"Reinhabiting the Sense of Care" with Jean H this Sunday

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

This Sunday Jean H. will be facilitating our weekly community practice and discussion.

"These two people are hard to find in the world. Which two? The one who is first to do a kindness, and the one who is grateful and thankful for a kindness done." AN 2:118

As we approach the colonial holiday of Thanksgiving, we are encouraged to give thanks for our blessings. These might include things like having enough to eat, enjoying a warm place to sleep, and the company of loved ones.

The Buddha taught that gratitude does not equate with appreciation alone. Rather, it is the direct response to someone else’s kindness. We should not only feel gratitude for what we have received but also recognize that these gifts are the direct result of another’s actions And we can only fully appreciate the full extent of their effort when we ourselves have been kind. We know what it feels like to sacrifice our own well-being for the well-being of another.

The more we are kind, the easier it is to be grateful for others’ kindness towards ourselves. And the more gratitude we feel, the stronger the impulse to want to pass it on to others.

One of the ways we can strengthen our capacity for both gratitude and kindness is the practice of “reinhabiting” the felt sense of having been cared for by another. This connects us to our internal storehouse of kindness and strengthens our capacity to care for others. Lama John Makransky, a Tibetan lama who teaches comparative religion at Boston College, has developed several guided meditations to assist in this process.

This Sunday we will practice one of these meditations and share our own experiences of kindness and gratitude as we follow the path of practice together.

Everyone is welcomed. Registration and Zoom information available here.

With metta,
Minneapolis Insight