Category Archives: Lineage

Event: Evening with Shelly Graf

Insight

Bozeman Insight Community is excited to welcome Shelly Graf as a guest speaker on Thursday, August 10 at 7PM. Shelly’s talk is entitled “A Balanced and Tender Heart: Relying on Wisdom to Cultivate Beneficial and Sustaining Heart Qualities, for Ourselves and Others.” Shelly has been practicing at Common Ground since 2003. They are currently being trained by Insight Meditation Society as part of the four-year teacher training program. Shelly has been a clinician and administrator in the Social Work and mental health fields since 2005. They have a special interest in waking up to whiteness as part of this total path of awakening. 

Everyone is welcome to drop in and join us online!

Photo of Shelly Graf.

Dharma Thought: Sense Gates

Dharma Thoughts, Tibetan

This Dharma Thought is brought to you by the Tergar Bozeman: Joy of Living Practice Group which meets Wednesdays at 5:30 PM. This group is currently working with meditations using our senses.

Smells and tastes often go unnoticed in daily life.  By bringing awareness to smells and tastes, however, you can transform boring daily routine- like cooking, eating or simply walking down the street or through your office building or home – into practices that calm and strengthen your mind.

  1. Take a moment to notice whatever smells or odors may be present right now.  What happens when you pay attention to them?  Can you smell them all at the same time:
  2. When you are eating a meal, what are you usually paying attention to?  How  does this affect you eating habits?  
Home Practice:  

Daily activities:

When you wake, form the intention to be mindful of your body, of sights, sounds, or whatever sense object you’ve chose for the day.

Remind yourself of this intention as often as you can?

Pick moments to remind yourself, place reminders like sticky notes around your home or office.

From time to time during the day, pause and rest your awareness on the sights, sounds, smells  and feelings moving through your awareness.

Sitting:

Start by finding your meditation posture. Renew your motivation.  Rest in open awareness. Leave all your sense doors open, don’t block any aspect of experience.  

After a few minutes, rest your attention on an object in your visual field, or whatever sense you have chosen to use as support for your meditation.  

You don’t need to change or alter your experience in any way, nor do you need to focus intensely or concentrate the mind.  Simply know that you are (seeing/hearing/smelling/feeling).  

End by resting again in open awareness, not distracted and not meditating. Eyes open for the last 1-2 min.  

Event: An Evening with Dave Smith

Insight

On July 20, Dave Smith joins the Bozeman Insight Community via Zoom to teach and offer guidance for a meditation based on the concept of infusing mindfulness with kindness. This Metta+Vipassana approach is gaining momentum in western Insight (vipassana). It integrates the wisdom and compassion of  the dharma in to one, comprehensive practice.

This evening is designed to guide relative beginners in establishing a good foundation for practice, to enrich the meditations of those with some experience, and to preview what Dave will offer at the BIC five-night residential retreat in October.

Everyone is welcome to drop in and join us online!

Sangha Update: Joy of Living July Topics

Tibetan

Apologies to the Tergar Bozeman Joy of Living Group for forgetting to update their topics in the July newsletter! Here they are:

 Please join us for the following new practices in July :

  • July 5th – Meditating with Visual objects and Sounds 
  • July 12  – Meditating with Smell and Taste
  • July 19  – Integrative practice session on senses 
  • July 26 – We begin a new topic – Essential elements of meditation Practice  – Forming a compassionate motivation

 Our sense of sight is often the most dominant aspect of our experience.  In meditation, all the objects that fill or visual field can be a tremendous support for awareness. Sounds have a naturally soothing quality on the mind.  When sounds are experienced with meditative awareness, even those that we ordinarily consider abrasive can elicit a sense of deep stillness and contentment.  

 Smells and tastes often go unnoticed in daily life.  Taking time to bring awareness to them can calm and strengthen your mind.  

