“All that rumination has gotten you nowhere, because there is nowhere else you can be. Perhaps you could just settle here and let things change by themselves—which they will, whether you like it or not.”

-Karen Maezen Miller

This Week’s Discussion Topic
How have you personally engaged in “spiritual materialism”?

“You’ll get nowhere with practice unless you can really embrace your experience on the cushion with all of its angst, pain, and frustration right now. This is the practice you should be doing.”

-Stephen Batchelor

This Week’s Discussion Topic
What does “ego” mean to you, and how does it affect your life?

“Equanimity takes interest in whatever is occurring simply because it is occurring. Equanimity does not include aversive states of indifference, boredom, coldness, or hesitation. It is an expression of calm, radiant balance that takes whatever comes in stride.”

-Shaila Catherine

This Week’s Discussion Topic
What does it mean to “awaken”?

“Zen is not about adding anything to our lives; it’s about seeing the inherent perfection we already possess. Zen practice is a process of getting to that perfection—a means of removing the layers of conditioning from families, schools, and the media that prevent us from seeing who we really are.”

– John Daido Loori

This Week’s Discussion Topic
What types of “conditioning” have been most difficult for you to see through?

“With only a change in perspective, the most ordinary things take on inexpressible beauty. When we don’t know, we don’t judge. And when we don’t judge, we see things in a different light. That is the light of our awareness, unfiltered by intellectual understanding, rumination, or evaluation.”

-Katsuki Sekida

This Week’s Discussion Topic
Is the word “suffering” the most accurate definition for dukkha? Why or why not?

“Every day, monks minutely examine the law and endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn how to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon.”

-Ikkyu

This Week’s Discussion Topic
Have you ever come close to or actually given up practicing? Why, and what led you back?

“Our problems start when we subordinate this moment to something else, especially our self-centered thoughts: what ‘I want.’ All day long, we bring to the moment our personal priorities. And so our troubles arise.”

-Charlotte Joko Beck

This Week’s Discussion Topic
Describe methods you’ve successfully used to avoid becoming engaged with/carried away by thoughts whether on the cushion or off.

“There will always be things we can’t explain. In fact, our explanations are always provisional. This isn’t a problem unless we start to confuse the explanation with reality. We have a strong tendency to do that because we like explanations so much.”

-Brad Warner

This Week’s Discussion Topic
Discuss a time when you have personally experienced the relationship between impermanence and suffering.

“The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good. Every moment of time has enormous energy in it, and we could connect with that.”

-Pema Chödrön

This Week’s Discussion Topic
Discuss example(s) of how you’ve successfully “surrendered” or “let go” to some situation in your life.

“Something I have come to understand slowly over my lifetime is that nature, earth, the world—whatever you call it—is not simply something I am ‘on’ but something I ‘am.’ It is not outside of me: it is me, and I am it. There is no outside.”

-Paul Kingsnorth

This Week’s Discussion Topic
What was the biggest motivating event, person, situation, book, etc. that initially drew you to Buddhism?