| Dharma Zephyr Insight Meditation Community

Gratitude and Happiness in Words, Music and Mostly Beautiful Images

This TED talk Video by Louie Schwartzberg includes his short film on Gratitude and Happiness. I am posting it here because of it's strong Buddha nature.

Here is the Dharma in the words, and images of a fantastic film maker, an old man and a little girl.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Click to the article page to see the video.

Practice While You Are Able

On our residential retreat with John Travis this August at Lake Tahoe, he mentioned a number of statistics. Like Steve Jobs, he lives with a sense of urgency about the preciousness of our limited time in this life. Retreatant Lisa Wallace read this lovely poem in our sharing circle at the end. I thought you might enjoy it. - Kathy

New Monday Night Group for Beginners

The Carson City group of Dharma Zephyr Insight Meditation Community is offering a new sitting meditation period starting Monday, October 3, 2011. It will take place every Monday from 5:30 to 6:30, just before the longstanding Monday night sit, which takes place from 7:00 to 8:30 pm.

Set A Spell: Reflections on Seclusion by Anne Macquarie

My friend Dixie the Methodist minister has been thinking about the ways we find to carve quiet space for ourselves even in the midst of our sometimes crazy-busy lives. Dixie is from Missouri, only one generation removed from the farm. The women in her family were always working, but sometimes part of that working was to grab a bowl of green beans to snap and “set a spell” on the porch. Maybe chat with whoever was around. Look out at the fields.

Social Media and our Website

Our WebSite is now set up to easily be shared with Social Media. Almost every page, post and blurb on our website can be easily shared with the world with the click of the Share/Save button. You should see one at the bottom of this page if you are looking at the article and not just the teaser.

Reflections on Art and Buddhism by Deborah Stevenson

Buddhism teaches us to be mindful—to slow down, pay attention, observe closely, and maybe even wake up. The creative process also involves slowing down, looking carefully, simplifying, and making choices. What to leave in? What to leave out? These are the questions we ask in life and in art.

Impermanence and the NSP Sangha

As you may have heard already, the powers that be have decided to close Nevada State Prison (NSP).

Many of the members of our Sangha there have already been moved to other prisons and the rest are likely to be moved soon.

This pending event has been embraced by many in the Sangha as an opportunity to practice and there has been much discussion about these events and how the dharma relates to the difficulties engendered by such change. I have been so positively impressed by many of the guys ability to maintain equanimity in the face of such difficulty.

Our Prison Sangha at Nevada State Prison, Carson City

A PRISON SANGHA
By Jeff Froschauer
On Tuesday evenings at 5:55 PM, Christy Tews, Steve Swartz and I gather at the bottom of One Tower of Carson City’s Nevada State Prison (NSP). We sign in, leave car keys, cell phones and driver’s licenses and are given visitor’s badges. Anything we bring with us is searched for contraband; then we proceed through the metal detector. Our walk into the prison takes us through two loudly clanking sally-port doors to NSP’s visiting room where we arrange chairs in a circle. We sit and talk Dhamma while we wait for the incarcerated members of our NSP Sangha to arrive through other clanking secure doors.
The NSP Sangha is the brainchild of NSP’s Warden, Gregory Smith. Warden Smith and I have been colleagues and friends for many years and he has taken an interest in my Buddhist path. One day during one of our many casual conversations I told him how beneficial I thought meditation would be for the inmates in Nevada’s Department of Corrections. Greg surprised me by suggesting that I start a group at NSP.

PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA - 2012

John Travis, mentoring teacher for DZIMC, will lead a pilgrimage to the sacred sites of the Buddha’s life in January/February, 2012. Heather Sundberg will co-teach and Christy Tews will handle logistics.

The dictionary defines a pilgrim: 1) one who journeys in foreign lands; 2) one who travels to a shrine or holy place as an act of devotion - from the Latin peregrinus meaning a wanderer or a stranger. As pilgrims we launch ourselves into unknown places. Sometimes the place is within ourselves. We search for a place where the divine pierces the mundane.

New Sangha blog to start up soon - well actually, now!

In last Sunday's excomm meeting we decided to start regular blog posts on the website on damma topics written by sangha members. We thought it would be good to have a more active web page, plus a chance to continue online the excellent discussions we have in our sitting groups - so check back here occasionally for new posts.