[FCM-news] Annual letter from Fred

[Fred Eppsteiner]

  _____  

Dear Sangha and friends of our community,

 

Several days ago, we completed our three day retreat in Tampa, "Holding On
To Nothing: The Radical Practice of the Heart Sutra." My heart was extremely
happy and filled with gratitude to be with forty other practitioners as we
meditated together on this difficult to understand yet most profound
teaching of the Buddha.  As the years go by, I can't help but notice the
deepening of practice as reflected in the way our members meditate together
in an atmosphere of harmony, deep caring, and mutual support.  May it
continue!

 

The past year, 2006, has been a year of change for our community. On the one
hand, we continued to grow in membership, especially in other parts of
Florida, with an expansion of the North Carolina community, as well.
Acknowledging this, our Board recently voted to rename our community, The
Florida Community of Mindfulness, to signify that we are no longer primarily
based in southwest Florida.  As well, my recent move to the St. Petersburg
area means that I am no longer so strictly identified with the Naples
Sangha, but can to be available to all our nascent sanghas and members
throughout Florida (and elsewhere) to support the development of practice
communities committed to mindful living and awakening. 

 

While the growth is encouraging, what is most important to me is the
increased level of participation in practice opportunities by members during
the past year.  Our Intensive on the Fourth Mindfulness Training (Loving
Speech) had over thirty participants, while our current six month Intensive,
"Deconstructing the Myth of Self" has nearly forty-five. Our four day
retreat at Chinsegut last February, the seven day retreat in North Carolina,
and our recent Tampa retreat were all well attended. Actually, we are at the
point where we often don't advertise these practice events outside our
sangha membership, since the registration easily fills up from within the
community.  Thus, there may be some of you reading this letter that were
unaware that these Intensives and retreats had occurred as part of our
yearly schedule.

 

It has always been my commitment to build practice communities (sangha) that
support personal relations and direct contact within the transmission of
teachings from teacher to student. Thus, I am not interested in getting too
large, wherein my ability to interact directly with my students is
sacrificed to growth and numbers.  What I cherished most about the
relationship I had with my teachers was the opportunity for close
interaction and guidance that was based on my teachers' willingness to
interact directly with me.  This type of traditional transmission insures
that the transmission is not only authentically presented, but clearly
understood and practiced correctly by the student.  In the Zen and Dzogchen
traditions, this direct and alive transmission of Dharma is much prized.  It
can never be duplicated by books, cds and DVDs.

 

In this first month of 2007, the Florida Community of Mindfulness is
beginning our membership enrollment for the coming year.  If you wish to be
part of (or to support) our growing community and its intentions, I invite
you to join (2007 membership forms are available at out website,
www.floridamindfulness.org <> ).  The daily news often presents to us a
world in which arrogant power, intolerance, indifference and violence seem
to be the modus operand for our times. The Buddha's Way of wisdom,
non-violence, compassion, mindfulness, and awakening offers one meaningful
alternative to this way of suffering. Hopefully, our small community can be
one small seed within a growing movement that seeks to awaken from this
tragic world of ignorance and unused and misused potential.  Our individual
and collective task is to create a new world consciousness based on
"inter-being." By acknowledging the deeper truth that I am you and you are
me, your suffering is my suffering, and your well-being is my well-being,
together another way becomes possible.

 

In the Dharma, Fred

 

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