In October, the Insight Dialogue teaching community gathered for their annual retreat and meeting at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Massachusetts. For the first time, the retreat was offered at no expense to the teachers, as a result of generous community support, organized last April via a fundraiser.

During the gathering the teaching community took some time to contemplate the gift of this generosity. The tradition of dana has been passed down from the time of the Buddha, to touch our lives and our experience in this present moment. We explored quite deeply what it’s like to receive this giving, this generosity and support from others whom we may not even know. We learned that contributions had been received from 27 groups and individuals, from five different countries, totaling over $9,000! Some of the messages that came from the donors were read aloud as a part of the contemplation.

We also gathered notes that each teacher wrote, encapsulating their experience of the contemplation about receiving this generous support, and expressing their gratitude to the community. Some of the sentiments collected are included below.

It moves me deeply that you hold an image in your hearts of our teaching community… and more, it reflects back to me our commitment and generosity with the Dhamma and inspires hopefulness and joy.

Thank you! We contemplated your generosity and for me it became a true teaching in itself. Something sprouted and became alive about the unconditioned value of dana.

Your donation comes together with a sense of joy and freedom of mind… The heart opens in receiving, and a commitment to strengthen the purity and integrity of the teachings takes form. The learning that comes from your act is deep.

Vivid gratitude felt in the chest and awareness that generosity is mutual.

Your generosity supports my turning towards the sense of non-separation that is at the heart of ID, and the care, the willingness to dedicate my life to addressing human suffering this inspires.

Your generous offering of support provides a sense of stability, a grounding in the larger community, that cherishes the teachings and nurtures their capacity to travel freely across the globe. I am humbled to receive this support. May we be worthy of your gifts.

Contemplating the sky, I feel aware of being under the same sky, sharing goodwill and meditation practice. And I am deeply touched by the generosity that helped me come all the way to the USA from Switzerland. With a heart full of the strength of sharing, thank yo all.

Your gift feels to be part of a wider stream of grace that carries me forward on this path. May the generosity you have offered resound with a note of joy in your heart as it sounds a note of gratitude and humility in mine.

So, a big heart-warming thank you to each of you who contributed to this beautiful act of generosity that moved us so deeply. Also, much gratitude to the community members who organized the fundraiser that made this happen.

May the deep joy of generosity keep flowing through all of our hearts.

This year we invited you to offer direct financial support to our teachers by contributing to the room, board, and program costs of their annual retreat. Our goal was to raise $7,640 by April 30th, 2015. This, in addition to Metta Programs’ commitment, would allow ALL members to attend without having to pay out-of-pocket for retreat fees.

The community has offered support ABOVE & BEYOND our goal and the campaign has raised $9,030! Additional funds collected exceeding the goal amount are being put toward the teacher training scholarship fund, to offer further direct support to the teachers.

We are deeply grateful for the generosity that has been offered to support Metta’s Teacher Community and that will help insure the future viability of the teachings.

To send dana to a specific teacher or Metta Programs please visit our Giving page.

Dear Fellow Practitioners,

Greetings on behalf of the Programs Team at Metta. Inspired by the increase in Insight Dialogue (ID) practice around the planet, we are gathering information to determine how to schedule on-line ID practice groups and use teacher-resources that will best meet our community’s needs.

If you have interest in practicing ID online (via Skype), please help us by taking a few moments to answer a brief survey using this link. The survey takes approximately 5 minutes to complete. Your response by March 1st will be very much appreciated.

If you have any questions, concerns, feedback, or requests regarding your on-line ID practice and experiences, you can email the Metta Programs Team. We are eager to hear from you.

We appreciate your engagement in relational Dhamma; may it be generative of peace and understanding in our world.

Lucy Leu
on behalf of the Programs Team
at Metta Programs

by Metta Programs’ Teachers Council

These are rich days for Metta’s teaching community. We are growing and changing, and we have multiple transitions to acknowledge and celebrate.

It is with great joy that we announce the matriculation of three Insight Dialogue teachers to the role of Full Teacher. After engaging in a discernment process with the Teachers Council, there is unanimous recognition that Bhikkhu Sukhacitto, Bart Van Melik, and Janet Surrey are able and willing to embody the role of Full Teacher. This transition reflects a level of maturity and facility in offering Insight Dialogue practice within our community and the world. We are grateful for their diligent and generous engagement with Metta over the years and celebrate their capacity and willingness to offer relational dhamma with a depth and range that will benefit all.

