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Below find Nomon Tim Burnett's talk notes. This is not a verbatim transcript of what Tim says in the recording but for reference and a quick scan we offer these notes. Listening to the talk is recommended.
Side note 1: Dogen: "ensure your ears are in line with your shoulders" - benefits of a gentle rising in the sternum, chest opens, shoulders drop, more room for the neck and the heads moves back easefully. Balancing focus on posture with letting go.
Side note 2: I thought you might enjoy hearing some of the teachings of the Science Buddha. This is from
The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation, pullished by Yi‐Yuan Tang of Texas Tech Univesrity, Britta K. Hölzel of the University of Munich, and Michael I. Posner of the University of Oregon in the Journal Neuroscience in April 2015.
Neural mechanisms of enhanced attention control.
Several functional and structural MRI studies on mindfulness training have investigated neuroplasticity in brain regions supporting attention regulation. The brain region to which the effects of mindfulness training on atten- tion is most consistently linked is the ACC 11,23,38,39,73–76 . The ACC enables executive attention and control 77–79 by detecting the presence of conflicts emerging from incom- patible streams of information processing. The ACC and the fronto-insular cortex form part of a network that facilitates cognitive processing through long-range con- nections to other brain areas 11,80 . Cross-sectional studies have reported enhanced activation of regions of the ACC in experienced meditators compared to controls during focused attention meditation 76 or when mindfully antici- pating delivery of a painful stimulus 81 . Greater activation of the ventral and/or rostral ACC during the resting state following 5 days of IBMT was also found in an actively controlled, randomized, longitudinal study 23 . Although ACC activation may be enhanced in earlier stages of mindfulness meditation, it might decrease with higher levels of expertise, as demonstrated in a cross-sectionalstudy 18 . Structural MRI data suggest that mindfulness meditation might be associated with greater corticalthickness 51 and might lead to enhanced white-matter integrity in the ACC 38,39 .
Other attention-related brain regions in which func- tional changes have been observed following mindful- ness meditation include the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), where responses were enhanced during executiveprocessing 82 , as revealed by a randomized longitudi- nal study, and parietal attention regions, which showed greater activation following an MBSR course in people with social anxiety, as demonstrated by an uncontrolled longitudinal study 83 . Furthermore, a diminished age- related decline of grey-matter volume in the putamen as well as diminished age-related decline in sustained atten- tion performance were found in a cross-sectional study of Zen meditation practitioners 34 .
Although there is evidence that brain regions rele- vant for the regulation of attention show functional and structural changes following mindfulness meditation practice, it has not yet been determined whether these changes are actually related to the improved attentional performance.
[BRIEF BACKSTORY IF ANYONE THERE NOT AT PREVIOUS TALK]
Open with "Sometimes we have to struggle" section P.11-13, skip "Creating a Ceremony" (but talk about exchange that happens in our ceremonies - jukai for example), and read "Don't Mix Levels" P.15-16
Sometimes the exchange of gold doesn't go well.
One problem might be that we don't notice that someone is giving us their inner gold. I co-led a mindfulness retreat with someone once where the other leader was a student in a different Buddhist lineage. He was asking me lots of questions about my training and how I came to be a teacher. At first I thought he was just curious but later I realized there was a lot of personal freight and a lot of implied compliments and even awe of me in our conversations. He was giving me gold and he was looking for me to give it back by reassuring him that he was also a good retreat teacher and a good person. One of the things I'm noticing about myself is that I don't do reassurance by default. Maybe it's part of my training in silence, maybe I'm shy, mostly I just assume everything and everyone are fine unless they tell me otherwise. It can be a bit of a blindness, sometimes I miss pretty big hints that the other person isn't fine or is offended by something I did and just trying to keep it together. Maybe I'm a bad match for our passive-aggressive Northwest culture in that way, people don't yell at your when they're mad, at least not at first. They try to be nice and let it go. Anyway I really wasn't getting it with this person. I thought everything was fine and he was just friendly and interested in me and my background. And then at the end of our retreat I made a mistake. He'd expressed a preference about how the closing of the retreat and the cleanup at the facility we were using would go some weeks earlier. I just completely forgot and got focussed on "getting it done" which is another condition that can lead to violating implied gold exchanges. Anyway I asked my co-leader to do something he'd asked me not to do and he wasn't able to say anything or remind me of our agreement when I did. He just got angry. Really really angry. I was astounded actually. And I quickly got a little defensive - "why didn't he just ask for what he wanted? why not just remind me?" - but now I'm thinking it was because he'd given me so much gold that he was extremely vulnerable and unable to right himself. Not only did I not give it back but I acted like I didn't even have it. From his point of view I threw it in the mud and stomped on it. Very painful. And embarassing. So unskillful. So easy also to blame him for taking something personally that wasn't. This teaching on inner gold really helps me see this in a way in which I can take more responsibility.
