My favourite podcasts about ballet and contemplation

Now for a more practical blog: what podcasts would I recommend? I have started to listen to quite a few podcasts that inspire me a lot! Many of them are about ballet, kind of obviously ;-) But I think also the ballet ones teach me quite a bit about life in general. Let me walk through my current facvourites, sorted by topic:

Picture  by Michel Le Photography 
at Morlaix Ballet camp

Contemplation

- Mind & Life podcast (I was super-honoured to be featured on this one myself!) in which people are interviewed that work on the intersection of research and contemplative practice. I find these always such fascinating conversations!

- Open Question by Elisabeth Mattis-Namgyel, an amazing Buddhist teacher who presents a no-nonsense approach to asking deep questions in life

- The kind heartfulness podcast by Gomde Austria, an interesting series of conversations with Buddhist teachers and practitioners.

Ballet

- A dancer's mindset by Isabella McGuire, who talks about the mindset that is required to be successful at anything, but especially from the perspective of ballet. Lots of good advice, although I don't always agree with everything. I think she forgets that not everything can be controlled

- Athletistry by Shane Wuerthner, another ballet mindset podcast, which is also useful to anyone engaged in a difficult pursuit, such as academia

- Ballet Rising by Casey Herd: fascinating stories about people trying to bring ballet to the communities that not always get access to it, e.g., ballet in India and Africa

- Hard Corps podcast by Romee Adair, who talks with guests about the general dance industry and especially challenges within it. It's fascinating to learn more about how the dance industry works.

- The adult ballet studio by Elisabeth Blosfield, a series of conversations with people trying to make a space for amateur adult ballet dancers. So inspiring!

- The balanced ballerinas podcast by Georgia Dostal, a series of interviews with so many amazing people in the dance world. Again, so many interesting things to learn!

- Artists Becoming, another series of conversations with dance professionals, but this one is specifically focused on bringing out the artists, and challenges to that

- Moving Moments by Alicia Graf Mack: more conversations with dance arists. I just love hearing the person behind the dance artist!

- The turning: Room of Mirrors: a really interesting deep dive into the ballet choreographer Georges Balanchine. Very interesting although this one is a bit on the sensationalist side

- Broche banter by Julie Gill/Leung: all things adult ballet, including interviews with adult amateur ballet dancers. Lots of insightful stuff about how adults learn ballet

Academia

- Degrees of freedom by  Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri: lots of philosophy and practical tips about teaching in academia.

I hope some of these are inspiring to you, and maybe you find some new ones to listen to!

What is a contemplative life?

I wrote this blog when I just attended the Mind & Life Europe Retreat and the European Summer Research Institute (ESRI), also from Mind & Life Europe. Both events took place in Pomaia, Italy. For me, these events are always very good because they make me ask what the role is of contemplation in my life, and other big questions about being human.

In fact, this time I started to ask a lot of questions about my identity. When asked who I am, I usually say something like "neuroscientist" or "computational cognitive neuroscientist". Yet, in the MLE retreat, and more frequently this past summer, my identity has become also "dancer". Of course I don't get paid to do it, but yet, there is such a strong force in me that makes me dance, and I have in recent time been able to do more and more things with professionals. Then in the MLE retreat and the European Summer Research Institute, I suddenly also became a "contemplative", when I taught the meditation and contemplative dance practices. As someone who has been trying to follow the path of a scientist-practitioner, this was a really interesting experience, which I am still feeling into.

Picture from Morlaix Ballet camp
By Michel Le Photographe

What does it mean to be a contemplative? During the retreat we talked about "continuous practice". With my busy job, I don't have the time to spend hours a day practising meditation, although I certainly practise meditation every day. But there is much more that bringing meditation into your life can mean. For example, I try to be aware of my motivation for doing things, and where possible bring this into an altruistic motivation, intending that whatever I do be for the benefit of all beings. At the end of the day, I try to dedicate my efforts also to the benefit of all beings. In addition, I try to take short moments of meditation during the "lost moments" of the day--when walking somewhere, when waiting for the traffic light, and so on.

