Venture Fourth Weekly Work
Week Fourteen Nov 29

Characteristics in order of work with them thus far and the next few months:

for the week beginning:

Dear VF friends,

You now have the list of weekly qualities through the next intensive. On Feb 28, you will each choose anywhere between 4 and 6 qualities on which you plan to focus for one year! Take the week of the 28th to decide what the qualities will be. In our private meetings, I will discuss it with each of you. If a different quality surfaces that you feel needs special attention, it can be added, but this list will stay mostly the same for 1 year, alternating the quality weekly. Thus, each of you will move from covering all the qualities to a “major” wherein you will meet the weekly quality repeatedly through the year. If you have chosen 5 qualities you will be spending 10 weeks in the year focused on each one. That adds up to a lot of time.

You’ll notice that this week’s quality is renunciation or letting go. This is less a “soul trait” than a practice path. What does it mean to let go of attachments? What about attachments to unwholesome traits? Of course we all experience negative emotions and unwholesome mind states, and we all hold the intention to weaken and release these states. What supports letting go?

The Buddha instructs us thusly:

And Ajahn Chah tells us:

We each understand these various words a little differently in our hearts. In some people’s minds, to abandon means to not allow. A friend who was in Thailand speaks of coming to a monastery with the sign on the gate, “No anger permitted here.” He felt he could not come in. So as we work week by week to cultivate the wholesome and “abandon the unwholesome, “ what are we really doing, and with what kind of attitude?

I want to say a little more about renunciation, abandonment or letting go. Grasping and attachment are the opposites. We might say the ‘near enemy’ is a forced letting go that arises from a place of fear, judgment and contraction. Therefore, to recognize this true ‘mind of letting go,’ we must recognize such fear that blocks it. It’s often judgmental in nature, “I should not want that,” rather than kind and able to see, “wanting, grasping,” without judgment and self-identification. The mind state has arisen from conditions. Can there be kindness with the fear, or the old habit energy, and still a firm intention not to indulge it?

I am trying to clean out my house, and release old objects that clutter. There is attachment: this box of stored letters and cards from my deceased father, that pile of my old drawings, this collection of books that I have loved but, never-the-less, have not opened for a decade, those favorite old sweaters, now ragged. I consider to release this or that and note the contraction. I offer loving kindness to the human that is thusly conflicted. Then I release; I have to do it, not just think about it. But it is done consciously.

It's harder to let go of an old habit of impatience, resentment or fear than a sweater. It takes much patience with ourselves and takes perseverance. So this week I want you to watch closely and investigate. What supports letting go? What holds old attachments in place? This work will help you with the rest of the qualities; as we work, we want to nurture this “mind that lets go.”

Work for the coming weeks/ months…

This week I want you to reflect on attitude. What nurtures the ability to “abandon the unwholesome and cultivate the wholesome’? How do we best cultivate that attitude, of patience and kindness combined with determination and perseverance?

I am attaching a chapter on abandonment from the book, Dawn of the Dhamma by Ajahn Sucitto. The whole book can be seen somewhere on line with the illustrations too. I can't find it; the link seems broken.

Between now and the next intensive please read Putting on the Mind of Christ, parts 3 and 4, pages 117 through 214. Reflect on these levels of consciousness.

Continue journaling and send me whatever feels appropriate. Please send something weekly, even if only a short summary of your week’s journal.

Read Flight of the Garuda, and practice dzogchen daily - There are 23 songs and 16 weeks until the next intensive. Read 2 songs/ week. Read one each day, alternating the days. After 16 weeks, go back and reread what calls out to you. Do this as part of a daily practice that includes at least 10 minutes of dzogchen meditation. We’ll discuss your practice and questions at our private meetings.

Daily vipassana practice

Practice occasionally with mudras and breathing as feels appropriate.

Work with chakras and toning too, as feels appropriate.

Reflect on your intention occasionally, as you shred it with Aaron at the ceremony.

Share with each other, using the new web site, so that you can best find support and support others.

I do recognize you have limited time and can’t do everything every day. Do meditate daily and work with the quality of the week, Do some reading; the dzogchen songs are short so just incorporate that reading into practice time. The other practices, even journaling, are all meant as supports. Use whatever of these tools are useful and begin to gain assurance in your own ability to choose the right tool at the right time. I want you to feel supported, not overwhelmed.

with love, Barbara