VALUES Prep Course: Oct-Nov 2024
for Spirit Rock’s course Jan.-May 2025
Spirit Rock description:
Awareness & Interconnection: Community as a Sanctuary of Shared Values
In these troubling times, what matters most to you in life? Do you aspire to lead a self-defined life rooted in mindful compassion and intention?
The heart of Dharma practice is connecting in community as sanctuary in shared values. We were all exposed to guidance on ethical conduct. Not all the guidance we received reflects our values now. We will explore the fundamental values which form the basis of an awakened life in the teachings of the Buddha: honoring life, generosity, connecting and intimacy, respectful truth, and maintaining a clear heart-mind. Through our studies, we’ll flesh out the beauty and challenges of living together with intention and ethics in a complex world.
Join us in this connection-based practice intensive to enact and refine our values in order to know them as foundational supports for all aspects of our lives. Together, we’ll create and nurture sanctuary for one and all.
IMPORTANT Links:
Contact & (yogi’s) KM/Small Group INFO — Please go FILL OUT your PRONOUNS & check emails as these are the ones share with SRock & yogi’s
Values Prep_APT 2 form
Books Required
for Oct.-Nov. 2024 training class and for Values Course at Spirit Rock Jan.-May 2025
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Mindfulness Survival Kit: Five Essential Practices (NOTE: 2014 or newer edition!)
Cheri Huber (ed. Sara Jenkins): Good Life: A Zen Precepts Retreat
Other readings:
CLASS 8, 11/21: Summary & Basic Overview of TA
We will have 1 more meeting on Wed., 12/18, 6-7:30pm PT, to go over the full course & SRock Online platform.
More info (such as final mindfulness exercise format) will be shared here next week and beyond
CLASS 7, 11/14: Interdependence & Integration
Homework for Class 8, 11/21
Keizen’s Grid_5 Values version
CLASS 6, 11/7: Not Intoxicating/Nourishment & Healing (Clear Heart-Mind)
Intoxicating Mindfulness Practice for 11/14
Due: Noon, Thursday, 11/14
CLASS 5, 10/31: Not Lying/Deep Listening & Loving Speech (Honesty)
Everyone will do the same Mindfulness Practice. Add your own specificity to Stop , Consider , & Ask. — Then do NOTE as I’ve laid it out.
Stop to take a moment to REFLECT
Consider what you were taught (especially impressionable memory) as the PURPOSE of this value/precept. -- Write a brief description.
Ask yourself WHAT or HOW you want to FOCUS with this value/precept NOW in light of this memory. (one of your own or from Huber’s grid of focuses/purposes) -- Write a brief description of your purpose/motivation NOW.
Note it: Then do this practice
When you notice that you’ve told a lie (including exaggeration; minimization, etc.)
Pause 2 deep breaths.
Bring your attention to a body location that’s most “up” at this moment.
Note sensation(s), 1 emotion, & 1 thought.
Notate: Write them down without editing at first. — Then journal for at least 5 minutes freely what comes up.
After 5 minutes, write down 1 “insight”/summary of your experience. Short phrase or sentence only!
Take another deep breath and rest in the experience of having been mindful.
DUE by 11:59pm on TUESDAY., 11/6
Use this page to write your Notation & Summary in:
Lying Mindfulness Practice for 11/7
CLASS 6, 11/7: Not Intoxicating/Nourishment & Healing(Clear Heart-Mind)
Homework: Fill out latest version of S.C.A.N.S.S.
CLASS 5, 10/31: Not Lying/Deep Listening & Loving Speech (Honesty)
Presentation’s Points from KM discussion
“When we’ve spent some time listening to ourselves, we can listen to those around us.” (Hanh, 82). Deep listening and loving speech must be practiced on ourselves and zazen helps us notice what keeps coming up.
It is very difficult to listen to ourselves and the truth we don’t want to hear because it may lead us to put off and avoid something or it might make us see ourselves in an unfavorable light. “That’s not me.” but it is.
Loving speech can be undermined by “keeping the peace” or withholding your words in order to avoid conflict. Nuance and discrimination need to be refined and practiced/polished in order to know the difference between unintentionally causing harm. Knowing what to say and when to say it.
In some (ie Asian) cultures it is expected to lie and say that something is “no trouble,” when it is. Loving speech is practiced differently depending on the context.
CLASS 4, 10/24: Not Misusing Sexuality/True Love (Connection/Intimacy)
Presentors TRUE LOVE PROCESS
Reflect upon our actions and desires “as they are”
Reflect upon what needs those actions/desires try to fill
Cultivate understanding the origins of our needs/desires
Be present to the motivations/intentions that may be a more wholesome response to those needs/desires.
“Water the good seeds”...
Cultivating the four brahma viharas (maitri/metta, karuna, mudita, upeksha)
Try our best (behaviors and speech) to align with those motivations/intentions
“...and see if they grow”
Homework for this week: Just the write-up DUE by 11:59pm on Wed., 10/30.
Using the REVISED SCANN in the document below, do a write-up of a Mindfulness Practice around how you would practice meeting and attending to YOUR complexity concern with this precept/value.
ADD your own write-up into the form below
CLASS 3, 10/17: Not Stealing/True Happiness (Contentment)
(parathesis is MY wording for the precept/value)
Homework for this week; write-up BY 10/24:
Using the S.C.A.N.N. model below, based on these 3 areas around Not Stealing/True Happiness (Contentment) please use these reflection and frame a practice:
What is my need or want? Both TNH’s & my framing points towards this more. The “Not” is when one FEELS or falsely belief in the LACK of/Scarcity of!