Since he began his teacher training with Metta in 2010, Bhikkhu Sukhacitto has become a prolific teacher of Insight Dialogue and Dharma Contemplation worldwide. He has taught or co-taught over 30 retreats and workshops throughout the United States and Europe, and even in Thailand and Israel.

While engaged in the teacher training process, Bart van Melik has nurtured the development of Insight Dialogue communities of practice through offerings in Metta’s online programs and in his local community. He offers practice to at least 17 different groups in New York, including the New York Insight Meditation Center and has taught long Insight Dialogue Retreats in Holland.

Janet Surrey has explored Relational Dhamma as a meditation teacher and in her professional role as a clinical psychologist. She has taught as a faculty member of Metta’s Relational Insight Meditation Program, offering Insight Dialogue to mental health professionals. Janet has facilitated a long-term practice group in the Boston area and has co-taught multiple retreats and the Introduction to Online Insight Dialogue.

In addition, Yowon Choi of Switzerland, and Jill Shepard, and Elizabeth Faria, both of Australia, are transitioning from their guest roles to full participation in Metta Programs’ teacher training practice community. We are happy to join them in their committed engagement in our community and in teaching relational dhamma.

Finally, with tremendous gratitude, we are celebrating Sharon Beckman-Brindley. During the past few years Sharon has been transitioning from leadership in Metta Programs and the Teachers Council, to retirement from her various active roles. Although she will continue to teach Insight Dialogue, she will no longer engage as a program leader and advising teacher. Over the last decade she has played a vital role in forming our teachers community, helping to develop our programs, and directing the Relational Insight Meditation Program. Although we will miss her skillful engagement and wise leadership in our community, we know we will continue to receive countless benefits from her many years of contributions and we rejoice in ongoing spiritual friendship.

For a more complete biography on an individual teacher you can click on their name above, or visit the website via this link for a list of all Metta teachers: http://metta.secure.retreat.guru/about-us/teachers-bios/.

Dear Friends,

We would like to let you know about a new online practice opportunity with Gary Steinberg and Mary Burns. This will be a facilitation practice cohort. For the sake of clarity, this is not a program or a course that would lead to a ‘facilitator’ designation, but rather the formation of an ongoing community joined in zeal for practice and self-leadership. This regular practice cohort will be aimed at those who want to cultivate their ability to share the practice of Insight Dialogue with their own communities, either face-to-face or online.

It will be offered strictly on a dana basis, and registration will be through a personal interview with the teachers. In addition to prior Insight Dialogue experience, participants need to be enthusiastic about regular practice and leadership of the practice community. If you would like to join this opportunity please give some thought to days and times that work for you and contact Gary or Mary as soon as possible. We would like to launch the cohort very early in the new year, before Mary departs for her teaching tour in Oceania.

The basic format of the practice will be familiar to those who have previously engaged in online Insight Dialogue practice. Each weekly session (online, via Skype) will be two hours long and will be led by a pair of facilitators. We will begin with silence; then one facilitator will offer our practice, and later the other will refresh or expand the contemplation. After 90 minutes we will close and invite a 30-minute workshop atmosphere to explore the teachings and offerings.

In preparation for the session each pair of facilitators will work with one or both teachers for approximately an hour. Some email work may ensue to help fine-tune the offering.

Importantly we are seeking to form a community of active involvement. While it is understandable that things occur and one may miss a session, the movement of heart being called is a commitment to the community in the form of regular practice and regular leadership.

As a community, with the support of the teachers, we will choose the dhamma themes we’ll work on and how to move through them. For example, if we choose the hindrances, we might decide for each pair to offer practice on a given hindrance while rotating through the Insight Dialogue guidelines:

Week 1 – pause, aversion
Week 2 – relax, aversion
Week 3  – open, aversion
Week 4 – trust emergence, aversion
Week 5 – speak the truth/listen deeply aversion

We would then offer a session that would take the form of Insight Dialogue led by the teacher(s), Q&A, or a group process discussion.

Then we would move into the next round:

Week 1 – pause, desire
Week 2 – relax, desire
Week 3 – open, desire
Week 4 – trust emergence, desire
Week 5 – speak the truth/listen deeply, desire

Regular interviews with Gary and Mary will be available.

We look forward to hearing from those of you interested in joining this new facilitation practice opportunity. Please contact us via email at gary@metta.secure.retreat.guru and marysburns@gmail.com.

