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Dear Still Water Friends,

According to legend, the Buddha was raised as a prince and lived his early years indulgently, amidst great luxury. When he was 29, however, he realized there was no deep or lasting joy in his life. For the next six years he practiced as an ascetic, denying himself basic needs as well as pleasures. This too, he found, did not bring lasting satisfaction.

On the night of his enlightenment he looked deeply into his dissatisfaction and realized there was another way, a way of being which led to a deep and abiding joy. As he explained soon after to the ascetics he had traveled with,

... please listen, my friends. I have found the Great Way, and I will show it to you. You will be the first to hear my Teaching. This Dharma is not the result of thinking. It is the fruit of direct experience.  . . .

My brothers, there are two extremes that a person on the path should avoid. One is to plunge oneself into sensual pleasures, and the other is to practice austerities which deprive the body of its needs. Both of these extremes lead to failure. The path I have discovered is the Middle Way, which avoids both extremes and has the capacity to lead one to understanding, liberation, and peace. It is the Noble Eightfold Path of right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. I have followed this Noble Eightfold Path and have realized understanding, liberation, and peace.

Brothers, why do I call this path the Right Path? I call it the Right Path because it does not avoid or deny suffering, but allows for a direct confrontation with suffering as the means to overcome it. The Noble Eightfold Path is the path of living in awareness. Mindfulness is the foundation. By practicing mindfulness, you can develop concentration which enables you to attain Understanding. Thanks to right concentration, you realize right awareness, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood, and effort. The Understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy. [From Old Path, White Cloud, by Thich Nhat Hanh]

This week, as my wife Ann-Mari and I talked about how to respond to someone close to us suffering from an addiction, I thought about the importance of the Buddha's teaching on the Middle Way. The addicted person is usually entirely focused on a short term desire for pleasure (or a short term desire to avoid pain). There is little room for a larger understanding of what will bring a deeper satisfaction to ourselves and others.

Once I saw the "avoiding or denying" of suffering in addictions, I also began to see it more clearly in many areas of my own life:

• When I procrastinate, such as when I put off a writing project
• When I make unhealthy food choices
• When I turn away from (or dampen) the suffering of others, because staying with them is unpleasant
• When I look for ways to distract myself from my fear, anxieties, or sadness
  

In each case I am trying to avoid facing the unpleasant feelings in front of me. I am not willing or not motivated to fully experience them. I don't yet see that whether I recognize it or not, avoiding and denying inevitably makes it harder for myself and others.

Our orientation to pleasure and pain is deeply rooted in our psyches, usually well beneath our conscious awareness. This Thursday, after our meditation period, we will explore together the lessonsabout pleasure and pain we learned growing up, and the experiences we've gained in finding a middle way which reduces our suffering and the suffering of others.
A related quote from Pema Chodron is below.

We will begin this Thursday at 6:30 pm with an orientation to Mindfulness Practice and the Still Water community. Everyone is welcome -- please consider joining us or bringing a friend.

Warm Wishes,

Mitchell

The Root of Suffering

What keeps us unhappy and stuck in a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. This is how we keep ourselves enclosed in a cocoon. Out there are all the planets and all the galaxies and vast space, but we're stuck here in this cocoon. Moment after moment, we're deciding that we would rather stay in that cocoon than step out into that big space. Life in our cocoon is cozy and secure. We've gotten it all together. It's safe, it's predictable, it's convenient, and it's trustworthy. If we feel ill at ease, we just fill in those gaps.

Our mind is always seeking zones of safety. We're in this zone of safety and that's what we consider life, getting it all together, security -- that's what makes us anxious. We fear being confused and not knowing which way to turn. We want to know what's happening. The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and these zones of safety are continually falling apart. Then we scramble to get another zone of safety, which are always falling apart. That's the essence of samsara -- the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.