the Meditation Circle

“So keep reminding yourself that meditation is a long-term project. When you have a sense of that long arc of time, it’s a lot easier to sit back and work very carefully at the basic steps. It’s like learning any skill. If, in one afternoon, you want to gain all the skills you’re going to need to play tennis, you end up doing them all very sloppily and won’t get the results you want.

“But if you realize that this may take time, you can work on one skill at a time: How do you keep your eye on the ball? How long is your backswing? Take the skill apart step by step by step and be willing to work on small things like this, bit by bit by bit. So, that you really understand them deep down in your bones.”

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu | “Judicious vs. Judgmental” (Meditations1)

Bhante Jayasara, a resident monk at the Bhavana Society Theravada Buddhist Forest Monastery and Retreat Center near High View, W.Va., recently posted this meditation meme to his Facebook account. ‘Bhante J,’ as he is called, recently visited Huntington and Charleston and spoke about “the Ember of Mindfulness.” Click on his link below to learn more. PS: If you are on Twitter, follow him at: @BhikkhuJayasara

BHANTE JAYASARA: Remember to carry the Ember of Mindfulness (https://maggasekha.com/ember). The practice doesn’t stop when you get off the cushion, and if your practice IS just the cushion, then you are missing out on the full practice and it’s benefits.

“This is the best thing you could be doing right now: getting the mind to settle down, getting a sense of being at home with the breath, being friends with the breath. Don’t think of the meditation as a struggle. If you regard your breath as your enemy, you’re really in bad shape, because wherever you go, there it is.

Learn to be friends with it. Listen to it. Work with it. Play with it. Learn how the breath and the mind can cooperate with each other. This requires paying careful attention. As with any friendship, it takes time. But that length of time can be shortened if you’re really attentive, if you really watch.”

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu | “Friends with the Breath”

NOTE: There is still space available for the Saturday, May 11 silent retreat from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Peacetree Center for Wellness in Huntington, WV.

The Meditation Circle is pleased to announce a return visit from Friday, May 10 to Sunday, May 12, 2019, to Charleston and Huntington, W.Va., by Theravadan Buddhist monk Bhante Jayasara (Bhante J), from the Bhavana Society Theravadan Buddhist Monastery in High View, W.Va. All events are free with donations accepted to support travel costs and make a donation to the Bhavana Society, which survives entirely upon “dana” or the generosity of visitors.

Advance registration is required for the Saturday and Sunday events due to limited space. Read on for more details and how to register. (PS: “Bhante” is pronounced BON-tay and is a title that means ‘Venerable Sir.’).

FRIDAY, MAY 10: TALK, MEDITATION & QUESTIONS:

FRIDAY, May 10, 6 to 7:30 p.m.: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship building, 520 Kanawha Blvd., Charleston WV: Talk and discussion on “Mindfulness in Daily Living,” followed by a short guided meditation and Q-and-A. 
NOTE: This is a free event with donations accepted and no registration.

SATURDAY, MAY 11: DAY-LONG SILENT RETREAT:

PLEASE NOTE: IF REGISTERING FOR THIS EVENT, WE ASK YOU PLAN TO BE THERE FOR THE ENTIRE EVENT, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Space is limited to the first 30 registrants and we wish them to go to folks who wish the full experience of a day’s silent retreat.

SATURDAY, May 11, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Silent Day Retreat on “Developing a Meditation Practice,” 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; PeaceTree Center for Wellness, 5930 Mahood Dr., Huntington, W.Va. This is a free event with donations accepted to defray travel/lunch costs and to make a Bhavana Society donation. If you have a meditation practice and wish to deepen it or are interested in starting up a regular practice, consider this day-retreat. It will be conducted in “Noble Silence”—mindful silence throughout the retreat—with a chance to ask written questions of Bhante J. A vegetarian lunch will be provided. Registration required and capped at 30 advance registrations. This event will fill up so register early. REGISTER HERE.

