“Finding Well-Being Within Non-Well-Being” with Jean this Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

At a recent retreat, one of the teachers spoke of cultivating a practice robust enough to hold well-being within non-well-being – a well-being, in other words, that is not dependent on external conditions.

This is the promise of the Buddha, and, to me, it is particularly compelling at this time in our history. With so much hatred and violence surrounding us, how and where do we find well-being?

Larry Rosenberg, in his book entitled Living in the Light of Death, tells the story of a doctor asked to visit a patient who had had polio as a child and was put in an iron lung. He writes:

She had been confined that way for more than forty years. When [the doctor] met her, she was smiling, just beaming. All the doctors and nurses loved to be around her; she was often happy and serene. Finally he asked, “How can you be so happy?” and she said, “Every now and then someone opens the window, and a breeze comes in.”

Clearly this woman had discovered a freedom within conditions, not from them.

I imagine that, early-on, she made a choice. She could live her life as a victim of her very difficult conditions or she could cultivate a well-being not dependent on external circumstances – a well-being grounded in gratitude and connection.

As long as we are conscious, we all have this choice. And we are seeing similar choices – to choose love and connection over hatred and exclusion – made by our neighbors every day. This is the practice of cultivating well-being in the midst of non-well-being.

Please join us this Sunday for practice and connection. Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight