Jo Westcombe
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Hello Lauren, It looks as if you are writing regularly. That sounds like several obstacles overcome and a worthy discipline practice to me. Tough but slowly opening up a channel (perhaps see my post…).
Hi Toni, How to get to that dreamy place of wisdom? Susan talked last week about there being three ways, involving a king or a boat person or a shepherd (I’m not sure any more which one was most relevant to Susan’s tradition). And I drew a picture of six oars. And then our reading suggested that there might be 10 Paramitas or 36 and my boat got a lot bigger! In any case, it seems that there are ways across to that shore and various beings willing to help us get there, but it will certainly involve some work and pulling together!
Hi Mary-Beth, How great to hear that you experience joy and meaning (I am extrapolating) in your life and work. That gave me a happy buzz just to read. And we all need moments of joy, so thank you!
I suppose there is the everyday NOW in terms of getting stuff done and the week whizzing by, but then there is the mindful NOW, which is all we’ve got, so perhaps we can learn to reframe the first with the second?
And I keep coming back to the Paramita of patience and not really understanding why it is called that. I suppose many of us are primed to believe we are falling short in terms of the Christian idea of patience, but this Paramita seems to be much more about acceptance and equanimity. I am a long way from understanding it fully.Hi Glenn, What you say in your first paragraph suggests that generosity is innate in you, and that you have already been of benefit to many beings in your life. It sounds as if you have been interpreting these events and stories through the last Paramita. Perhaps it would be worth looking at them from the perspective of the others, too, especially the first. I understand that the Paramitas are laid out as a list but are also approaches or ways of looking.
I heard about the Paramitas for the first time from Susan last year, and found the Mindful New Year recordings very wonderful. I am only at the very beginning of my understanding of the Paramitas.
The one I feel most drawn to is discipline. Being very aware of the pitfalls of translation, I looked up the etymology of the English word “discipline”, only to find that one origin of the word was connected to “mortification through scourging oneself”. But the word is also linked to “disciple” or learner, which certainly feels more fitting.
I found Bridget Bailey’s metaphor of the river very helpful when thinking about discipline instead as “proper conduct”. A healthy river flows naturally, but is contained within its banks. If its banks are too rigid, the river will come out of balance and the flow will be impeded. If the banks are too low, there will be flooding.
So, in thinking about the Paramitas as expansion and contraction, the latter seems not to be about tightness, but instead (visiting the dictionary again) about a “conduit” or channel, about a drawing together (contraction) and about a holding together or containment. This links well with the idea of “binding”.
Bridget Bailey quoted Pema Chodron, that discipline allows us to slow down and be present. This feels such a welcome invitation; when stuff gets thrown at me (or I throw stuff at myself), instead of reacting habitually, I can feel held, can pause and reflect before responding. And this slowing down can allow me to cultivate all the virtuous choices available on the Middle Way, especially the big C, Compassion.
And this proper conduct also involves the discipline of practising over and over the simple reminder to come back gently (but firmly) to the breath. And, as I read somewhere else, practice might involve finding a “small discipline” in daily life and cultivating it.
I can’t say that I feel less of a connection to another Paramita. I do want to investigate “Exertion” more, especially to learn if there is any relationship to “Windhorse”.
The expanding and contracting nature of the Paramitas just feels like life, and breathing, while at the same time going beyond them. I’m very grateful to have been introduced to them.
Hi Joe,
You divide these lineages up so neatly, and still they cannot be contained. This is a major takeaway from reading these essays: this is what it means to be human – everyone a rich tapestry and unique with they and people around them all somewhere on the “quirky” and the “awesome” spectrum. How life affirming. You really couldn’t make you, or anyone else here up!I first heard Susan talk about lineage, offerings and blessings sometime last year in her podcast / Monday morning meditations, and I’m glad I now actually have to write down some reflections on my own lineage.
As a Brit, I have some understanding of my/my family’s position in the class system. But I don‘t know much about my actual family lineage. I don’t know if my ancestors were writing letters to the Times about e.g. the horrors of the sugar plantations in the West Indies or the Victorian narcotics trade in China, whether they were involved or profiting from either of these or perhaps just ignorant of them. There are a lot of big question marks there for me.
As far as the last couple of generation goes, though, I come from a family of teachers and other good humans who were active in their local churches, communities and regions. It feels good and very grounding to have been brought up in that environment.
So it is interesting to me that a lineage focus can be selective, (as in: I’ll just pick the good ones) but also that it has to be, as there is so much we cannot know about where we come from. I have a particular fear of two types of injury – one that might happen by accident but another that could only be inflicted deliberately. I’ll never know if these hark back to previous lives of mine or of others, but they feel deeply rooted.
In educational and vocational terms, I’ve been very fortunate to be able to learn from expert teacher trainers in institutions that have their own lineage and heritage.
As for the Buddhist path I’d been hovering around for years, it was the “10% Happier” book and app that led me to Sharon Salzburg and Joseph Goldstein and many other remarkable teachers – it was during the pandemic that I encountered Susan for the first time in the daily meditations.
So I’ve got quite a line-up of teachers to be grateful for and to be inspired by.
And what I have learned and am learning from my teachers I hope I can sometimes pay forward to my own students. The teacher-pupil-teacher-pupil lineage continuum gives my work and my wider life meaning.
Hello Ana,
Thank you for mentioning a “personal” middle way. I think I’ve so far thought of it as “The” Middle Way. But your approach is very reassuring and gently liberating.
Hello Elizabeth, That little chapel with candles and friends (and singing) sounds like a very special, safe place – as if you had arrived home?
