| Citta 101 - Insight and Mindfulness
December 28, 2008 Volume 8.3 ~ from Mary Rees 2008 has been quite a year! We have had several clear reminders at all levels of society - local, national, global - of things not being as substantial as they seem: the effects of IKE and other climate changes, the high price of gasoline, collapsing markets, and a dramatic change in the political landscape. I have been thinking that our focus this coming year might be on the great potentiality of every new moment and the real possibility of us being able to make all our challenges fuel for our happiness and deepening spiritual awakening. An advantage of our practice is that we begin with insubstantiality, so the shaking, whether positive or negative, doesn’t have to disrupt us so much. *** IN THIS ISSUE: 2008 Wrap-up Upcoming Events Continuing Education and Professional Growth Mailing list update *** 2008 Wrap-Up The biggest changes in our sangha have been a resumption of a weekly sitting on Monday nights, a move to the Spectrum Center for this sitting, and the opportunity to have most of our weekend non-residential retreats in at Dawn Mountain. Since resuming the weekly sitting early in 2008, we have met almost every Monday night. Hurricanes and a death in my family were the only things that interfered with the sitting. Otherwise, on nights I was not able to attend, Mike Mathews and Patty Demko led the sittings. I want to thank Mike and Patty for this valuable support as well as others who have been attending the Monday night sittings. A few steady students make such a sitting viable and community possible. Without students there is no teaching! In fact, I have greatly appreciated everyone's help in maintaining teachings offered for Dana. Thank you so much for helping assure continuation of the dharma at a local level. You do this first by simply being students, committed to your own awakening. Your participation as the community of practitioner’s online, participation in retreats, and/or attendance at our weekly sitting group all provide ways to maintain the dharma presence in Houston. With a local dharma presence the teachings are available as ongoing support for everyone. As students grow in understanding, as they come to realize the value of ongoing teachings, those teachings may not only be readily accessible, they may be so without expense! In addition to my websites (citta101.org, beingprayer.com, nutpub.com, maryrees.com), we now have a community website. Unfortunately, we lost Lisa Hoover, who built and maintained the community website. She has moved to Missouri. You can check up on her by visiting her blog at http://delrio-design.com/wordpress/). The community site, meditationhouston.org, (IMCH-Insight Meditation Community Houston) has similar goals as Citta 101. However, two things are unique to IMCH: events listed on these pages are aimed specifically at developing an intentional community and all events are offered only for costs and Dana. These are intended as support for a community that is grounded in honesty and virtue, where compassion, integrity, and kindness grow and flow into our whole lives. Two teachers are now posted on our community website as informal advisors to our community, teachers I have worked with closely - Marcia Rose and Rodney Smith. These are teachers I would especially encourage you to sit with on longer retreats to enrich the work you are doing with me. However, I would never suggest limiting who you sit with! I have learned something of value from every teacher I've ever sat with! My hope is that whatever your activity level in spiritual practice that you will consider making a deeper commitment to your own work in 2009 including more frequent teacher contact. As well as our retreats and Monday night meditation, we have a couple other sitting options. (Back to Top) Upcoming Events To help develop our sitting group plans for the New Year please join us this coming Monday night 7-8:30pm for the sitting and meditation instructions at the Spectrum Center To vision your personal 2009 register for the New Year Retreat www.citta101.org/newyearretreat.htm - PDF We are also having a retreat January 24, www.citta101.org/janretreat.htm - PDF format . Other 2009 retreat dates: March 13-14 (location not determined), May 8-9 (Dawn Mountain), August 21-22 (Dawn Mountain), a residential retreat in late October or early November (Round Top), and another New Years retreat. We can offer you a chance to visit our sitting group location and meet Spectrum healing specialists during the Spectrum Open House, January 31, 2009. (Back to Top) Continuing Education and Professional Development A professional option available in 2009 is Continuing Education for counselors, therapists, and social workers. You can now earn credit as you develop you personal practice and learn means of integrating mindfulness into your professional work. Read more about this developing opportunity and the first two hour session in January, www.maryrees.com/mmhp.html. This two hour session is the first monthly session for meditating mental health professionals. I am hoping that the core of this group will be those of you who have already been working with me. All members will either have an established meditation practice they wish to foster or be committed to developing such a practice. I also hope to be able to offer continuing education for PhD level psychologists, but this is requiring a lengthier process. Two psychologists are working with me on this endeavor, both professionals I knew first through their spiritual practice, Dr.Sharon Berliner and Dr.Randall Brelsford. (Back to Top) Mailing List update and Community Listings on Yahoo I am in the process of updating the mailing list. Please share current contact information with me, so I do not lose touch with you when the internet is down. You can post and update your contact information on the address book on our mailing list webpage. The address book data you post is only open to me and people I have asked to be moderators (Mike Mathews and Greg VanMeter). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citta101/grouplets/subscriptions. You will also notice at this link that I have added a couple other options for you to share with each other including profile pages, a give-away posting, and a space to post job offerings. Thank you all for your interest in the Dhamma! Much Metta, Mary (Back to Top) Copyright © 2008 Mary Rees All rights reserved |