The Third Mindfulness Training

The Third Mindfulness Training

Discussion date: Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at our weekly Thursday evening practice

Dear Still Water Friends,

This morning my partner asked me what I was up to today.

I told her that I was thinking about the third mindfulness training.

She said, "What’s that?"

I replied, "Sexuality."

She murmured, "That’s right up your alley, or maybe mine."

We were unusually playful today.

What is mindfulness of sexuality for you? Does it include the other five mindfulness trainings?

1. Does loving-kindness play a part?
2. Is generosity involved?
3. How about just sexuality in sexuality? Are you into it?
4. Openness. Do you ask for what you want, and say what you do not want?
5. What are issues around joyful nourishment, avoiding toxins and cloudy thinking?

I think this is all really risky, courageous, and tender stuff. Do you?

My proposal for starting the discussion this Thursday is that we reflect on how we incorporate all these trainings in our practice of the third mindfulness training. Of course, we are encouraged to celebrate what we do well and be especially compassionate with ourselves when we fall short of our best intentions.

Many blessings,

Mark


"I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.” When you practice one precept deeply, you will discover that you are practicing all five. The First Precept is about taking life, which is a form of stealing — stealing the most precious thing someone has, his or her life. When we meditate on the Second Precept, we see that stealing, in the forms of exploitation, social injustice, and oppression, are acts of killing — killing slowly by exploitation, by maintaining social injustice, and by political and economic oppression. Therefore, the Second Precept has much to do with the precept of not killing. We see the “interbeing” nature of the first two precepts. This is true of all Five Precepts. Some people formally receive just one or two precepts. I didn’t mind, because if you practice one or two precepts deeply, all Five Precepts will be observed.

–Thich Nhat Hahn, For a Future to Be Possible

Discussion Date: Thu, Nov 13, 2008


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