Community Blog

This was a conversation with my dad about my metta experiments last year. Let me back up. I was starting to feel too obsessed with money. And although probably no more than the average person in New York. As many of us know, it can be hard to make your rent each month. And, like many of us know, you can count yourself lucky if you have an apartment to pay rent on.

Wise Livelihood is often discussed in terms of “shoulds.” We should earn our living in a righteous way, gain wealth by legal, peaceful, honest and harmless means. And there are 5 specific kinds of livelihood the Buddha said should be avoided: dealing in weapons, living beings, meat production and butchery, poisons, and intoxicants. These point to noble relationship to work. Yet, there is a risk that we will reflect on wise livelihood as a series of rules that, if we follow the “shoulds” and avoid the “should nots”, will mean we can check off that limb of the Path as fulfilled.

There is a rock wall that decorates the front yard at Insight Meditation Center. One morning, I decided to go sit there under the sun and sip on my tea. It's a great spot to warm up, as mornings in Barre, MA can be quite chilly even in the midst of summer. After sitting there for a few minutes, I started noticing these bees flying around me.

The end of my ten-year relationship brought with it a sea of feelings and experiences. At times, it felt as if I was being pulled in with such voracity that I had no ability to anchor myself to any shoreline. I found refuge in meditation and later in the Dharma. It certainly hasn’t been a consistent practice but one that has given me a home to return to when I am struggling. Lately, my thoughts keep coming back to navigating urban living as a single woman.

During the 1960s and ‘70s, Western seekers of all backgrounds journeyed to the birthplace of Buddhism in search of awakening. Among these were Jan Willis, acclaimed Baptist-Buddhist author and teacher whose work resounds with me, as well as many others who in large part are responsible for the development of Buddhism in the West. For many years, I wanted to take this journey too until I realized that the hybridity is already alive in my present experience. Wherever I go (especially in New York), it seems there is no avoiding the grand convergence of ideas and traditions. Stepping into this confluence of signals, I make no resistance to the intertextual tide.