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Shambhala Center 2nd Day
A retreat is an opportunity to cultivate the energy of mindfulness and concentration so that compassion—“like a flower brought to us by the practice of understanding”—can arise. Understanding here means seeing the first two Noble Truths: 1) suffering (ill-being) exists and 2) we ourselves have “consumed” in ways that create it. Our daily life is shaped by watering both positive seeds (compassion, love, wisdom) and negative seeds (anger, fear, hatred) through unmindful consumption—of food, media, conversation, and more. By learning to – water only the flower and not the garbage (selective watering) – recognize, embrace, and look deeply into our afflictions (mindfulness of anger, fear, despair) we water the seed of mindfulness instead of strengthening our pain.
The Buddha spoke of four kinds of nutriment and today Thay describes the first two:
- Edible food: mindful eating that “retains compassion and understanding,” so we do not “eat the flesh of our own children”—forty thousand die daily from lack of nutrition—nor rob future generations of food.
- Sensory impressions: everything we see, hear, read, or say can be food for our consciousness. Television, advertising, news and conversation often carry “poisons” of craving, fear, violence and anger; we must awaken to protect ourselves, our families, and society.
When anger or fear arises, we don’t suppress but invite mindfulness to embrace it—“Hello, my little anger”—giving it a bath of attention and tenderness until it returns to a seed. With enough mindfulness and concentration, insight will follow, and compassion becomes possible. If our individual mindfulness is still fragile, we take refuge in the Sangha: its collective energy of mindfulness acts like a boat keeping us afloat on the ocean of suffering.