Inspired by the MLE retreat and ESRI, one of my more recent practices is also trying to bring awareness of interdependence into my action. There is this interesting concept of "enaction", which means in my limited understanding something like that whenever you take action, you are just moving around in the sea of interdependence, you are never able to have a fully independent action.

In addition to continuous practice, another feature of a contemplative is some amount of renunciation. In the old days, contemplatives would live in monasteries. However, monasteries are not so compatible with a modern life. Nevertheless, during ESRI Martijn van Beek talked about new alternative structures such as Vaekstcenteret where he lives in Denmark. And even if you are not entering a very specific community, you can also live a monastic life at home. For example, Misha Belien talks about being a monk with a family in this very inspiring documentary. Also I myself try to live a simple life, without too many distractions. The monks of yore would say "ora et labora" (pray and work), and in some sense, that is what I try to do.

Happy new year: let's make it the year of interconnection

 In the last few days I have been reflecting on the past year. I don't really like to list my achievements of the past year because I think it encourages an unhealthy comparison mindset. In today's society it's so hard to not forget that the most important is not what you do, but how you are. In the past few days, I co-led an online winter retreat, and in my part I taught analytical meditation. During these sessions we explored the idea of interdependence. I think today's world is more interdependent than ever (a beautiful quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama about that: "In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of the problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live." (from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Chapter 3).

interestingly, many people say they feel disconnected, while objectively speaking we are more connected than ever through the media, and through the evermore complex production chains of goods and services. So why do people feel disconnected? I think it is because we don't spend enough time being and reflecting on our situation. Another answer, offered by Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim last night was that we all consume (social) media that are so hyperpersonalized that we don't have too many common experiences anymore. And we are no longer so used to seeing things that we don't like.

Picture from Morlaix ballet camp by Michel Le Photography

Whatever may be the cause, my hope for the next year is that I will get to experience the deep interconnection of ourselves and others more in the coming year. Because I found that when I manage to experience the interconnection of myself with others, nothing can be an enemy anymore, and this reduces my stress so much. When things are overwhelming, it helps me a lot to focus on how they are all part of a web of contingent relationships that allows everything to appear and disappear. Moreover, when i experience the deep interconnection of myself and others, the competitiveness no longer exists either. The challenge is just not forgetting this...

Like with everything, not forgetting means to again and again try to remember, while the rest of life is trying to distract you. First you will forget most of the time, but the more often you remember, the more easily it comes. The trick is also to find "hooks", small reminders. I found a wonderful one recently in ballet class with Broche ballet, where Julie, the teacher said: imagine that you are massaging the floor as you are doing tendus. Thinking in this way frames ballet not as an activity that I do by myself, but rather as a cooperation with the floor, and of course the rest of the world outside it as well.

Every moment of remembering is a moment of mindfulness, and every moment of remembering also makes that moment sacred. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the notion of interbeing, where we see that the cow that brings the milk that produces the yoghurt that we eat produces the lesson we teach, and therefore the cow is in the lesson. In this way, everything is a seed for everything else. Every breath we take, we breathe in the oxygen produced by the plants, which connect us to the cosmos and to all other beings. If only I would not forget that, and if only more of us would realize that..

Some tricks for managing strong emotions

 I think the next Lojong slogan, number 58, is the reason that the stereotype of a Buddhist is a very peaceful person. This slogan namely says "don't be temperamental." An important Buddhist value is being relatively equanimous, which means you don't easily get angry or display other strong emotions. Just like the previous slogan, I think it is important to avoid suppressing emotions, because in the long run, that is not going to fly. Nevertheless, it is beneficial to try to avoid getting too much caught up in the emotions.