SEE Q-and-A below about this event.

NOTE: Please arrive by 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. Cushions and chairs available. Or you are welcome to bring your own cushion.

SUNDAY, MAY 12: TALK, GUIDED MEDITATION & QUESTIONS

SUNDAY, May 12, 12:30 to 2 p.m.: Guided Meditation, Talk and Discussion; Studio 8 Yoga and Wellness, 803 8^th Ave., Huntington, W.Va., 12:30 to 2 p.m. Free but registration required. NOTE: This is a free event with donations accepted but you must register as there is limited space. REGISTER HERE: NOTE: Scroll down to bottom of page for Bhante J event.

More Details

QUESTIONS ABOUT MAY 11 PEACETREE RETREAT:

WHO IS THE RETREAT FOR?
Anyone who has a meditation or mindfulness practice and is interested in deepening it. Or if you have a serious intention to begin a meditation practice. Bhante J will guide participants in meditation in the breath and body-centered tradition of Buddhist insight meditation. You should feel comfortable with both guided and silent meditation periods of up to 20-30 minutes.

WHAT IS NOBLE SILENCE?
We ask retreatants to maintain ‘Noble Silence’ during the day, a mindfulness practice that can deepen the retreat experience. If you need to speak or if there is an emergency, please speak to one of the organizers who will be introduced at the outset. NOTE: Please silence all cellphones before the retreat begins.

CAN I ASK QUESTIONS OF THE MONK?
Of course! But for this retreat, unlike in last year’s Bhante J retreat, we are going to import a tradition from Bhanava Society silent retreats in which people write down their questions and put them in a box. At the end of the retreat, Bhante J will answer the questions. Noble Silence will end at 3 p.m. that day.

ARE THERE AGE REQUIREMENTS?
No, but parents should not bring children in need of supervision. Young adults interested in meditation or with a meditation practice are welcome.

WHERE SHOULD I PARK?
There is ample parking behind the PeaceTree Center and a glass back door with steps up to the room where the retreat will be held. If you cannot manage steps, pull up in yor car out front of the center and ask for help.

DO I NEED TO SIT ON A CUSHION?
No, but they will be available or you can bring your own. Chairs will be set up at the back and sides of the room, with cushions in the middle and front.

CAN I SHAKE HANDS OR HUG THE MONK?
Buddhist monks don’t generally shake hands or hug retreatants. A namaste or a smile is a fine greeting. There will also be a chance to take photos and monk selfies after the event.

HOW CAN I CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS?
E-mail any questions to the Meditation Circle’s co-facilitator, Douglas, at douglasjohnmartin AT icloud.com

“ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE EVENTS in your meditation career is the moment when you first realize that you are meditating in the midst of a perfectly ordinary activity. You are driving down the freeway or carrying out the trash and it just turns on by itself. This unplanned outpouring of the skills you have been so carefully fostering is a genuine joy. It gives you a tiny window on the future. You catch a spontaneous glimpse of what the practice really means.

“The possibility strikes you that this transformation of consciousness could actually become a permanent feature of your experience. You realize that you could actually spend the rest of your days standing aside from the debilitating clamoring of your own obsessions, no longer frantically hounded by your own needs and greeds. You get a tiny taste of what it is like to just stand aside and watch it all flow past. It’s a magic moment.

“That vision is likely to remain unfulfilled, however, unless you actively seek to promote the carryover process. The most important moment in meditation is the instant you leave the cushion. When your practice session is over, you can jump up and drop the whole thing, or you can bring those skills with you into the rest of your activities.”

Bhante Gunaratana, from “Mindfulness in Plain English”

HERE ARE THREE MINUTES OF some good advice by Bhante Jayasara. A resident monk at The Bhavana Society in Hampshire County, West Virginia, “Bhante J” (as he is called) will visit Charleston and Huntington, W.Va., on Friday, May 10 (Charleston); Saturday, May 11 (Huntington); and Sunday, May 12 (Huntington). His visit is co-sponsored by TheMeditationCircle.com, the PeaceTree Center for Wellness and Studio 8 and the Huntington meditation group that meets there every Sunday.

