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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Dhamma Night.


Off to meditation night at the Buddhist Temple. Awesome Theravaden meditation center. Been going for about a month now. Started back into my meditation practices almost 2 months now. I like it. Theravaden Buddhism has a strong emphasis on ethical living which is important for a 'selfish' rebel such as myself. As a recovering addict it adds much to my recovery and sense of well being. I began in Buddhism about 4 years ago and spent some time at a monestary. But I was not doing it to improve my life, I was there to escape. I'm planning on going to a Vipassana meditation retreat in January. It stretches mindfulness to extreme limits and greatly throws the person involved into indepth meditation. 10 hours of silent / sitting meditation a day for 10 days.
So right now I'm putting that method into practice (although nowhere near 10 hours a day) so I can get used to the discipline of sitting. Right now I've been sitting daily for two sessions of 25 minutes each. And my attitude has gotten a little better since I've been doing it daily. Such a powerful method that I've actually quit smoking for about a week now, and have cleaned my house. Not a big deal for 90 % of people, but for a lazy, undiciplined person as myself it's huge. I've been wanting to do both for 3 years now.
So off to the Dhamma to sit for an hour and a half. And the beauty of it is, is some members from my local recovery group have shown up. It makes me feel not so 'strange' since I know there are others in recovery in Nashville who have felt the benefits of the Buddhist teachings.
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2 comments:

  1. Where do you go John? I have always wanted to go to the center near 100Oaks. I remember reading about it when I first got sober. But - i was too scared to feel "strange". Would love to join you!!! Also congrats on this site. I think it's awesome and look forward to hearing from you and your tales!

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  2. I go to The Buddhist Temple-- 99 Lyle Lane. The one near 100 Oaks is Padmasambhava Buddhist Center which I attended for 4 years. They are great people there. That's Tibetan Buddhism. The one I'm now attending is Theravadan, which is not so esoteric and is the original school of Buddhism.
    Tibetan Buddhism is Mahayana which developed later, in the Northern Asian countries.
    Yes please get in touch with me and we'll go together or I'll meet you there. I'll give ya directions or you can google the directions.

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