Hello Audrey: I've enjoyed listening to your sharing. Thank you. The times I participated in retreats by TNH, there is a daily sharing in the afternoon. This sharing is part of the practise. It's part of the retreat programme. This practise is also made in the local sangha who usually gathers once a week. After the sitting down session. We sit down silently in a circle. Every time someone wishes to share something, that person with palms together bows to the sangha and the sangha bows back to that person as a response. There are no words in this gesture. Then, the person starts whatever wants to share or say and for as long as that person wants to speak. No one can't do an interruption to the one who speaks. The practise for the listener is to listen very deeply to the one who speaks. All these is made through the awareness of the in and out breathing. Once the one who shares has finished his/her sharing he or with palm together bows back to the sangha and the sangha bows back to him or her. I've found this practise very useful by training ourselves in attention and listening to others. This practise show us how the mind is continuously judging and how extremely difficult is to listen to a person free from any view, judgements, notions....in a few words a great discovery about one reaction while listening to others specially if the sharing is tedious or tiring, boring....we have to hold there and listening very deeply. Mayka
--- On Mon, 11/10/10, audreydc1983 <audreydc1...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: audreydc1983 <audreydc1...@yahoo.com> Subject: [Zen] Mindfulness - awareness in the here and now To: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, 11 October, 2010, 10:21 Over the past month I have been consumed by worry - about my husband's college grades, the house that we're buying (we're waiting to hear back from the bank after a month. UGH.), my dog had another colitis "attack" (not fun, but manageable), and my half brother (an anonymous surrogate birth) finally found us - he's 22 (I don't know what to say! Ack!). I've always been a worrier. I've worried about the future - and I've worried about the past. I've worried about bills. I've worried about my health, and that of my family. I've even worried myself into an ulcer, on several occasions. Over the past week, I have read many articles and information on mindfulness. I closed my eyes, stopped to take a breath, and somehow felt a...shift. I suddenly just...got it. In my mind's eye, an image of a tomato appeared - and I knew what it meant. In the great Pacific NW, tomatoes haven't been ripening well this year. There are still a lot of green tomatoes on the vine. There are a few tomatoes that I'm WAITING on - I've seen the hints of yellow and red, and I'm anxious for them to ripen so that I can pick and eat 'em. I have to accept the tomato - acknowledge it's beauty in it's not-quite-red-ness, NOW. Does that make sense? Oh, well - it does to me, anyway. Here goes: Tomato blushes, right mindfulness blossoming red and green beauty. Brightest Blessings, ~Audrey
