Upavana Spring Newsletter
Upavana’s spring newsletter has just posted. You can find it here: https://mailchi.mp/4e42590b3a65/upavana-january2022-newsletter-7061597
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Talk: The Four Duties
On the Uposatha night, a sick Tahn Pamutto gives a reflection on how we can come to understand the ups and downs of life in a buddhist context. We do this by considering the four noble truths, and specifically cultivating the ‘duty’ to each of these truths. Suffering is to be understood, Craving is to
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Family Group: Adhitthāna
This week for the family group we covered the paramī of adhitthāna. This is a quality which like Khanti straddles the definitions of a few english words with its meaning and scope. One aspect is the ability to determine or resolve upon doing something, but the willpower and persistence to stay with our goal despite
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Talk: Four Foundations of Mindfulness
In this Uposatha talk, Tahn Pamutto provides encouragement in developing mindfulness, an essential component of the eightfold path, and describes the Buddha’s framework of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness which helps guide that effort and make it fruitful.
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Family Group: Patience
Our family group this week covered the paramī of Khanti. In the Pāli language, khanti is a word that covers a whole range of activities in English: Patience, Tolerance, Forebearance, Endurance. The common thread that all of these things have together is that they deal with our ability to be with a challenging or unpleasant
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Family Group: Death
This weekend with the family group, we took a pause from covering the paramī’s to open a conversation on the topic of Death. As we said when we were wrapping up, the conversation didn’t end – it was in fact the beginning of a larger, ongoing conversation that we could each have. Together we can
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Family Group: Upekkha/Equanimity
UPEKKHA: EQUANIMITY (note: this lesson was done in group but some of the lesson unfortunately wasn’t planned or recorded!) ACTIVITY: Meditation Timers How to Create a Glitter Jar for Kids – Mindful Daily Practices Materials: Water Bottles, Water, Glitter/Beads/Legos/Etc Using the glitter jars, demonstrate how shaking the jar only keeps the glitter floating around. Only
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Talk: Four Streams of Merit
On the Uposatha, Tahn Pamutto offers a reflection on four streams of Puñña, or Merit: Dānā, Service, Instruction, and Bhāvana. Elaborating on each one, he describes how they get progressively more powerful and sublime until the final stream of merit, which culminates in nibbāna itself.
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BCBS retreat
This week Tahn Pamutto was away on a visit to the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (buddhistinquiry.org) This center is connected with the Insight Meditation Society and Forest Refuge and together provide a wealth of retreat and learning opportunities for practitioners both locally and from abroad. The centers are lay retreat centers that only offer a
Family Group: Compassion
This week with the family group, we covered the paramī of Karunā, or Compassion. One of the benefits of using the paramī’s as a basis for our first meetings is that we get to cover such an important topic directly. We started with a guided meditation. We rang the bell and gave everyone a minute
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