#4 ARKANSAS TRUTHPICK

Little Rock!  Home of the Ecumenical Buddhist Society of Little Rock.   Their offerings are a menu of practices in different traditions of Buddhism.  Why the variety?   From their website:

In the early 1980's a group of people meditating in a variety of traditions began to meet at the Unitarian/Universalist Church and sponsor Vipassana retreats. At the same time, Anna Cox was bringing Tibetan Buddhist Lamas (primarily from the Gelukpa tradition) and other Tibet-related events to Little Rock. In 1990, Jay McDaniel began bringing Keido Fukushima Roshi for an annual Zen retreat and lecture at Hendrix College in Conway. These groups began to cooperate. Later, they formed the Ecumenical Buddhist Society and elected a board of directors. The name was chosen because the members did not want the organization to represent just one tradition.

It reminds me of my beloved Buddhist Sangha of Bucks County, which is also 'Lay-led', no one teacher manages or takes up residence at the program, persons with various experiences help bring in different kinds of teachers. As such, it is managed by a board of directors like other non profits are. One could argue that there is dilution because of that, but on the other hand, variety can keep the mind open. Most of the American teachers I know spent time (a lot of time) practicing in more than one tradition.

I selected 'Mindfulness in the Thich Nhat Hanh Tradition', and felt very much at home. I was welcomed into the group of 12 or so folks, and we did the lovely 'Evening Chant at Plum Village.', followed by 25 minutes of silent meditation, and then the 'flower offering', that our 'careful efforts will slowly ripen.' After that we recited Thich Nhat Hanh's Three refuges and these Two promises:

I vow to develop understanding in order to live peacefully with people, animals, plants, and minerals.

I vow to develop my compassion in order to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals.

Simple enough but with TNH's beautifully interconnected dedication. It brought me back to how much I got from a little cassette tape of him talking about a piece of paper and all the sun, water, wood, and human interaction were still in it.

We finished the night with a discussion of Chapter Two in the book "Buddhism Plain and Simple" wherein the author points out our tendency to hold tightly onto the good and push away the bad, thereby misunderstanding the noble truths of impermanence, no-self, and dissatisfactoriness.

A deep question, which I think is so ripe for the laity like me, came up. It was something like "I love my family, isn't it right to hold on to them, to 'want' the best for them?" and "I have a thousand photos from my past, must I give them up?". There is no easy answer. It may lie in working to leave behind the black and white thinking that proceeds from the self. As one member put it; "I am aging. I hurt my foot and I always relied on my body to bounce back. This foot is not going to."

She smiled.