The dancers of Morlaix Ballet Camp putting on 
a chuckle at the end of the first act of Napoli
Picture by Michel Le

In my previous blog I mentioned how Khandro Rinpoche talked about keeping it short when emotional reactions come up. For me there are two strategies I use to shorten when emotions come up. First of all, I literally dance with it, if I am in a place where that's possible. Secondly, I will use the Buddhist teachings on emptiness: examining the nature of circumstances you see how these emotions are just ever-changing manifestations in a continuous dance of things rising and ceasing. Whatever evokes the emotion is usually conveniently put in our mind as the only cause of our anger, but if you think about it, they are also at the mercy of all these circumstances, so it is actually quite unfair to point at them for being the only cause for these emotions. Probably somewhere in there we too are to blame as well. Somehow changing perspective this way really helps me create some mental space, and frequently a chuckle as well.

It is worthwhile to think about how to manage your strong emotions, because they can create a lot of trouble. For example, for me, when people get angry I get quite stressed, and cannot think so well anymore. There is interestingly also some research on this, showing for example how more angry managers in companies were associated with reduced ability to learn from failure. This is quite consistent with my experience, where an environment where a teacher explicitly says it is OK to fail helps a lot (thanks Julie Gill for mentioning it is OK, and even good to wobble and fall over in balancing class because this is how our body learns). In short, managing strong emotions takes quite some effort, but in the end it makes our life a lot easier.

Happy new year!

 Happy new year! I hope you had a good celebration (if you celebrate) with loved ones. Now the new year has started and it's time for action. Yesterday I talked about setting intentions. Today--in my discussion of the next Lojong slogan, number 54, which says "train wholeheartedly"--we will move into action. The "Eenvoudig Leven agenda" (Simple Living calendar) that I mentioned previously starts the year with an intriguing question: what is your mission? I think it is having a clear mission that can allow you to train wholeheartedly, because you can work to ensure that what you do and how you are is consistent with your mission. 

Ladies on a mission at Morlaix Ballet Camp
Picture by Michel Le

In the last few days I spent some time thinking about it, but I found it quite hard, because somehow your mission sounds like it has to be something grand like solving world peace or world hunger, and that is not something I can commit to. Today, during my morning run, I found that a better way for me to think about this is to come up with prayers, inspired by Roshi Joan Halifax's recent Facebook posts, such as "May I be able to inspire people with my combination of dancing and science", "May I be able to help my students reach their goals", or "May I be able to find some peace in myself." For the latter one, I find it very helpful to remind myself of this recent video by Mingyur Rinpoche, in which he says that in order to be of more help for people he decides to disappear for retreat for a while. I too have to think about how sometimes taking time away can actually allow you to be there more for others--it is not necessarily selfish. Coming back to your main mission can be really helpful to zoom out and make those decisions.

Finally, I want to leave you with a thought I have been playing with in the last days. Often it is easy to keep focusing on things that have to change, but interestingly this unrest is exactly what characterizes our vicious cycle of suffering. The hopeful message of the Buddhist teachings is that we all have a buddha nature right inside us, if we can only let it manifest. So here is an encouragement to trust this buddha nature and give it the space to blossom.

Happiness is often not where we look

 Today was the last day of an online winter retreat that I co-facilitated. In the contemplation that I led, we investigated how we all want to be happy, but in searching for this happiness, we are misguided. We talked about the "8 worldly preoccupations"--specific sets of hopes and fears that we run after/run away from, For example running towards praise (hello social media!) and away from criticism. The problem with this is we put our happiness in the hands of others. This misunderstanding is also the topic of slogan 52 of Lojong" "Don't misunderstand." 

However, the slogan itself talks about six types of misunderstanding. First, mistaken patience. We have patience with our work--working long hours to only get money that we then use to buy leisure to get away from our work. Yet, we do not have patience with things that don't get societal recognition, such as the invisible work of being on a spiritual path. The same is true by the way for ballet, where not many people have patience with the slow boring exercises, even if they spend many hours doing classes with fancy jumps and turns. But it is often the most boring stuff that eventually makes life better because you are cultivating helpful habits.

