Tomorrow (Sunday, August 22 at 8pm), as local friends are taking shelter from the landfall of Hurricane Henri, Upavana will be hosting its bimonthly Uposatha gathering in person at the Wendell Senior Center in Wendell, MA. What good fortune to have a stable shelter to practice on a stormy night! Inclement weather can sometimes provide […]
I made a new friend on almsround today. He’s been in Massachusetts working for the summer, and was due to return back out west in a few days. On the eve of his departure, he noticed me talking with a friend outside the country store and approached. He showed extraordinary good instincts for a young
The other day on almsround I was stepping up in front of the local country store and was greeted by a friend. He’d just suffered a blow – a breakup with his girlfriend of some months. “It’s happened before but this time feels more final.” he said. Still, he was curiously upbeat. “I’m feeling a
This month’s In-Person retreat, “The Gradual Training”, wrapped up this evening. It was wonderful having friends together in a comfortable space for two days of dedicated practice, and the first offering since monastics Bhante Sumano and Anagarika Drew arrived to spend the vassa in Western Mass. The retreat was themed around the Buddha’s method of
Gradual Training Retreat Read More »
This week the conversation both online and on the street has been around Impermanence. The ‘idea’ of impermanence is one that every person has at some point – realistically many times in their life. And yet the Buddha highlights it and returns to it again and again in his teachings. Clearly not a mere idea
The Path to Impermanence Read More »
Tomorrow, our weekend retreat “The Gradual Training” will begin with an extension of the normal Friday meditation session on Zoom, at 8pm EDT. After the meditation there will be the opportunity for participants to take the Refuges and Precepts, and then at 9pm Tahn Pamutto will offer a talk outlining the theme for the weekend.
Retreat starting Friday Read More »
Last Friday night, for the Full Moon, the monastics were able to host their Uposatha gathering in the town of Wendell, where they will be spending the three month Vassa season. This is a time of stability, where wandering is reduced and monastics commit to staying in a particular community for the duration. Whether at
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Read More »
From Tahn Pamutto: “One of my root teachers, Luang Por Pasanno, once famously exclaimed, “It’s illegal to live simply in this country!” That became something of a running joke at Abhayagiri Monastery in northern California, where ever stricter building codes have made it incredibly expensive to build even the tiniest structure. You can’t just nail
Speedbumps and the Vassa Read More »
Last night during the tea time another perennial question came up – how are we supposed to relate to the differences between the Buddhist traditions, and which practices should we take up or avoid? The first part of the question is mostly historical. The three main branches of Buddhism – Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana –
Finding Our Center Read More »
At times it feels like there are two different narratives going on around spiritual practice – the clear, direct, meditative path of becoming peaceful and serene like a Buddha statue; and then what practice is actually like day to day. One is an ideal that we get to strive for whenever we have time to
Practice with Family Read More »
