Maranasati

Dear All,

Our group meetings almost always give that most-to-be-desired feeling: the sensation of the holy. 

It seems this sensation always comes about through meeting, through encounter.  Our meeting renders any theme sacred as long as we open to the deep context in which speech arises.  Yet this deep context seems more there for us the less we aim at it.

Let’s turn from Zen to Theraveda, and explore Larry Rosenberg’s powerfully simple formulation of the Maranasati Sutta. Please read Part One:

https://www.bcbsdharma.org/article/shining-the-light-of-death-on-life-maranasati-meditation-part-i/

We’ll jump right in and start doing the exercises from Part Two:

https://www.bcbsdharma.org/article/shining-the-light-of-death-on-life-maranasati-meditation-part-ii/

I just had a chance to study with Larry Rosenberg a few weeks ago, and saw first hand his freshness and dynamism at age 84. 

We may continue to grow dynamically even beyond death, but enough of the familiar self is gone forever to justify any amount of grief and fear of dissolution at the prospect of aging, disease, loss and death.  So let’s not evade the ways in which these marks of incarnation, including death, are universal, uncertain, inevitable and, yes, final.

All blessings to all,

Michael