Doug,
Good morning from Charlottesville.
We have the perfect teacher to help us bring this year of meditations to a close,
Roshi Joan Halifax.
Roshi Joan is a well-known Buddhist teacher,
Zen priest,
Anthropologist,
And pioneer in the field of end-of-life care.
She's the founder,
Abbot,
And head teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe,
New Mexico.
She combines academic training with traditional Buddhist contemplative training.
She received her PhD in medical anthropology in 1973 and spent years of study with traditional Zen teachers and received transmissions as a teacher in her own right.
She's also director of the project on being with dying and founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners.
Her books include The Human Encounter with Death,
The Fruitful Darkness,
A Journey Through Buddhist Practice,
Simplicity in the Complex,
A Buddhist Life in America,
Being with Dying,
Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death,
And Standing at the Edge,
Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.
Roshi Joan has a long history with UVA and has had transformative impact on many of our faculty and students,
Particularly within the healthcare system.
And personally,
I've always been deeply impressed with her embodiment of the traditional Buddhist values of wisdom and compassion,
But contextualized in our times and our context.
Wisdom that includes the powerful and extraordinarily difficult knowledge of how to build sustainable solutions to complex human problems and the compassion that includes the care to share the plights of those less fortunate,
Not for a moment,
But for a lifetime.
And so we hope this relationship with UVA continues for years to come.
And we have a special debt of gratitude for Roshi Joan,
Not only for today,
But for many years of all the help she's extended to us here.
And so with that,
I will turn it over to our wonderful teacher for the day.
David,
Thank you so much.
That was a very generous introduction.
I feel humbled by your kind words.
And I'm very happy to be here today with the UVA community.
It's an honor to share a little bit of practice.
At this time,
When we're in a kind of phase shift out of the criticality of the pandemic in our country,
But of course,
There are other countries like Brazil and India,
For example,
And Nepal,
Where the siege of this virus is climaxing.
And I wanted to say that I am sitting in the little cabin of William Dubuis,
Who's a writer,
An environmentalist,
A conservationist,
A historian.
I'm grateful that Bill makes his cabin available to me at times.
I live in retreat up in the mountains,
Quite a few miles and quite a few feet in altitude above where Bill is here in the little village of El Valle.
My cabin is at 9,
400 feet and Bill lives at 8,
000 feet.
So the difference in altitude,
But also in satellite connection is consequential.
And I really encourage you to read Bill's many books.
They are extraordinary.
So this year has been a year of exploring equanimity,
What it is to uphold ourselves in the midst of conditions.
And we have certainly had the challenges placed before us as individuals and also as a community.
So I'd like to invite us just to take a few moments now to get settled in your chair or on your cushion.
And if you wish,
You can close your eyes or not.
And if you're in a chair,
Notice the sensation of your back where it meets the back of the chair and sense the support of the chair as you allow yourself to relax into it.
Or if you're on a cushion,
Meditation cushion or sitting out on the lawn,
Just feel the presence of gravity,
The earth really supporting you.
And if you're in a chair,
Keeping both of your feet flat on the floor,
Notice the sensation of the soles of your feet on the floor.
So much of what we do in practice is to cultivate in this groundless reality that is what is the actual case,
A sense of being grounded,
Stable.
And so just allocating our attention to the sensation of our feet on the floor or our buttocks on the cushion,
Allow that experience in the body to influence,
To color or to ground the state of heart and mind that we're in,
That you're in.
How we embody practice is so important for us to recognize that is the posture that we take influences our mind,
Influences how we experience the world.
Is this quality of uprightness,
But not stiff.
Bring your attention now to your spine and sense your spine,
Not judging,
Not analyzing or evaluating.
Your spine is a physical metaphor that points toward your natural capacity to uphold yourself in the midst of any difficulties,
To be balanced,
To hold all beings and things in equal regard.
This is called equanimity,
Your ability to be present for whatever is arising in any given moment.
Then breathe into your back,
Sense the energy that is there and if there's tension,
See if you can just relax out of that tension and appreciate this body,
Knowing that equanimity supports you in the experience of opening to others,
To opening to the world,
Being present for any difficulty you or others may encounter.
And you could remind yourself of this value,
Quality by saying strong back.
Really shift your attention to your belly and breathe into the belly.
Notice the course of your breath as you inhale and exhale,
How it gives volume on the inhale to the body and exhale inviting you to relax.
And your breath will find its own natural rhythm.
You don't need to force it in any way,
Just let it be.
And as you are again working with this attention in the belly,
See if you can allow the kind of strength,
This resolve,
This heart-body-mind that vows to awaken and to be of service to others and to use the love and compassion for others as a path of awakening.
Now just shift your attention gently to your chest and to the space of the heart.
And the front part of the body we could say is a kind of physical metaphor for compassion,
Capacity that we have to expand our subjectivity to include the experience of others and to feel deep concern for others.
Soft front.
Compassion.
Strong back.
Soft front.
Invite us to bring to mind some situation,
A pet or a person where there's the presence of suffering and where we feel this kind of connection.
And see if we can allow ourselves to be really touched by the truth of suffering and also the possibility that whatever difficulty this one or this situation finds itself in,
Transformation is possible.
I can't say if or when,
But it is possible.
And we will bring our best as we have this upwelling of concern and of compassion to do whatever we can to end suffering.
And this is just a very brief practice,
Just getting grounded,
Strong back,
Soft front,
And also the cultivation of this heart of compassion.
Recall the elements of this practice that you're bringing into your life.
Stability,
Equanimity,
Kindness,
Courage,
Compassion.
And whatever moments of ease or wellbeing or openness that you may have experienced in just this brief time we've been together,
Please dedicate it to the welfare of others.
And we are now vowing to actualize these qualities of character in our everyday life.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
