I Think of All the Education That I Missed
My meditation practice has been in maintenance mode since moving to Pittsburgh in 2015. But helping establish a new group and delivering my first dhamma talk has injected some energy.
The new group that’s starting up is organized by two women whose backgrounds include Thich Nhat Hanh, IMS, and Tara Brach. They sent out feelers looking for like-minded Vipassana practitioners, and got enough response to form a small practice group. Typically eight to ten people show up from a total pool of a couple dozen. I think we’d all like to see it grow into something more substantial, but that’ll take time and effort. And none of us are authorized dhamma teachers, so right now it feels very reminiscent of my old kalyana mitta (spiritual friends) group back in Boston.
CIMC meditation hall
A fair number of us-myself included-have long attended a Wednesday evening meditation group led by Rhonda Rosen. So far the two groups seem to be complementary, in that Rhonda focuses on Goenka’s guided meditations and Q&A about practice, while the new group seems more philosophical and a bit less secular.
At the first meeting, we talked about our individual goals for the group, and I think I summarized mine pretty effectively. What I am looking for is the opportunity to learn from other local meditators, the chance to invite distant dhamma teachers to visit Pittsburgh as guests and learn from them, the opportunity to share the learnings from my own practice with others, and to help build a venue where all of that can happen. And I emphasized that for me, the biggest thing I’ve missed since moving to Pittsburgh has been dhamma talks, where experienced teachers expound on the philosophical teachings of the Buddha.
Thereafter, we’ve met weekly for brief meditations-both sitting and walking-followed by some kind of dhamma talk and discussion.
As I said earlier, our biggest challenge is that none of us are teachers. So we’re sharing the responsibility of preparing material to present, whether it’s readings or recordings or original thoughts. Predictably, we began with the central tenets of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths. I was asked to lead an evening discussing the Second Noble Truth: the Origin/Source/Cause of Suffering.
Treating this as my first proper dhamma talk, I spent some time gathering notes, and found that although the subject was far-ranging, everything fell together nicely with obvious segues. I put together an outline and ran through it a couple times in my head. Ample client facilitation experience as a consultant, plus the sessions I’ve led in my old kalyana mitta group, all gave me confidence and kept any nerves at bay.
Unfortunately, I set myself a very ambitious task: explaining how the sequence of events in the Buddhist psychology of Dependent Origination give rise to the pain of desires that ultimately cannot be fulfilled, along the way touching on kamma, ignorance, the Three Characteristics of Existence, the Four Divine Messengers, the Five Recollections, and the Eight Worldly Winds (Buddhism is *all* about lists), then closing by revealing the often-unexplained link of why silent meditation is the chosen tool to reach the goal of alleviating suffering. It was pretty much the Grand Unified Theory of Buddhism According to Ornoth.
Although ambitious, I think the idea was really worthy; but with so much ground to cover, the execution wound up being a bit strained.
After the talk, the verbal feedback I received was all very positive. The two founders were both effusive in praise, as was one of the new practitioners who admitted an intellectual inclination. But two longtime practitioners and the three new practitioners were all silent during the Q&A, which tells me that my own impressions about overreaching myself were probably correct.
Specifically, I tried to plow through way too much material for a single dhamma talk. I didn’t need to go into quite so much detail, nor be so technical. The delivery wound up being a lot more intellectual than I had hoped, and I think I lost some of the attendees as a result. Although that probably happens at every dhamma talk to one extent or another. Still, I should tighten up my material and make more effort to keep people engaged in future talks.
Giving such a long talk-40 minutes plus a few minutes of Q&A-was surprisingly tiring. But I’m really proud of the ideas I presented, especially explaining the mechanics of how and why Buddhists use silent meditation to address the suffering we all experience.
Preparing and delivering my first dhamma talk was novel and fun. But more importantly, I found it deeply rewarding to share some of my insights in hopes that they might help others along the path-whether experienced practitioners or relative newcomers. It was very satisfying, despite my inexperience in a teaching role.
Of course, the one thing that cures inexperience is practice. So it’ll be interesting to see whether I will enjoy and grow in proficiency in that teaching role, and to what degree my knowledge and experience can be of meaningful value to others. I look forward to that exploration.
It wouldn’t be the most entertaining use of your time, but if you’re truly curious, I’ve shared a written transcript of the talk. And if you’re truly masochistic, here's the 44-minute audio MP3, although be forewarned that the audio quality is low.