 Those who are subscribed to the Tergar Bozeman weekly newsletter will receive additional information and practice tools related to the topic. You can subscribe to their newsletter here:

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Event: Practicing with Koans

Daylong Retreat, Zen

Join the Bozeman Zen Group on Saturday, July 8 for a half-day retreat and koan practice.

Image: PngTree.com
Image: PNGtree.com

Practiced by Zen students since the 600s, the study of koans encourages us to leave our beliefs and biases at the gate when we enter its space. While there are many fine collections of traditional koans, we will keep company with examples presented in a contemporary collection referred to as “the miscellaneous koans.” All welcome; no prior experience necessary! $20 donation to the Bozeman Zen Group is requested. Register here.

Dharma Thought: Contemplation & Practice Suggestion

Dharma Thoughts, Non-denominational

Contemplation:

“Whenever we are between here and there, whenever one thing has ended and we’re waiting for the next thing to begin, whenever we’re tempted to distract ourselves or look for an escape route, we can instead let ourselves be open, curious, tentative, vulnerable.

You can always find ways to connect with this in your everyday life. Its very simple,  slow down and abruptly stop.  Look out, and touch in with the present moment.  Doing so breaks up the stream of concepts and mental chatter that overlay your experience.  It enables you to touch in with the timelessness of the present moment”.

Pema Chodron, “Welcoming the Unwelcome”

A possible practice session for the next 3 weeks:

Reflect on your motivation and aspiration.

Relax in open awareness:

       Don’t try to focus on anything in particular or control your mind.

       Leave all the sense doors open, without trying to block any aspect of experience.  

After a few minutes, bring your awareness to the physical sensations in your body

Rest your attention on an object in your visual field, or on whatever sense you have chosen to use as support for your meditation

You do not need to change or alter your experience, nor do you need to focus intensely or concentrate the mind.

                 Simply know that you are feeling/seeing/hearing.  

Rest again in open awareness, not distracted and not meditating. Eyes open for the last 1-2 min.  

This Dharma Thought is brought to you by Tergar Bozeman: The Joy of Living Practice Group which meets weekly on Wednesdays at 5:30 PM.

Dharma Thought: On Activity

Dharma Thoughts, Zen

On Activity, from Suzuki Roshi: “When we practice zazen, we limit our activity to the smallest extent. Just keeping the right posture and concentrating on sitting is how we express the universal nature. Then we become Buddha and express Buddha nature…we just concentrate on the activity we do in each moment. When you bow, you should just bow; when you eat, you should just eat. If you do this, the universal nature is there. In Japanese, we call it ichigyo zammai or ‘one-act samadhi.‘ “

Despite our society’s love of “multi-tasking,” science is discovering that we really can only do one thing at a time. Our attempts at multi-tasking are actually our brains serially monotasking. This fragmented attention is the opposite of what the Buddha taught and of what Suzuki Roshi tried to remind us. Do you notice a difference in your mental state when you focus on one thing at a time and when you try to multi-task? Which one feels better?

This Dharma Thought is brought to you by the Bozeman Zen Group.

Event: Summer Solstice Celebration

Non-denominational

On Wednesday, June 21, come celebrate the longest day of the year with dharma, a Sound Meditation (bells provided by Ann Marvin) followed by refreshments and socializing. Donations gratefully accepted at the door to help cover the cost of the event. No prior experience or registration needed. Appropriate for friends and families with children 10 years or older.

Celebrate the summer solstice with a sound meditation
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Event: BIC Guest Speaker

Non-denominational

BIC is excited to have guest Somananda Yogi speak via Zoom on the evening of June 22 at 7PM Mountain time. Somananda Yogi is an American-born master in Thai Medicine and meditation practices. He will Zoom in from Thailand. This promises to be a fascinating evening!

All are welcome. In person or join by the regular, drop-in zoom channel.

No prior experience or registration necessary.

This evening is freely offered; contributions to support the teachings are gratefully accepted in the time-honored generosity practice of dāna.

BIC Guest Speaker, Somananda Yogi