NOTE: There are still a few spots left for the silent day-retreat he leads May 11 at the PeaceTree Center near the Huntington Mall. The event is free, with donations accepted to defray travel, meal and donation costs (a vegetarian lunch will be provided). But there is limited space at both the Saturday and Sunday events, so advance registration is required. See details of his visit at the link.

“For many or most of us, keeping up a regular sitting practice is a challenge. We can pursue any number of diversions and excuses for procrastination. It is normal that we are reluctant to experience our own physical and mental phenomena directly, clearly, and impartially. The only way to overcome this reluctance is to recognize it and decide that it’s worth trying, persistently and consistently, to be mindful. The rewards will be commensurate with our efforts; we will still experience stress, but will be better able to handle whatever comes.”

Lynn J. Kelly from her blog post “Heedlessness”

“Try to get the mind as still as possible. This is the basic pattern in all the tetrads of the breath meditation. You sensitize yourself to what you’re doing, and then you try to do it in a way that leads to more calm, to more subtle forms of concentration and more subtle levels of pleasure.

“You work through this process of sensitizing and refinement step by step by step, which means that you have to be very observant. The Buddha gives you some guidance. If you notice that things are inconstant in the mind, especially if the level of stress or ease in the mind is inconstant, look at what you’re doing. When the level of stress goes up, what did you do? When it goes down, what did you do? When things seem to be perfectly still and perfectly at ease, try to maintain that stillness as a baseline, to see if you can begin to sensitize yourself to more subtle ups and downs.

“This keeps throwing the responsibility back on you. The Buddha’s there with guidance. He gives you lots of different meditation methods to deal with specific problems as they come up. Breath meditation is your home base because that’s the method that sensitizes you directly to bodily, verbal, and mental fabrication and points you in the direction of learning how to calm these things.”

~Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from “One Thing Only”

“Mindfulness meditation acts like a shock absorber. If you’ve grown accustomed to facing the dissatisfactions of everyday life and know they are natural occurences, when some difficult or painful situation comes your way you’ll face it bravely and calmly.”

~Bhante Gunaratana, p. 42 from “Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness” (Wisdom Publications)

“We must learn how the moods and contacts of the mind either trick us or support us. When we can understand that, then we can have a chance of establishing true happiness in the heart”

~Ajahn Jundee | (From @ForestSangha on Twitter)

The Meditation Circle is pleased to announce a return visit from Friday, May 10 to Sunday, May 12, 2019, to Charleston and Huntington, W.Va., by Theravadan Buddhist monk Bhante Jayasara (Bhante J), from the Bhavana Society Theravadan Buddhist Monastery in High View, W.Va. All events are free with donations accepted to support travel costs and make a donation to the Bhavana Society, which survives entirely upon “dana” or the generosity of visitors.

Advance registration is required for the Saturday and Sunday events due to limited space. Below is a quick guide to his schedule. Read further on for more details and how to register. NOTE: You can also donate in advance at bhavanasociety.org/donate, noting the donation is connected to Bhante J’s 2019 visit to Charleston/Huntington W.Va. (PS: “Bhante” is pronounced BON-tay and is a title that means ‘Venerable Sir.’).

FRIDAY, MAY 10: TALK, MEDITATION & QUESTIONS:

FRIDAY, May 10, 6 to 7:30 p.m.: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship building, 520 Kanawha Blvd., Charleston WV: Talk and discussion on “Mindfulness in Daily Living,” followed by a short guided meditation and Q-and-A. 
NOTE: This is a free event with donations accepted and no registration.

