“Still Amidst the Change” with Jean this Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

This is a time of year traditionally associated with change. In the Gregorian or solar calendar, it’s just after the Winter Solstice, the pivot point between darkness and light, and right before New Year’s, when we resolve to make changes in our personal lives.  

Things are always changing, of course. Anicca, or the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena, is one of the three marks of existence.  But we humans tend to fill up our days with distractions, sometimes in an attempt to escape this truth.   

The darkness of winter can be a reminder to be still amidst the change and listen to our deepest intentions.

Yanai Postelnik, a dharma teacher,  climate activist, and cancer patient, said this in a talk entitled Love in the Time of Extinction:

I cannot know what you or anyone else should do but I invite you to contemplate what you care about and what you wish to explore and listen to your heart and see what your course of action will be.  Bear witness.  For everyone willing to be arrested there is someone hanging around trying to help.  Like a firefighter who goes into the fire is just one part – the person who buys the right jackets, keeps the trucks working...There are so many ways to express our concern – no guaranteed oucomes – but it always makes a difference.  There’s a spiritual threat we face.  What it is to live in the spiritual shrunkeness of turning away, not being willing to do whatever we’re able to do, and also the danger of not making space for, forgiving ourselves for whatever we cannot do.

Breathe, remember the future is always uncertain, that our life always has something to offer, and that our spiritual foundation is meeting what we encounter with an open heart, to deepen in lovingkindness, and to find ways of acting with love and compassion, to celebrate all the ways that are joyful, and to face life with equanimity.  

(You can find his talk by that title at https://dharmaseed.org/talks/57291)

Please join us this Sunday to share the dark and the light, the stillness and the movement, and the change and steadfastness of our intentions. Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight