On Saturday, August 2, OIMG has an opportunity to work with our friends at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando during their upcoming volunteer day at the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Second Harvest provides tremendous community support. Join us as we work together to sort food for local people in need. Children over 10 are welcomed with adult supervision. Closed toe shoes are mandatory. Here are the details:
Date: Saturday, August 2, 2014 Time: 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Location: Second Harvest Food Bank Address: 411 Mercy Drive, Orlando FL 32805 (corner of Mercy Drive & Old Winter Garden Rd)
NOTE: The OIMG email sent out for the June 7th Second Harvest Food Bank sorting opportunity referenced an older and incorrect address for the facility. Many apologies for any confusion or frustration caused by the error.
They have a new process for registering volunteers for these events. Please follow these instructions:
Once on the above website, click on the big blue “Volunteer Now” button
If you are not signed up with Second Harvest, follow the instructions to register with their organization
The registration process will require that you have a “Join Code.” The First Unitarian’s join code is A100.
Register for August 2, 2014 , 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
If you need assistance with the online registration process, please email Steph Garber. Steph is the First Unitarian Church of Orlando’s coordinator for this event.
If you don’t have the means to register online or forget, you can sign up in person on the day of the event.
Please email Tommy Harrison, if you’re interested or feel free to call @ (407) 790-0710. You can also email Steph Garber, the coordinator of this event with the First Unitarian Church of Orlando.
While Peter’s wife is away for a week, he decided to practice integrating mindfulness more thoroughly into daily life routines. The primary changes included more meditation periods and more reading about Buddhist practices; otherwise, the routines were the same as before. During the talk, he reviewed various ways to increase the application of mindfulness during the day: the cultivation of samadhi/passadhi (concentration and tranquility) as a buffer against impulsive reactivity, using body awareness to interrupt intrusive unnecessary thoughts, and simply reflecting “Is _______ really that important or valuable right now?”, focused on distractions and intrusive thoughts. This was followed by dialogue with sangha members regarding ways to enhance daily practice of mindfulness. Next week’s talk will focus on understanding what sankhara (mental conditioners) are, related to understanding one of the Five Aggregates of Clinging, sankharakkhanda.
During this talk, Peter explained how feeling and perception function, transitional between raw sense data and higher cognitive processes. When the mind isn’t well trained, feeling become craving and perception becomes clinging. There was a guided meditation to illustrated concretely how to recognize feeling as feeling and perception as perception, that is, phenomena that are not a self, not “I, me or mine”. This was followed by a lively discussion exploring the presentation. Next week, Peter will engage a “domestic retreat”, during which he will function in a normal way at home, enhanced by more frequent meditation practice and integration into daily life routines. This will be the topic for the next Dhamma dialogue.
How Feeling And Perception become Craving And Clinging July 16 2014[ 1:07:59 ]Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (136)
This dialogue is a continuation of the previous week’s discussion. During the discussion, Peter led a guided meditation on how to use the four elements contemplations to provide a consistent focus for interrupting the elaboration the mind creates in the “selfing story.” This exercise was followed by a sharing from the attending Sangha members regarding their experience during the exercise and discussion of how this practice can benefit the process of awakening. Next week’s exploration will include the contemplation of vedana (feeling) and sanna (perception), with the hope that this information will further the process of understanding the Five Aggregates of Clinging.
Continuing the ongoing exploration of the Four Noble Truths, Peter described the concept of the Five Aggregates affected by clinging, which is referred to in the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness teaching. Using a graphic illustration, he showed how the factors of perception and feeling create a “bridge” between incoming sense data and the further processing […]
As is our custom, after a significant retreat event, there’s a dialogue about the retreat experience amongst the participants. Since much of what occurs is deeper than conscious awareness, having the opportunity to talk about the experience among other knowledgeable meditation students can consolidate the learning and make it more accessible in daily life routines. […]
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