May you be well and happy,

Gary and Mary

It is with mixed emotions that we announce the departure of Rachel Hien, Metta Programs’ Operations Manager who shared her last day with the organization on September 26th. Rachel has moved on to a new position at PATH, a Seattle-based international non-profit organization dedicated to global health where she will be engaging partners in Africa to expand innovations that benefit women’s reproductive health.

When Rachel came to Metta Programs in 2011, we almost did not exist as an organization. With her skill, hard work and patience, the organization grew to having a budget, a sophisticated website, operating procedures, and clearer relationships with our partners. The list of her accomplishments is huge. Thanks to Rachel, our teachers’ community is able to grow and the organization has been pulled towards firm ground to support our programs, our relationships, and our aspirations. Rachel’s strength, clear directedness and nurturance toward cohesion have prepared the groundwork for the emergence of the wider leadership role taken by the Guiding Sangha and have made possible further steps to fulfill our mission in creating a home for the teachings of Relational Dhamma.

In addition to the valuable work Rachel has contributed to Metta Programs over the past three and a half years, we have benefited even more from her kind heart, care and friendship. We offer our deep gratitude to Rachel for all she has given to the Metta community. We are excited for her to be moving into a job that can fully engage her many skills, deep compassion and commitment to do good in the world. We feel joy for all the people in the world, including ourselves, who will no doubt benefit from the work Rachel embarks upon.

At a Skype celebration held for Rachel on September 25th, community members had a chance to gather and express to Rachel our appreciation of her and her professional contributions to the organization, to celebrate her new opportunity and to wish her well. On behalf of the Metta Programs community, we presented Rachel with a pashmina shawl given from a Metta community member’s shop and we invite members of the Metta community who feel moved to join us in honoring Rachel with a tribute gift to her new work efforts in global health at PATH Tribute gift. (Write Rachel Hien for the honoree’s name and they have been given her address to notify her.)

An update from the Guiding Sangha

I volunteered, or rather “was volunteered” in an air of friendly wholesome support, to offer an article on our Guiding Sangha (GS) face-to-face meeting that took place in Seattle, Washington, USA on June 27th through the 29th, 2014.

I’ll begin with a sampling of agenda topics to show you the typical breadth and scope of such a multi-day gathering. Soon, the GS will be posting notes for anyone who is interested. The list here is by no means complete and does not reflect the depth of our discussions.

The real honey of this work for me as a GS member is doing all this from (as best I can) a meditative mind, that is, while “in practice.” Bringing a high degree of focus and attentiveness to our Insight Dialogue practice during every Guiding Sangha meeting is a vital, albeit challenging, part of the our process. We are not a typical corporate board. I’m smiling as I type this, having been a board member of several entities over the years.

Our agenda topics included:

• Meeting with Sarah & Rachel, Metta’s administrative staff, the first day, mainly about the web site. How is the website serving well and where do we need some improvements?

• Metta volunteers Anita Bermont & Susie Clarion joined us by Skype to discuss community development. By the time you read this, Anita and Susie will have represented Metta at the Buddhist Insight Network (BIN) conference in August.

• We discussed the possibility of expanding the GS with more talent, wisdom, and compassion. This is still being worked out.

• We worked out a procedure for getting the GS meeting notes distilled to a manageable size and have them be presented so as to be representative and informative, but not too dry nor too lengthy for our greater Metta community.

• We continued a discussion, tabled from previous meetings, regarding building a more transparent culture within Metta. This article and our future web postings are pieces of the increased transparency effort throughout Metta Programs.

• We continued the discussion around dana and giving as a central value at Metta. This is part of ongoing attention to support Metta’s culture and practice, touching all of our activities. This is a far-reaching topic.

• We discussed the Teacher Development and Community Care Teams. We explored, for example, to what extent we’d like to encourage uniformity across all Metta teams in areas such as consensual decision-making, role rotation, cross-training, integration of practice, budget consciousness, and so forth.

• The evolution of the Whole Life Program (WLP) was discussed in quite some detail. There are many facets to this, Metta’s longest running program after retreat offerings.