Second is mistaken aspirations. I think society pushes us towards aspiring to have a good career, money, relationships, and so on. But do those make us happy? In the end real happiness can only be found inside--as it is said: there's no treasure like contentment. Third is mistaken taste. We tend to go for short-term pleasure, rather than long-term benefit. There are even psychological studies of a phenomenon called "inter-temporal choice" where people are asked to make decisions between rewards in certain time frames and it is a consistent finding that people tend to prefer smaller rewards when they can get them now over larger rewards for which they have to wait weeks or months. There is nothing wrong with enjoying some sensual pleaaures, but it's important to realize that they will never last. Even delicious chocolate (which  I am quite addicted to!) will become aversive when you have too much of it.

Fourth is mistaken compassion, which seems strange: how can compassion be mistaken? Nevertheless, compassion tends to be only for the people suffering, and not for the ones that are happy, but who will inevitably suffer later. Especially those people committing crimes right now are bound to suffer later--probably much worse. Buddhism teaches us to also have compassion for those. I personally find this a helpful practice because it humanizes that person and somehow therefore makes me feel less attacked by their acrions. Next is mistaken care, in which we encourage people to go after their self-centered aims. This is a challenging one as well, because we are invited to encourage people to put their spiritual practice over their career, which is not something that tends to make sense in society. However, supporting someone to find their happiness inside is probably a good idea in this uncertain time. Finally, mistaken joy is only rejoicing when we do well, but not when others do well. This is mistaken--the green monster of jealousy does not really help you feel better either. So cultivating joy in the good fortune of others is a recipe for resilience. Wow, that was a lot for such a simple slogan!

Finding meaning in the dark days after Christmas with wonderful Lojong resources

The next slogan is number 40: counter all adversity with a single remedy. Whenever when life sucks, which may happen to many of us during this pandemic, we routinely blame others. However, this usually does not help very much, and in fact renders us quite powerless, because we cannot do much about what others do. If instead we ourselves take responsibility, we can at least do something about our role in the adverse situation. For example, when there is another lockdown, we can spend all our energy complaining, but that does not really help very much. We could also use that energy to think about who is suffering, and what we can do about it. Something like the famous prayer that says: give me the strength to change the things I can change, the patience to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to know the difference between them.

For cultivating this wisdom, I came across two excellent resources recently: 

• a set of teachings on Lojong by John Dunne and Roshi Joan Halifax. https://www.upaya.org/resources/exploring-the-power-of-lojong-2021-resource-page/ This includes a nuanced discussion of how we can work with our own role in adverse situations, how we can stay with a kind heart and self-compassion, but also take action to remedy damaging circumstances and avoid moral harm. 
• One particularly powerful example in these teachings is the story of a sailor who gets hit by another boat. He starts yelling at the other boat, but no-one responds. When he finally gets closer, he sees it's just an empty boat. How often are we not yelling at an empty boat? I find it very helpful to think of the empty boat when I am in challenging (or simply annoying) circumstances. That takes so much of the edge off...
• the Everybodhi podcast by Dungse Jampal Norbu, which goes through the Lojong slogans from a modern perspective. https://everybodhipodcast.libsyn.com

Enjoy!

Reflections on Sogyal Rinpoche and circumstances that allow for abuse to arise in Buddhist teachers in general

  Introduction

A few months ago I participated in a documentary by Jaap Verhoeven that investigates the situation around Sogyal Rinpoche, my Buddhist teacher, who has been accused of physical, psychological and sexual abuse--which was later corroborated by an independent investigation--and who passed away about 1.5 years ago. Now mentioning "abuse" and "my teacher" in the same sentence may seem confusing, but in this blog I hope to show you how it is not that simple.