What might be some of the ways it’s difficult for me to NEGOTIATE with another: giving, asking for, or accepting? (pick 1 only)
What’s a 3-5 step/process mindfulness practice I can do to support me to either giving, asking for, or accepting around a resources I really want?
“S.C.A.N.N.” Stop Consider Ask Note it Notation
Stop. Take a moment to ground by (your own way) Rev’s example: taking 3 deep breaths.
Consider: REFLECT on what you were taught as the PURPOSE of this value/precept.-- Write a brief (2-3 lines) description.
Ask: My purpose/motivation now is (your own MOTIVATION now (Not Killing example: “To live in harmony with all life & the environments which sustains it.” — from Huber’s “Aspiration”). Therefore, I will / will not (your own wording on what you want to FOCUS on now. (to get closer to the “how” of what’s challenging about this precept OR how you’d like to cultivate a quality
Note it with a Mindfulness practice (3-5 steps):
A time frame (insert your; examples: daily, 3/day; every time I…, etc.) WHEN ____ happens,
Not Killing example: “Every day this week, when I go to order at a restaurant an item, or start to make a meal, with meat in it, I will remember my Motivation (focus) this week to not contribute to killing of living beings.”
I will _____ (insert your Action) (Not killing example: “I will order (make) a non-meat item.”)
Observe the sensations and emotions at this point/event:
Trust your body by staying with the area that comes up. Note the sensations there. Is there loosening? Relaxation? Warmth? What emotions come up? Confidence that you’re living by a value? Joy that you’re “doing it!”/ie: applying a practice or that there’s less constriction in your body? Or a sense of expansion of warmth in doing this act of reverence of animal-life?
(Possibly then:) What you would do to support or attend to yourself IF the sensations or emotions are overwhelming
Rest in the result of your practice by (insert you way to rest in the result). (Not Killing example: “simply resting in a/these feeling OR by taking 3 breaths”)
Notation: Journal these responses. — Let yourself write freely (ie: without editing in mind or as you write). This is an act to RECORD the clarifying effects of your purpose now! Give yourself kudos for having done the practice by…. (reward/regroove habitual tendencies!) For having self-purified: “eliminate defilements” and/or self-cultivation: wholesomeness!
ALSO, for next 3 weeks: Presentations on Precept Points
(fr/ readings) and around “Complexity” or “Clarity”
Presentation Format: No Q&A or group-query time needed.
Each of the assigned KM/Small Group leaders will get together before their assigned date to put together a 15-20 minute presentation of:
The precept points (as has arisen for you 2 [3] from the readings in the 2 books of the course) AND
How this precept can be a practice to see/know/feel/experience/(your own expression or word) the complexity around negotiating needs (or clarity of truths for Precepts 4 & 5) (ie: using the "easy" & "hard" exercise for Class 1 if useful or relevant)
Like the Cuke Series presentation, please do not make this a book-report! It should be as you have studied and experienced it! (In your life thus far).
Order of Presentations:
(parathesis is MY wording for the precept/value)
Class 4, 10/24: 3rd Value – COMPLEXITY of Needs/Wants: Not Misusing Sexuality/True Love (Connection/Intimacy): Yuhwen & Justin and Kate & Elle
Class 5, 10/31 (Halloween): 4th Value – CLARITY/Clarifying Truths: Not Lying/Deep Listening & Loving Speech (Honesty): Eidō, Myōshin & Tara
Class 6, Nov. 7 –: 5th Value – CLARITY/Clarifying Truths: Not Intoxicating/ Nourishment & Healing
Keizen & Paul: Not Intoxicating/ (Clear Heart-Mind)
Shinsen & Sheila: Nourishment & Healing
CLASS 2, 10/10: Three Practices with Values & Not Killing/Reverence for Life
Homework this week:
READ Bhikkhu Bodhi’s Virtuous Behavior, sections 1-3 (“Moral Introspection,” “Accomplishment in Virtuous Behavior,” and “Protect Countless Beings.”
Reflect (in writing) on a formative learning for Not Killing/Reverence for Life. -- That is, share, in writing a story/instance in which you were taught about this precept.
From this, formulate a mindfulness practice to do THIS WEEK. — How are you focusing to know the purpose of this precept? Huber’s Precepts Grid (just above) may be useful.
If possible, write-up the formative learning AND practice in the Values Prep_APT 2 form ASAP.
For next Thursday, 10/17:
The write-up of the formative learning AND practice IS added to the Values Prep_APT 2 form — UNDER your name
Be prepared to briefly share how your practice went
** As the Values Prep_APT 2 form will be like a journal of your learning & process during this prep course, please write a BRIEF SUMMARY of your practice findings on Not Killing/Reverence for Life 10/24 (the 3rd class)
Make sure you’ve done your readings for Values 2: Not Stealing/True Happiness. BRING QUERIES; points you’d like to discuss!
CLASS 1,10/3: What is this course all about?
Week’s Homework:
Put your answers in the same document as the EASY/HARD @ 5 Values doc!
Read Bhikkhu Bodhi’s “Introductions” from above (pp. 27-30).
Then, write replies to these questions for class next week, 10/10 (also to turn in):
What does Buddhism teach about views?
What are BBodhi’s 3 ways of practicing the precepts (values)?
Why focus on Metta?
Put your answers in the same document as the EASY/HARD @ 5 Values doc, please.