And yet the exchange of gold is like that I think. Not always obvious. As as the giver or the receiver we can become very vulnerable. It's risky giving and receiving gold.
He's a positive gold story. A woman came to Bellingham for graduate school about 10 years ago and started practice with us. To be honest I don't remember that much about her presence in the sangha then but it was it turns out it was a very important time for her. And it's clear she gave and received some inner gold. Sporadically over the years since she's kept in touch with me on the email. A little update about publishing a book. That she's found a sangha where she lives now. That she's starting to study the precepts. It's all very nice. A few times she's been in the area and we tried to get together but it didn't quite work out. This made me a little nervous. Was I letting down my side? But then finally she was back in the area again and we did meet. Right as I read this little book on inner gold. "oh," I thought to myself, "she's ready for her gold back. Now I see that I've had some of her gold all these years and she's just been keeping tabs on it's whereabouts." We had a very pleasant meeting, no fireworks really but nice, connected for not having seen each other in all those years. A little later she sent me a note about how meaningful the meeting was for her, that this surprised her. I'm glad I could gracefully just show up and give her her gold back with good cheer in a relaxed way.
Of course the exchange of gold gets mixed up in intimate realtionships too. Here's what Robert Johnson says about gold in love and marriage. Read p. 16 "Love and marriage."
I've had the honor to try to support people recently after difficult break ups. Honor and challenge. There are some big debts and surpluses in the gold department there. It seems like the most painful might be that one partner understands the situation as having given the other an incredible amount of gold, a vast horde, having given their entire heart, and the other just didn't notice, or didn't see it that way or did see it but it wasn't gold to them. It was something more ordinary, matter of fact, not special in any way. The gold is missed or cheapened. And there's so much suffering. And both will have a burden from the imbalanced exchange for a long time it feels like.
Robert Johnson feels there's an inherent spiritual dimension to this no matter what. He uses God language, see what he has to say " Gold is Close to God" JUST P. 19 (skip godparent part) and "God is Out of his box" p. 26 - read whole thing. ((And draw parallel to "container" and on authority.)
Johnson's advice for learning how to be more skillful with this. "Making the Exchange Conscious" p. 23 and "Take Inwardly What is Inward" p. 28-29 and onto "Reclaiming our Projections" p. 30.
I hope these ideas are useful to you, and to us as a sangha. May this gold exchange we call Red Cedar Zen be one in which we are willing to hold each other's gold, and always willing and ready to give it back. May we see the urge towards hero worship on the one hand or dismissal on the other hand as a projection of our heart, of something just under the surface that we are almost ready to learn. And when we receive a difficult projection, may be be gracious and patient about it, knowing it arises from suffering and misunderstanding. Know that there is always gold there somewhere. Our sangha's Clear Communication process is a good guide I think for responding to feeling hurt in our exchanges.
And so any of us whom I've held your gold badly or disrepectfully I apologize. I'm always trying to learn and I'm grateful when you are courageous and clear with me. I will try to do the same for you.
Thank you for listening.
