I just want to share that I’m about to plunge into No-Spend February, not a very elegant title, but the 4th year in a row I’ve done this.
Strangely enough, it feels good.
Category: Skillful Means Page 2 of 4
My beloved Meditation teacher and friend at the Center for Mindful Living here in DC, Karolynn Coleman, who has studied Buddhist psychology for 30 years and trekked all over the Buddhist world, often shares these several beautiful verses at the end of our 30-minute meditations. She combines the words to an old Irish blessing, “The Long Time Sun,” with several verses of John O’Donohue’s gorgeous poem “Beannacht,” which means “blessing.”
Here’s a thought: give yourself a gift.
I just gave myself a birthday gift of a daylong retreat, “Cultivating an Inclusive Heart,” with Sharon Salzberg and Sylvia Boorstein. It seemed mildly radical to take a whole day to myself at the very start of December, the busy month, the month of giving and giving and giving and giving.
Due to my health challenges, I’m a little protective, even apprehensive, about overcommitting. Would I manage the whole day okay? Or would I be so tired I would have to come home? (And why, by the way, was I trying to sabotage my desire to go to this retreat?)
The more aware and observant we become; the more we sense our feelings in our bodies, rather than our minds; the more curious we become about what’s actually happening, as opposed to reacting automatically according to our default patterns and fears — the more at ease we become. The more room we create. The more time we have to listen before we respond. We can look to see, what’s good here? What’s a way in which I can be helpful?
When we look to see what’s really going on, we learn so much!
My friend Maria quoted from this poem in meditation class some months ago. Every so often I listen to a recording and to the sweet, wry, hopeful words of the poet, and I remind myself that it’s fine to just… let go.
In 1999, I attended a week-long residential training with the National SEED Project. SEED, an acronym for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity, was founded by Dr. Peggy McIntosh at the Wellesley College Center for Women to train teachers to be leaders in social understanding and change. I became a leader in SEED education for parents at several local DC schools, something I did for 10 years, with my brilliant and dear partner Sau Yang.
The SEED training gave us masses of resources, experiences, exercises, questions, filters, and concepts through which to view people’s lives. Out of that raw material, Sau and I created curricula for our monthly seminars, 3 hour sessions which ran 9 months of the year.