“The Power of Meditation” with Jane this Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

In a December 2018 article in Lion’s Roar Pema Khandro Rinpoche explores the question of power within Buddhism, saying that although, for many reasons, the discussion of power is largely absent in the American Buddhist community, we need to talk about power.  She goes on to discuss a number of interesting examples of power within Buddhist communities.

At the end of the article, she talks about the power of meditation in a way I found compelling.  She states that:  Adopting meditation and making it universally accessible rests on an assumption of universal human equality—that all human beings are endowed with a capacity for waking up, that any one of us could meet our mind in the same way that Buddha did. We can see what the Buddha saw. Because we all have within us intrinsic goodness, every one of us has a capacity to experience that same power of authentic presence.

Some people have asked, though, whether meditation alone is really enough. No, it is not enough. No one thing is ever enough. But it is a crucial beginning. We have to take seriously how social inequality sustains itself. It’s not something that happens only on the outside, something that those other bad guys create. It is not manufactured and maintained by bigots alone. The reason racism and sexism are so ubiquitous is that we all carry those scripts inside of us, in our own minds. We are deeply habituated beings, and we don’t tend to examine our assumptions or question our own thinking. When feelings overtake us or thoughts repeat themselves, too often we act as blind believers. If we are ever going to uproot racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, we have to begin by establishing sovereignty within our own minds.

Meditation offers us a means to exercise power in a way that is not based on hate. It’s easy to get caught up in polarizing vitriol. Our reactions to social injustice can trigger our tendency toward aggression. But aggressive hate provides a flawed form of power—a borrowed form that depends on subjugation and exploitation of others to continue.

The intrinsic power we uncover in meditation is different; it is a power no one can give to us and no one can take away from us, the power of self-existing wakefulness. The more we wake up to our natural goodness, the less we are exploitable. The more we wake up to our natural wisdom, the less we hesitate to take positive action and speak up. There is something profoundly dignified and sacred about us. We just have to face ourselves to find it.

I look forward to meditating together and exploring this understanding of the power of meditation.  We hope that you will join us! Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight