~A New Community~

Spring has come in its full vitality and diversity. So many different kinds of buds and blossoms. So many growing things.


My new job affords a pace relaxed and inquisitive. I have ample time to stop and explore some aspect of nature, to snap photographs, and to take short breaks sipping tea under pine trees.



The IMS community, I have discovered, is also quite vibrant and diverse. I have been immediately welcomed by all these people, and they are quick to befriend. Though the center is a Theravada lineage center, many of the staff and teachers here have personal practices informed by many of the great wisdom traditions: zen, advaita, dzogen, mahayana, christianity, judaism, curanderismo/shamanism, bhakti...the list goes on. Some live more private lives, while others clearly relish the active community.

There are self-organized groups that offer soup kitchen meals in Worcester, help at the local food bank, and other such bodhisattvic activities.

A group at the food bank:


More than anything, I find that I am learning how to integrate the typical 'deep practice' with daily living and service. One mentor here makes it very clear, 'Be aware; don't cling'. When understanding reaches this level of simplicity and immediacy, the distinction between what is practice and what is not practice falls away as 'not applicable'. Is there any time when we do not have the opportunity to be aware with equanimity? This is a worthwhile question to ask, even in the most 'serious' of undertakings, or the most 'unimportant' of mundane activities.

There is such depth in this one simple thing, right here in the act of being conscious without agenda...'let this moment be as it is'. Free from manipulation, free from projection, we sink deeper into the pure stuff of awareness, coming to a more and more clear vision of reality, of how this whole game truly is. Maya Lila...the sacred dance of illusion. It's not that we need to reconcile all our worries; rather, it is that our worries are completely and utterly unfounded. Clarifying our understanding of reality leads to a direct knowledge that our fears and worries are unjustified.

If this statement is hard to accept, take any fear or worry or even any belief that you live with, that you feel you must live with, and examine its roots. The only thing is that you cannot limit yourself to intellectual, cerebral examination...you must examine everything from the vantage point of this moment here-now as it is arising in awareness. In this very moment, we ask ourselves, 'Is there a problem here?', 'Is there anything unmanageable about this moment here-now?' Its a valuable experiment, and sometimes even enjoyable ;)

I leave you with a few more pictures of spring, of mysterious life bursting forth. Love.