Participating in the documentary intense interview which lasted about 3.5 hours, but of course only a few minutes made it to the documentary. The documentary came out in the Netherlands a month ago, and very recently also internationally. Although the documentary I think does a good job at looking at the situation from several different angles, I feel like it lacks a bit of analysis of the complex circumstances that ked to this situation. Of course you can only do so much in the space of 1.5 hours. Nevertheless, in this blog I would like to share more of my reflections on this topic, because I feel like we are not done with it yet--it is a very challenging problem for Buddhism and for society at large. I do not claim I have the wisdom, but hopefully after having wrestled with these questions for a few years I would like to share my thoughts in a bit more detail than what was shown in the documentary.

The documentary starts with the interviewees discussing what brought them to Sogyal Rinpoche. In my case, I read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, and it completely swept me off my feet: this was such a clear and accessible introduction into Buddhism that gave me practical tools for handling my emotions. And it still does, even to this day. Over the years of receiving his teachings, I have also developed a strong connection several of his teachers, including Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche. This moves me even now to tears. Studying and practising in his organization Rigpa has given me tremendous meaning in my life, and a fundamental trust in the goodness of the buddha nature that underlies all of life and death. This trust has been fundamental to me developing some degree of self-confidence and fearlessness, and a sense of just being OK in myself. It should also be mentioned that over the years, Sogyal Rinpoche was able to inspire thousands of students to put in tremendous efforts in building outer and inner temples. And even though the latest scandals have been painful, they have also been a tremendous teacher for myself and many others I know. In the spirit of gratitude for all I have received I think it is important to write this piece: to investigate what I think is going on, and to also think about how we can move on so more people can benefit from the tremendous good things that Sogyal Rinpoche has brought, while preventing the bad things that have clearly happened from occurring.

I think one of the most inspiring things that Sogyal Rinpoche did is connecting his students to great teachers. Here is a wonderful example.

Analysis

The first thing that I think is very important to point out is that abuse by teachers takes place in many high-pressure situations. The intense student-teacher relationship that is crucial for Tibetan Buddhism is one such example, but similar situations have been reported in academia, ballet, as well as gymnastics, to name a few. All of these situations are characterized by a strong power imbalance and a tremendous dedication on the part of typically both student and teacher to what is being studied. A very interesting video on this topic in the domain of ballet is a talk by Theresa Ruth Howard who compares ballet to a cult. So it is too simple to blame it all on a single teacher individual--a large part of it is the culture around it that allows abuse to happen.

Another factor is that in an effort to push the student beyond their limitations, teachers sometimes resort to harsh means. I haven't quite figured out whether this is good or not. I know that in my experience a mild version of this has worked: I remember one day my ballet teacher was yelling at me for not remembering the combination properly, which occurred because I was completely exhausted. But these remarks still made me able to remember the combinations and really pay attention to an extent that I did not think possible. In an interesting film about this topic, Whiplash, the teacher says that he uses methods of physical and psychological abuse because he does not want to deprive the world of the artistic talents of the student, which needs to be cultivated through an amount of blood, sweat and tears that is almost not humanly possible. On the other hand, we never hear about the students in such systems that drop out and may be damaged for life, and never love their art/spirituality/science anymore because of these abusive experiences. Would a good teacher know what students can be pushed without serious damage? Would the student know what they get into before they enter such a relationship, as Dzongsar Khyentse suggests for Vajrayana?

Another relation consideration is that the position of a spiritual teacher in general is very challenging. A book that lays this out very eloquently is Sex and the spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher is in a very lonely position, and has tremendous power that is not kept much in check. They often do not have equals to check in with and they are subject to many students that adore them and project all kinds of things on them. In addition, they have a tremendous opportunity to make use of their students, exactly because their students adore them. Finally, they have sexual drives, like every human, and all the people around them are typically their students. This makes it difficult to have equal sexual relationships. Of course these are not justifications for sexual misconduct and abuse, but at the same time, they make it a bit more understandable.