Eternalism: I can relate to this in terms of spending lots of time with my very favourite people in a church (-adjacent) community of a choir I’ve been singing in for years. I’m not confirmed, don’t take Communion or say the Creed but am just now wondering what motivates others to do so. I’m sure they find magic and mystery and continuity in the liturgy and sacraments, and I know that many genuinely want Christ in their lives on earth, but perhaps they also believe that God keeps an eye on their “streak”, and that this will be important in the hereafter.
From what I hear in the readings and from discussions in our rather boisterous Bible (Torah) Study group, despite at least ten very clear rules, there is a great deal of ambiguity, knottedness and potential for nihilism (selective versions of reality/belief) in this belief system. It all seems quite hard work, stressful and not always self-compassionate.But then there is the music… I would like sacred choral music with me in/on the Middle Way, and appreciate that Bach, Byrd, Pärt, Tallis, Taverner and co. were inspired and infused by the eternal to create magic and mystery, and I am in turn “eternally” grateful for that.
Nihilism: For me this feels much more mundane. If eternalism is for Sundays, then this is the rest of the week. I eat chocolate in the evening and my sleep score reading is bad, and the next day I get annoyed with the dog and go to work grumpy, and these ephemeral circumstances and events get turned in my mind into some coherent narrative about my failings and bad deal in life. The “and”s get turned into “so’s”.
Are dogs nihilistic, because they are simply reactive? They see their owner and react with a wag, another dog walks past the gate so they bark, and when their dinner is put in front of them they have a singular focus on its substance?
When trying to get my head around the concept of nihilism, I kept landing on another word, “denialism” instead. This “lie first” strategy is very evident in politics today, where the truth seems mostly inconvenient, and some very distorted versions of reality seem very far away from wisdom’s influence.
I thought we would be writing this week about the Middle Way and was grappling with what that might be, but having had to become a bit more familiar with eternalism and nihilism, the Middle Way seems a very appealing place/path of (dappled) light and shade to rest and move through.
Thank you, Jersey. Your post shook me and was (as I replied to Ana) an important reminder for me that, even if a group receives “the same” guided meditation, the responses and the energy required for processing / negotiating what comes up will be vastly different. This is an important lesson for me as a teacher.
Thank you for sharing, and I hope you will continue to find some more moments of rest in the breath.Thank you, Ana. Reading your response after Jersey’s was very helpful. There we all were on Saturday, receiving the same instruction, on the same Zoom wall, for the same amount of time, and however those minutes were going for me, everyone else individually was on their own path, being tripped up by their own trailing burdens and sent down their own meanders and sidetracks, and with some of us navigating some very deep holes.
I’m guessing there will be both mundane and magical intersections as well as supportive company on these individual journeys over the next few weeks. I like the idea of a labyrinth and us all being in it together as we find our separate ways through.Supporting discovery
As a teacher of other things, I have to start with clarifying that the guiding principle mentioned today of “We are not hear to teach, but to help people discover” really depends on your definition of “teach”. If we assume that it refers to the approach of “I know my stuff and am going to tell you how to do it, otherwise you’ll do it wrong,” then no, that is not the way to do any teaching. Instead, helping people to discover is much more likely to bear fruit, and to be rewarding for both teacher (yes, that word) and student. Because we’re on the Buddhist path and therefore love lists, here might be three elements of supporting discovery: safety, structure and space.Firstly, if you want to take anyone on a learning journey, you have to build some sort of relationship. Learners have different needs, but I think trusting the teacher would be regarded as a necessity, especially if the teacher starts the course by saying something terrifying like “I’m not going to teach you, but I’m going to help you to discover xyz yourself.” The learner needs to know that the teacher has some sort of credibility, content-wise, that they seem to be competent in the teaching business, that they show some interest in their students, that they turn up to lessons, are consistent, can tell a good story – these might be important to a learner to different degrees, but make up the foundations for a student to feel that they are in a secure place, in good hands and, because they can relax, that learning can happen.
A feeling of security is also fostered by the “containment” that we heard about today. I love containers. They have a base and sides and the idea is that you can pour or tip all sorts of stuff (from boring to magic) in and keep it in there without it leaking out or getting lost. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to have a row of containers on a shelf that all have the same form or colour. In meditation practice, this structure almost certainly means starting and finishing each meditation session in the same way, e.g. with a bell, or taking your seat and feeling your feet on the floor or bottom on the cushion. In teaching, it can involve including the same phrases or elements of the practice each session, which is in turn a great basis for titrating any new stuff. Students can rely on certain structural things being present in each session, and this, along with the more general safe environment allows them to try new things out – think small bird learning to fly from big branch.
So, to extend that idea, the small bird leaves the security of the big branch to launch itself into the biggest space it has ever encountered. This is where not having some sort of guide would be probably be foolish, but still, the bird “gotta fly”. In meditation, the teacher can be there with suggestions: “If this happens, try this. If that didn’t work, maybe do this instead”. It’s useful to warn against expectations and ambition. It’s essential to remind people that the word “practice” is used for a reason. Ultimately the point is to accompany students on their journey of discovery, to be a responsible teacher, but not to hold ourselves responsible for them.
This ties in with the idea of caring about rather than taking care of students. Even if we are able to think someone else’s thoughts (aka be a good listener), we are not going to be able to be inside someone else’s body, have the day they are having or take the meditation journey they are taking. They are going to be discovering stuff anyway – however we teach, but we can give safety, offer structure and allow space for things to grow.
Hello everyone,
I’m Jo Westcombe. I’m from the UK originally but have lived in Southern Germany (Munich and environs) since my early 20s. I teach English at a small university, and yoga in our village sports club; in both places meditation is involved! I live with a man and a teenager and do dog things and choir things.
In terms of my reasons for doing this course, the expression “open-hearted rigour” has just popped into my head, so I will start with that and see how we go!