Joining the Sangha in Practice

We gather to practice the 5 Mindfulness Trainings together.

” The Five Mindfulness Trainings have their root in the Five Precepts offered by the Buddha. They have been expanded and updated so that they represent a way to bring mindfulness into every area of life. Rather than hard and fast rules, they offer us a path to cultivate and develop actions of body, speech and mind that can create a more healthy and compassionate world.”

1. Reverence For Life

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.

2. True Happiness

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and stop contributing to climate change.

3. True Love

Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without mutual consent, true love, and a deep, long-term commitment. I resolve to find spiritual support for the integrity of my relationship from family members, friends, and sangha with whom there is support and trust. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. Seeing that body and mind are interrelated, I am committed to learn appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and to cultivate the four basic elements of true love – loving kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness – for the greater happiness of myself and others. Recognizing the diversity of human experience, I am committed not to discriminate against any form of gender identity or sexual orientation. Practicing true love, we know that we will continue beautifully into the future.

4. Loving Speech and Deep Listening

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into my anger. I know that the roots of anger can be found in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will practice Right Diligence to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.

5. Nourishment and Healing

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.

WEEKLY INDOOR PRACTICE
Please arrive 5-10 minutes early so that we may all be settled to begin at 6:30pm.

**Please note that for security reasons, the doors will be locked at 6:30pm. If you arrive late, please enjoy your breathing in the hallway until we are able to welcome you into the studio at ~6:55pm.

Although there can be some variation, a typical evening of indoor practice follows this schedule:

Guided sitting meditation (20 mins)
Walking meditation (10 mins)
Silent sitting meditation (20 mins)
Walking meditation (10 mins)
Dharma talk/ video/ reading/ practice (20-30 mins)
Dharma Sharing (20-30 mins)
Closing/ Dedication of Practice (5 mins)

Please maintain noble silence upon arrival, so as to support the sangha’s collective practice.

Noble silence begins at 6:45pm and is observed until Dharma discussion, when we begin to practice loving speech and deep listening.

As described on the Plum Village website, “Noble Silence does not mean that we are not allowed to talk. It means that we don’t have to talk, we have no obligation to talk during that period.

Silence becomes Noble when it is an Inner Silence. The mind is calm and at ease. Whenever we hear the sound of a bell, whether it is the outside bell or the telephone or the chiming of the clock, we take it as an opportunity to practice Noble Silence. We go back to our breathing. We feel the air moving in and out of our body.

We become aware of the temperature of the air and the substance of the air as it moves in and out through our nostrils. With the practice of stopping and listening to the sound of the bell we go a little bit in the direction of Inner Silence.

We have noticed that when our mind is busy our body is also busy and we tend to do things noisily. We like to regard our body as a door leading to Inner Silence. Therefore we practice being aware of the sounds we make when we move around. This has a wonderful effect: our bodily actions become very quiet and our mind becomes calm.”

The sound of the bell is the voice of the Buddha, calling us back to our true home. When we hear the sound of the bell, we stop whatever we are doing and fully enjoy our breathing and being.

By connecting with the physical sensations of our breathing and our body, we can return to the present moment.

When we bring our palms together in gassho, we are bringing our mind and our body together. When we bow in gassho, we are offering the gift of our beautiful presence like a lotus flower.

Before entering or leaving the meditation hall, we stop and offer our gift of a lotus, aware that the hall is one of the precious conditions that supports our Practice.

Before being seated on our cushion, we first stop and offer a lotus to the cushion, as another precious element that supports our practice.

We also offer a lotus to signal when we have words to share and to offer gratitude for the sangha’s deep listening.

Before speaking, we wait for the sangha to offer a collective lotus in response, signalling that they are ready to listen deeply and they’re grateful for our sharing.

As described on the Plum Village website:

It’s wonderful to practice sitting meditation: to stop whatever we’re doing, let go of our projects, our worries, and just sit there, being with our breathing, being with our body and looking to see what’s coming up inside.

Sitting comfortably
To practice sitting meditation, we can find a comfortable position for our body. You might like to have a cushion to put under your backside.

One option is to sit with your legs crossed, folded underneath one another. This creates three points of stability: the back side and then the two knees.

You may also like—if you’re more flexible—to sit in what we call the half lotus, which is with your foot up on your thigh.

If you feel even more flexible, some people like to sit in the full lotus, which is with both feet on the thighs. That may be uncomfortable for most of us to do.

If it’s difficult for you to sit in the cross legged position, you can also sit in a chair, or you might like to sit with the cushion between your legs so that you’re kneeling and the cushion supports you.

To find a stable position we can imagine that there’s a thread going up through our spine and coming out through the crown of our head. Imagine somebody pulling up gently on that thread. We relax our shoulders, letting them just hang, our chest is open and our back is upright.

In this way we’re stable; even if we feel a bit sleepy, we’re not going to fall over. You can put your hands either together on your lap or on your knees.

The main thing is to feel comfortable. Sitting meditation is not something that needs to be too formal; we don’t need to feel rigid or tight in our body. That rigidity is actually a kind of tension that’s also present in our mind. The most important thing is to relax.

You might like to close our eyes or just leave them half open with a gentle gaze on a point in front of us.

What do we do?

When we practice sitting meditation, we try to let go of any need to accomplish anything. We know that just being aware of our breath we can calm our mind and calm our body.

Awareness of Breath

All of our attention is on the breath.