A further contributor to the arising of this situation is that given the same situation, different individuals can have wildly different perceptions of it. This is a fundamental principle of cognition that is also known as predictive perception. We never perceive anything as neutral, but constantly make predictions about what we will see, hear, and so on, and these color these perceptions. I think we can all see that happen in the current pandemic, where people who do not believe in COVID seem to almost be living in an alternate reality. A good article that goes into these cognitive biases is this.  Similarly, I feel that the experiences people have about Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa of the very same situation are wildly different, likely due to the cognitive biases with which they perceived the situation.

In the context of Rigpa, when I believed that Sogyal Rinpoche was a fantastic teacher, I was blind to his faults. Moreover, whenever I had any doubts, I felt I should not focus on those and instead give the situation a chance, because maybe these were special methods from Tibetan culture. How can I know what is the best way of teaching? And this was further reinforced by people who were humiliated publically, and then confessed that it helped them work with their minds and through their traumas. From the stories we have heard now in the investigation report and beyond, it seems like this was often a bit too optimistic. But I think we all wanted to believe it. This was further reinforced by reactions of Sogyal Rinpoche and the people around him on the scandals: they were attributed to people not understanding what a profound thing he was doing. According to this explanation, their mind was not spiritual enough and they were too much into their worldly concerns. With the knowledge I have today I think this was a very harmful tactic.

While I do not exclude the possibility that a teacher can use seemingly abusive techniques to help the student go beyond their blockages, I think that in that case it is the teacher's job to know whether it is helping or harming the student. A famous example that is often cited here is that of Marpa and Milarepa: Marpa made his student go through tremendous hardships but eventually Milarepa became one of the most amazing saints. But Milarepa was just one out of many students, and here is seems like dozens if not hundreds of students have been suffering from abuse. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has also mentioned in an assembly of Western teachers that such "crazy wisdom" only becomes relevant when the teacher him- or herself also shows tremendous obvious realization such as being able to fly or walk through walls.

A final thought that is relevant to the analysis of the situation is the idea that a genius in one domain cannot be at the same time completely dysfunctional in another domain, which was evident for example in the case of Harvey Weinstein or Michael Jackson. I think seeing that this is possible has been one of the most important lessons of the current situation for me. In my mind, Sogyal Rinpoche was able to impart some tremendous wisdom onto his students, but at the same time also had some very dysfunctional aspects to his personality, that were probably also amplified by the people surrounding him, rather than being reduced. For example, I can easily imagine that himself being brought up by a teacher who beats students, it was easy for him to think that this is a good way of teaching, even though in the context of the West at this time, it is not really (and there is a lot of scientific evidence that also supports that point). Then if those closely around him did not strongly counter that this did not work, probably made these practices going from bad to worse. This is often a mechanism at play: first a person does something somewhat questionable, such as making an inappropriate remark. The next time, they go a little further, maybe giving them a soft slap, and before you know it, it has become normal to abuse.

What can we do? (some initial ideas)

First of all, I think it is helpful to start with apologies--acknowledging things have gone wrong, so there is a space for making amends (as we also learn in the Vajrasattva teachings). I myself am sorry for believing in the system and not standing up when people were being publically humiliated, for not asking further when they said they were OK after this experience (I must emphasized here that I myself never had any bad experiences with Sogyal Rinpoche). While we can not change the past, we can learn from it to prevent such harm from occurring in the future. Maybe one idea would be to make amends by for example establishing a fund to help those who were harmed get therapy.

In terms of learning, I think various things can be changed. First of all, something that already has been happening in Rigpa and could be further strengthened is moving towards a more democratic leadership model. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been very much supporting this movement in Tibetan society (see for example his comments in this movie). Really giving space to many different voices and debate can help prevent abusive situations because those tend to arise when no-one dares to speak up or question behaviours. There is some movement towards that in Rigpa, where the different national organizations are now a federation, rather than being governed by a single teacher at the top. Moreover, there is no single teacher anymore who decides things, but rather a group who give advice to another group of Rigpa leaders. Of course this is still not perfect because those groups can be still engaging in group-think, but it is certainly better than the more dictatorial system there was before.

