Sacred West

I’ll be volunteering to staff the Level I intensive this weekend. No, I won’t be blogging live from the shrine room 😉

Level I is particularly my constituency – the relative newcomers. These are the people I want to write this blog for. People who’ve been around the Center or the Dharma for a year or two can find their own way to the programs and the teachers. The newcomers could use some signposts – or so I believe.

I remember how shocked many people were when I did Level I. Some people had never really sat before, and they went straight into an intensive weekend. There’s a school of thought among many of the more veteran practitioners that this kind of shock is beneficial somehow. I don’t believe this for one moment.

I find it careless of us not to warn people in advance that they’ll be sitting for most of the weekend, that their backs will ache and their minds will be crawling with craziness by Sunday afternoon. There are other ways to train. The Sunday morning public sit is the perfect way to get better at meditation. And the “Training the Mind” one-day classes are great for deepening one’s hold on the practice.

More to come soon.