So, as you might guess, the GS meetings are full and rich, far beyond the sparse list of topics above. Being in practice as we work together is a major piece of the process. I am an “associate member” – a designation generously offered me to accommodate some restrictive health concerns I have – for this I am truly grateful. I find my involvement in the GS at times grueling, but most of the time personally invigorating on multiple levels. This is exciting stuff! That is, trying to conduct real business from a meditative state of mind rather than by following the more common “Robert’s Rules of Order” model. These Skype and face-to-face meetings are indeed marathon gatherings in terms of time and energy required. I find the merging of my analytical mind with my more intuitive heart-mind, or “right-left” brains, as challenging as it is interesting.

What truly engages me, touching me where I live, is this intense form of bringing extraordinary mind states to everyday living. That is extraordinary and, in my experience, rare in the world of business. As in Insight Dialogue practice, the GS members support each other to be mindful, internally and as a group, in each moment. Serious issues are dealt with even as we allow for individuals’ passions and emotions to arise. These emotions, too, are respected and cared for with empathy, compassion and all the wisdom we can muster. That agreement to practice with mutual respect and kindness is personally challenging and supportive to all of us, as individuals and as Sangha members, and of course is immensely important to realizing the full capacity of Metta Programs as a vital organization.

All of us acknowledge how difficult and crucial this process is. It’s just like remembering the Insight Dialogue guidelines during formal practice; we keep in mind our values, intentions, mindfulness and so on, and support each other in that remembering. We are uniquely situated being under the umbrella of Metta Foundation’s church status. In some way, perhaps this helps us actually infuse this level of wholesomeness, wisdom, and compassion into Metta Programs’ mandate to deliver Metta’s mission to the world. This process takes time as well as mindfulness. This liberal use of time in service of awakening is generally rejected as irrelevant in modern western business. As challenging as it is, it would be far more challenging without the support of Metta Programs’ main benefactor, Metta Foundation. The Foundation understands the real value, far reaching benefits, and has been consistent in their support. I hold much gratitude and respect around this.

We are engaged in a groundbreaking process, which is beyond challenging, but the potential rewards are perhaps beyond prediction. I don’t know of any group attempting this in-life, in-business path of awakening to this degree. I find joy in seeing Metta Programs evolve with some of the best energy I’ve ever witnessed during my many years of involvement. I feel fortunate and honored to be a part of it.

I invite all of you to share in this evolution, and bring real practice to your involvement, and to your daily living. For me, in today’s world, it comes down to clearly seeing how our moment-to-moment, day-to-day, interpersonal relationships are a basic source of dysfunction, pain, and suffering. The movement of ignorance and hunger in our own minds spread out through and are amplified by our interactions with others. Can this go the other way? Can our interactions be a source of untying the painful knots of fear and selfishness? All of these things are possible if we attend to them and not act from habit and conditioning. How we relate to one another in daily living, the attentiveness, kindness, respect, wisdom, compassion, and love we bring to our relationships in daily living, moment-to-moment – that piece of who we are, extrapolated outward – makes our world the way it is. This is a statement of the obvious, I know, but I invite you to contemplate this dynamic and how empowering this observation could be to you. For me, this is nothing short of discovering how I can help make the world better. It is possible. It is accessible. We each can be a factor in our world becoming a better place. That for me is a life with spark and deep purpose.

David Selwyn

David Selwyn, Orcas, WA, is an associate member of Metta’s Guiding Sangha and serves on the Operations Team. He began practicing meditation earnestly in 1971, and encountered Insight Dialogue as well as Metta Programs in their early developmental stages. He has held both formal and volunteer positions within the organization. Insight Dialogue and Dhamma Contemplation have been a rich source of insight, calm, and clarity in David’s life.

For years he has held the vision of organizations and businesses infusing mindfulness and daily practice into the work they do to fulfill a mission. This vision is manifesting in David’s work with Metta, as he holds this intention while undertaking daily tasks, business operations and interactions. It is an ambitious, even daunting, expectation, yet he believes the benefits are widespread and great – it is a path that truly leads to a better world.

Photo credits: David Selwyn

The latest edition of our e-newsletter is now

Available Here.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Austerity, Relationship, and Purification
by Gregory Kramer

Deep Change and Renewal: Meeting Metta’s Guiding Sangha and Teachers Council
by Gregory Kramer

Reflections from the 4th Annual Cascadia Retreat
by Nic Redfern and Devon Christie

Sidebar
– Bringing Retreat Experience into Life
– Thai Translations Now Available
– Audio Review Contemplation Sangha
– Upcoming Events & Save the Dates
– Audio Teaching: Clinging and the Vicissitudes
– Contemplation Space
– Call for Contributions & Acknowledgments

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