Like many of you, I too am an “E-Sangha” member of Gil Fronsdal’s community. When I first heard Gil Fronsdal teach, I sensed that he was a special man with a great heart, and deep compassion. Gil’s teachings have resonated with me and many others. Although he may not know it, Gil’s talks are the most freely proliferated teachings in Buddhism ever. That makes Gil Fronsdal a significant figure in the history of Buddhism. Gil’s life and work is helping people transform their lives. I believe that he has changed our world. When one life is transformed, and the seed of happiness, loving kindness, and compassion is planted, it grows and nourishes the individual, the family, the work life, the community, and the world.

Every hour of Gil’s Dharma talks we listen to, is an hour of Gil’s life. It’s an hour of Gil’s compassion, kindness, and dedication to his community. These hours are very very numerous. This wonderful teacher is dedicated, and very committed and for that we can be very very thankful.

Gil’s teachings are given freely, and 100% Dana supported. For this community to abide , it takes one act of kindness at a time. Please read Gil’s letter and know that we too in the “E-Sangha” are also invited to participate in this community. Remember, being in the “E-Sangha” isn’t about downloading free talks from the internet. It’s about giving to each other. It’s about the practice of generosity, and compassion for everyone.

Thank you my “E-Teacher” Gil Fronsdal. Your work is great, peaceful, kind, compassionate, and very dedicated. Because of that, I am peaceful, compassionate, and very dedicated to help you, help others.

peace,
Amber Star

Annual Fundraising letter from Gil Fronsdal
Dear friend of IMC,

Twenty-five years ago a few people began to meet in Menlo Park on Monday evenings to practice mindfulness meditation and listen to Buddhist teachings together. They planted the seed that grew to become IMC. Not only do we have an active center, we also have a “virtual community” of thousands who listen to our talks online through Audiodharma, iTunes and other websites. This is remarkable given that all our programs, publications, and online Dharma talks are offered freely. Our growth is clearly the result of the generosity of the many people who have benefited from what our community offers. Those of you who practice with us, who volunteer, and who financially donate to IMC all contribute to the field of generosity and goodwill which sustains us. Our programs are open to anyone to participate as they can and as they want.

In this annual fundraising letter, I first and foremost want to express my great gratitude to all the people who practice with and support IMC. For me, our community is a wonderful expression of the liberation, compassion and love that the Buddha pointed to. I never could have imagined I would be teaching in such an inspiring community based on the most meaningful values found in Buddhism. Many, many thanks!

IMC is fortunate to have a well cared for building, an expanding range of programs, an extensive online offering of talks, and enough support to offer residential retreats every year. The donations we receive from this end-of-the-year fundraising letter are significant means by which we finance our online offerings, our center and our growth, including how many residential retreats we can offer.

I invite you to donate to IMC. If you do, we will use your donations skillfully and will measure our success by the amount of well being we’re able to bring to the world. We hope to support increasingly more people in their practice to ease suffering and find freedom.

You can find more information on how to donate by visiting:
http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/annualfund/

With gratitude and best wishes,

Gil Fronsdal

My friend Dan Benjamin, has a great post about meditation gear on Hivelogic.com

I’m very interested in Dan’s meditation timer:

My favorite timer, and the one I use currently at home, is the Zen Timepiece by Now & Zen. It has a removable 6-inch brass bowl-gong which is struck by a little hammer for a warm, sustaining tone. There are several modes (progressive alarm, interval timer for meditation/yoga, chimes on the hour, etc.), and it also works well as an alarm clock.

link

We are pleased to announce that we have a new Audio Dharma Podcast feed , Gil Fronsdal Channel. This podcast will be updated (usually weekly) with all the current talks by Gil Fronsdal. These are the same talks available from Audio Dharma podcast main feed, but filtered for Gil Frondal talks. -Enjoy

Links:
iTunes
RSS Feed

Gil Fronsdal of Insight Mediation Center, Talk given September 9, 2009

Gil Fronsdal talks about how “non conflict” is one of the central themes in Buddhism. Recorded at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California on Sept. 2, 2009.

Vince Horn founder and host of Buddhist Geeks, a wonderful podcast, is seeking support in the form of “micropatrons” to help expand Buddhist Geeks even further.

Buddhist Geeks would like to offer more premium content for free, produce a digital magazine, and plan a conference next year called BuddhaDharma 2.0. The information on the Buddhist Geeks website will explain all of the details.

It’s such a generous act to offer the personal sacrifice required to do this kind of work for the online Buddhist community. Let’s help enable this by extending our generosity to Vince and Buddhist Geeks. Please help with your support by becoming a patron of Buddhist Geeks.

Links:
BuddhistGeeks.com
Buddhist Geeks Podcast
BuddhaDharma2.0

by Gil Fronsdal

The Kalama Sutta is a much-quoted discourse in which the Buddha radically challenged most sources of religious authority. The discourse is often read as a warning not to seek truth outside of oneself. It is quoted and misquoted as teaching that we should not believe anything unless we know it from our own experience. While the Buddha does advise reliance on what can be known through direct experience he does so in a particular and limited way.

When the Buddha visited the town of Kalama, the townspeople told him they were perplexed about who was speaking the truth and who was speaking falsehoods among the many spiritual teachers who came through town. Just as we, in our modern times, must contend with religious pluralism, so did people in ancient India.

