MWA Newsletter, -  Dec 16, 2023

Mountains and Waters Alliance 12/16/23 – Celebration

Dear Friends,

I write to let you know that we’ve reached our fundraising goal. Thank you to those who have helped, or shared. It’s still possible to donate; I’m leaving it open into early January, as I finish notes to donors and share them to you.

This is a great shift in the energy of our work. During 2024, MWA will be my primary occupation: four days a week, including caring for relationships, working with other organizations, preparing thoroughly for classes, dharma talks, and retreats, and (finally) I’ll take care of administration, including keeping track of people, preparing an invited grant application, and the rest. I will take time for the rest and restoration essential to both teaching and leading. I’ll gradually wind down my other work to under two days a week, then less if all goes well.

Expect to get a post about 2024 plans, a year-end report, and a discussion of Earth Apprentice Training – in the next few weeks.

Offering

Last, here is an offering that I shared with the fundraising donors. It’s the meditation tonglen, used in Tibetan Buddhism for practicing with difficulties.

Find a quiet place where you can be undisturbed for a while. Sit comfortably erect, eyes closed or half-open. Settle into your breathing, allowing the nourishment of breath, body, and your surroundings. Notice your heart, imagining it as a radiant pure light, even though it may be clouded or shielded.

Bring your attention to the suffering, whether general or specific. Imagine it emits a stream of smoke – hot, dark, acid, toxic – and imagine drawing that smoke toward you, courageously breathing it into your heart. It is powerful enough to burn through the shield around your heart. As it enters the brilliant light within, watch it be absorbed by the brilliance until the flame burns even brighter and more pure.

Exhaling, send from your pure heart to the place of suffering. Imagine white smoke, or cool mist, a color of healing, a rainbow. Breathing in, receive pain and fear, breathing out, send calm and love.

Continue as long as you like.

What if we all practiced tonglen for the people in the Middle East conflict, or in Ukraine? What if we all practiced tonglen for the climate, for places of pollution, for dying species, for people caught in pain, fear, or even hate? Who might we become, if we welcome all that suffering into our hearts? I can’t say how this practice might change the literal suffering in those other places, but I am quite certain that when we change, the world changes.

With love,

Shodo

for Mountains and Waters Alliance