SATURDAY, MAY 11: DAY-LONG SILENT RETREAT:

PLEASE NOTE: IF REGISTERING FOR THIS EVENT, WE ASK YOU PLAN TO BE THERE FOR THE ENTIRE EVENT, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Space is limited to the first 30 registrants and we wish them to go to folks who wish the full experience of a day’s silent retreat.

SATURDAY, May 11, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Silent Day Retreat on “Developing a Meditation Practice,” 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; PeaceTree Center for Wellness, 5930 Mahood Dr., Huntington, W.Va. This is a free event with donations accepted to defray travel/lunch costs and to make a Bhavana Society donation. If you have a meditation practice and wish to deepen it or are interested in starting up a regular practice, consider this day-retreat. It will be conducted in “Noble Silence”—mindful silence throughout the retreat—with a chance to ask written questions of Bhante J. A vegetarian lunch will be provided. Registration required and capped at 30 advance registrations. This event will fill up so register early. REGISTER HERE.

SEE Q-and-A below about this event.

NOTE: Please arrive by 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. Cushions and chairs available. Or you are welcome to bring your own cushion.

SUNDAY, MAY 12: TALK, GUIDED MEDITATION & QUESTIONS

SUNDAY, May 12, 12:30 to 2 p.m.: Guided Meditation, Talk and Discussion; Studio 8 Yoga and Wellness, 803 8^th Ave., Huntington, W.Va., 12:30 to 2 p.m. Free but registration required. NOTE: This is a free event with donations accepted but you must register as there is limited space. REGISTER HERE: NOTE: Scroll down to bottom of page for Bhante J event.

More Details

QUESTIONS ABOUT MAY 11 PEACETREE RETREAT:

WHO IS THE RETREAT FOR?
Anyone who has a meditation or mindfulness practice and is interested in deepening it. Or if you have a serious intention to begin a meditation practice. Bhante J will guide participants in meditation in the breath and body-centered tradition of Buddhist insight meditation. You should feel comfortable with both guided and silent meditation periods of up to 20-30 minutes.

WHAT IS NOBLE SILENCE?
We ask retreatants to maintain ‘Noble Silence’ during the day, a mindfulness practice that can deepen the retreat experience. If you need to speak or if there is an emergency, please speak to one of the organizers who will be introduced at the outset. NOTE: Please silence all cellphones before the retreat begins.

CAN I ASK QUESTIONS OF THE MONK?
Of course! But for this retreat, unlike in last year’s Bhante J retreat, we are going to import a tradition from Bhanava Society silent retreats in which people write down their questions and put them in a box. At the end of the retreat, Bhante J will answer the questions. Noble Silence will end at 3 p.m. that day.

ARE THERE AGE REQUIREMENTS?
No, but parents should not bring children in need of supervision. Young adults interested in meditation or with a meditation practice are welcome.

WHERE SHOULD I PARK?
There is ample parking behind the PeaceTree Center and a glass back door with steps up to the room where the retreat will be held. If you cannot manage steps, pull up in yor car out front of the center and ask for help.

DO I NEED TO SIT ON A CUSHION?
No, but they will be available or you can bring your own. Chairs will be set up at the back and sides of the room, with cushions in the middle and front.

CAN I SHAKE HANDS OR HUG THE MONK?
Buddhist monks don’t generally shake hands or hug retreatants. A namaste or a smile is a fine greeting. There will also be a chance to take photos and monk selfies after the event.

HOW CAN I CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS?
E-mail any questions to the Meditation Circle’s co-facilitator, Douglas, at douglasjohnmartin AT icloud.com

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“Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go. “

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Here is a promo video for The Meditation Circle, which hosts two weekly meetings— one in Charleston, WV, from 6 to 7 pm on Tuesdays (beginners seeking meditation instruction and those who wish to sit longer may arrive a little after 5:30 p.m.); and from 11 a.m. to noon Saturdays at the PeaceTree Center for Wellness in Huntington, W.Va. For details and directions, click this link.