The Buddha responded by telling the Kalamas that it is appropriate for them to be perplexed. Then, instead of telling them who is or is not speaking the truth, the Buddha offered guidelines for how the Kalamas can overcome their doubt on their own. This began with his famous statement not to rely on the common sources of religious authority. He said, “Do not go by oral tradition, a teaching lineage, common talk, scripture, logic, intuition or reasoning, or by reason of the competence of the speaker, or because he or she is one’s own teacher.” This does not necessarily mean that these sources have to be avoided entirely. Rather it means that standards other than these are needed to ascertain what is true.

If these sources are not authoritative, what’s left? For the Buddha it is those things that one can know and directly experience for oneself. This suggests that each person can and perhaps should be his or her own spiritual teacher. Some find this idea inviting, others find it daunting. But, either way, we must understand the particular way in which the Buddha is saying that one can rely on oneself. Naive self-reliance can lead to as many problems as naive reliance on scriptures or teachers. The Buddha is very particular about which direct experiences to focus on and how to act in relationship to what we know.

The Buddha suggested using our experience of suffering and happiness as our guide. The assumption is that people don’t require scripture, teachers, or reason to know whether they are happy or not. The path to freedom from suffering begins and ends with our basic ability to recognize when we are suffering and when we are not. However, this does not mean we should discard scripture, teachers, or reason; they can have an important role in pointing us to areas of suffering and happiness that we may be blind to.

With the human experience of suffering and happiness as the basis, practitioners then consider both by themselves and with the help of wise people (so as not to fool or under-challenge themselves), which mental qualities, states, and teachings lead to suffering or happiness, to harm or benefit. Those that lead to harm should be abandoned and those that are beneficial should be engaged in. This doesn’t require exhaustive analysis; it necessitates paying attention to the consequences of our mental, verbal, and physical activities so we can know for ourselves what brings suffering and what brings happiness. It also involves using our reasoning and imagination to understand what is likely to bring us harm or benefit. Then based on this, if it brings suffering, avoid it; if it brings happiness, engage in it.

In his response to the Kalamas, the Buddha focused on what is pragmatically true instead of what is abstractly true. He emphasized what can be known for oneself instead of what can be known only as belief. But what can be known for oneself depends on what one does—pragmatic truths are discovered through experience, not by wishful thinking.

Since the Kalamas had said they were perplexed, the Buddha concluded by describing practices that would provide some degree of assurance. He did this by talking about some of the results that can come from the practices of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Perhaps it was because the people of Kalama were not his students that he discussed these four “divine abodes”—they were practices widely known at the time. If the Kalamas had asked about liberation, the Buddha would have responded differently—most likely by describing the practices that lead to liberation.

One assurance is that with proficiency in loving-kindness and the other three abodes one will experience happiness in this lifetime; one can know for oneself that these practices are beneficial. A second assurance is that, if there is rebirth, one can be assured of having a good rebirth. Still another is that if malicious intentions bring suffering, one can be assured that one is not causing oneself further suffering. While the first assurance is experientially testable, the second and third are a form of Pascal’s Wager: without having to decide on the truth of rebirth and the negative karma of malice, one can be at ease knowing that proficiency in loving-kindness is in one’s best interest if these are true. For people who aren’t going to try out the path of liberation, perhaps this is as good an assurance as one can get.

It might seem a little strange to end a teaching about relying on what one can know for oneself with a discussion of what is reassuring. Maybe this is because the English word ‘assurance’ doesn’t quite capture the meaning of assasa. The Indian word literally means ‘breathing’ and figuratively means to breathe easily or freely, as well as to be ‘assured’ or ‘comforted.’ One way or another loving-kindness practice helps people to breathe easily.

Ease in breathing might seem trivial. It is not. It is an important pre-condition to happiness and liberation. The more relaxed the breathing is the more sensitive we can become to subtleties of suffering and happiness. Because our inner life and psychology closely influence how we breathe, the quality of our breathing can reveal much about what is happening in the mind. The more easeful the breathing becomes, the more ease-filled is the mind. In contrast to spiritual teachings that are too abstract or distant to be experienced directly, a person can know whether he or she is breathing easily. And, as an alternative to complex analysis, a person can direct the mind toward attitudes and ways of being that bring greater ease and pleasure in breathing. Being guided by our breathing, we can learn a lot about what we should do and what we should let go of. In this way our own breath provides the direct experience that can help us be our own teachers.

This and other articles by Gil Fronsdal are available here.

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Last night we were informed Thich Nhat Hanh is in Massachusetts General hospital with Pneumonia. He is eighty three years old, and still teaching the Dharma to his beloved Sangha. I met Thay almost two years ago to the day on August 18th 2007, and I will never forget being in his presence. He is a beloved teacher, and we wish him a quick recovery. Here is a hand written letter from Thay to his Sangha:

UPDATE: Thay’s treatment has gone well, and he has now been discharged from the hospital and will be continuing treatment as an outpatient, which is very good news. He is 83 and was unable to go to the Colorado Retreat but will rejoin the tour in California after his treatment ends.

A talk by Jack Kornfield, on The Bodhisattva. More videos, meditations and articles available on Jacks site.