It may happen that there’s thinking coming up about the future and our projects. Maybe there’s some worry about what’s going on in the present moment in the world. We might feel some fear.

Any time we notice thinking coming up, we just bring our attention fully back to the breath—to the visceral sensation of the breath coming in through the nose, filling our lungs, our belly perhaps rising. Breathing out, the air is expelled by our lungs, the belly falling, the air coming out through our mouth or our nose.

This is to cultivate mindfulness—mindfulness of breathing. The breath is a wonder. It’s always changing. Every time I bring awareness to my breathing, I notice that it’s not quite the same, there’s always something new. The breath is bringing oxygen into my body, calming my muscles, calming my whole body, nourishing the cells in my body.

By breathing in with awareness, I realize that I get in touch with my breath directly. It’s not just an idea.

Breathing in. I know, I’m breathing in.
Breathing out. I know I’m breathing out.

Awareness of Body

As we master being mindful of our breathing, we can also be aware of our entire body. We can come back to the body and take refuge in our body.

Usually we’re not aware of our body. We are thinking about something that happened, or that is happening, that makes us worry, and we forget entirely that we have a body.

Meditation is a chance to come back and get in touch with this very body, to really feel it.

By practicing like this, we realize the possibility of stopping our thinking. Thinking needs attention and so if our attention is entirely on our breath or entirely on our body, then it doesn’t have a requisite condition to manifest.

It’s not suppressing thinking, but rather shifting our attention to the visceral experience of the breath and the body to bring about healing and calm.

Breathing in, I’m aware of my whole body.
Breathing out, I smile to my body.
In, aware of the body.
Out, smiling.

Don’t forget to smile!

You can smile! It’s a joy to be aware of our breathing and our body. It’s a joy to be alive. If you’re breathing, it means you’re alive and being alive is a wonder—one of the greatest wonders.

We hope you enjoy sitting meditation!

As described on the Plum Village website:

” It is possible to walk in freedom and solidity, and to arrive in the present moment in every step. Wherever we walk, we can practice meditation.

Walking in meditation means to walk in such a way that we know we are walking. We walk leisurely, enjoying every step. We become aware of the contact of our feet with the ground, and the flow of our breathing. We set ourselves free from our thinking—our regrets about the past, our fears and anxieties about the future, or our preoccupations in the present. We become 100% present with every step.

We become aware of the contact between our feet and the ground. And we harmonize our steps with our breathing. We may take two or three steps as we breathe in, and then three or four steps as we breathe out. It will depend on your lungs and the natural rhythm of your steps.

As we continue walking, synchronizing our breathing and our steps, we become aware of our whole body walking. We can relax any tension in our shoulders or arms, and feel what a miracle it is to be walking on Earth. We can open our ears to the sounds around us, and lift up our eyes to enjoy the trees, or the horizon, or the people around us. Aware of our five senses, we know we have arrived in the present moment.

Every step can be nourishing and every step can be healing.

Dharma sharing is an opportunity to benefit from one another’s insights and experience of the practice. It is time dedicated for us to share our experiences, joys, difficulties and questions relating to our mindfulness practice.

We practice deep listening while others are speaking, to help create a calm and receptive environment. When we share our happiness and our difficulties in the practice, we contribute to the collective insight and understanding of the Sangha.

We share based on our own experience of the practice rather than about abstract ideas and theoretical topics. We may realize that many of us share similar difficulties and aspirations. Sitting, listening and sharing together, we recognize our true connections through our collective human experiences.

Please remember that whatever is shared during the Dharma sharing time is confidential. If a friend shares about a difficulty they are facing, please respect that they may or may not wish to talk about this individually outside the Dharma sharing time.

The invitation is to share as little or as much as is available to us. Deep listening and loving speech are both equally treasured.

Shared from the Plum Village website.

We ask that you remain muted when not speaking, in order to minimize sound feedback. We also ask that you wear headphones if there is anyone else in the room who might hear what is shared.

We also ask that you keep your video camera on and engage in the same way that you would in person.

These measures are to support the collective group experience, but also for confidentiality reasons. Group safety can be ensured when we are all aware of who is able to hear and see into our shared virtual space.

Please message the facilitators to let us know if you have to turn your video off for any reason.

Going As a River Sangha is a self-sustaining non-profit community. Sangha members are invited to practice dāna to help nourish and keep the sangha body alive. Dāna is a practice of generosity - each offering nourishes and supports our own practice as well as the sangha’s.

The first most precious form of offering of generosity is our presence and practice. Our practice is a treasure to the sangha, as it benefits the sangha as much as it benefits us individually. We are each a single cell in the sangha body, so our own happiness is also the happiness of the sangha.

The second offering of generosity is our service. Please let us know if it is available to you to offer service in support of the sangha. You are invited to let the Caretaking Council know by emailing goingasariver@gmail.com

The third offering of generosity is by offering financial support, to help sustain the sangha’s operational and administrative costs, such as: practice space rental, Zoom fees, website hosting, print materials etc..

Suggested dāna is $5-20 per weekly practice session, which can also be offered on a monthly basis (for example $20-80 per month).

Everybody is welcome and nobody will be turned away for financial reasons. Please offer what is available to you, those who can offer little are supported by the offerings of those who can offer more. Financial dāna can be made via the button below.

All forms of offerings of generosity are welcome with gratitude!

Dana can be offered on our Dana Page, via Paypal
or via e-transfer to donate@goingasariver.org

For more information, check out our Practice Orientation Guide