make a high wage, should it be a higher percentage (as implemented in the tax system, perhaps)?

Then there’s the question hinted at above: how does one compare one noble cause with another: people seeking to end greed, fear and delusion for the benefit of all sentient beings vs. creating sanitary conditions and homes for homeless people here and now? What if, by promoting the practice of Buddhism you were nipping a budding tyrant in the bud? The beneficial consequences are immeasurable! Helping a few people out of poverty or hunger temporarily could seem quite small in comparison.

I think the answer may simply be – we just don’t know. Perhaps a “mutual fund” approach is the middle way: giving for the “long term” (full and complete Buddhahood) and the”short term” (here and now helping homeless people).

Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it’s just the act of giving itself – however you do it which is important. Important for the recipient who needs the help but also important for the donor who also needs to express a natural generosity in the human heart.