On top of that, maybe it can also be helpful that in every Buddhist sangha, there are a few members from another, closely-related sangha (e.g., in the context of Rigpa, this would be members of the sanghas of Tsoknyi Rinpoche or Mingyur Rinpoche or Khandro Rinpoche). They would not be students of the main teacher and instead they would be there to observe the student-teacher dynamics and ask questions when the group dynamics go from healthy devotion to group pressure and abusive situations. I think this kind of an inside-outside voice would have enough grounding in the tradition but also not be as bound to the teacher as to be blinded. More communication between sanghas can go a long way, I think.

On top of this I think we all need to be trained in tools for intervening in questionable situations, for example through active bystander training.

We should also stop with the reasoning that "if you cannot take this, you are not spiritually advanced enough"--a storyline that has been held--often implicitly--in Rigpa. This kind of a story is not taking people seriously and undermining them, a situation referred to as "gaslighting". This prevents people from feeling safe, and also from voicing their dissent, which then means that they then cannot indicate it when a particular teaching method does not work for them. In this way, even if the teacher has the best of intentions, they cannot get proper feedback about what works for the student.

 

Finally, I think that despite everything, the practice of guru devotion is a very powerful one. I hope that it will be possible to have a very honest and heartfelt discussion about how it can be practised in a Western context without engaging in spiritual bypassing and losing our own ground. I would love for such a conversation to be really taking place from a ground of practice, not just intellectual reasoning. I imagine a retreat where we practice meditation and guru yoga, and then have open dialogues about these topics: what does the practice mean? Where are the dangers? How can we hold the authentic lineage but also create an environment that is as safe as possible? I think there are no clear-cut answers here, but I am sure we will make progress if we put our heads and hearts in it.

May these thoughts  be a little help in maintaining this precious tradition while also preventing more suffering, and may it open the dialogue on how to continue. I apologize in advance for all the hurt this writing may cause. It is my sincere attempt at making sense of the situation and thinking about how we can move forward to address this problem--because it is not new, and not unique to Rigpa, as is also mentioned in the documentary and many things that have been written about it--so now is a chance to learn.

PS. Two resources that also informed my thinking were: How did it happen blog, the book Fallout by Thalia Newland. I don't necessarily agree with everything that was written in these resources but it did help shape my thinking.

Saying goodbye to 2020

I am writing this on January 1st, 2021. Who would have thought how our lives have changed over the past year! In the beginning of 2020, I still had a whole lot of travel lined up, going back to India to work with my Tibetan monk colleagues from Sera Jey monastic university, giving a ballet performance in India, and more. And here we are: I have never been as long home as in the past year. I am giving talks, lessons and even ballet performances from my living room, attending conferences and summer schools virtually, and also organizing quite a few of them.

Picture by Anna van der Meijden (https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en) 

The year started with a wonderful trip to Vienna, to attend a Mind & Life Europe vision meeting, at which time the first news about a virus from China started to emerge, which was also starting to wreak havoc in Italy. Now my brother lived in Italy at the time, not far from Milan, and I had planned to visit him at the beginning of March. Until the last moment I was debating whether I should visit him, because I was afraid they would close of the area and I would get stuck. In a leap of faith, I ended up still going, and it was the weirdest journey in my life. I have never seen airports that quiet. I have never been as careful about hygiene as then, wearing gloves in public places and washing my hands properly for the first time in my life. I made it out successfully, and then entered a very stressful phase of my life, because I suddenly was shunned by people for being a virus risk. I was surprised at how much this affected me--I think maybe because it brought back painful childhood memories in which I used to be shunned by my classmaters and always be an outsider.

By the time my possibly infectioous time had finished, the country entered lockdown and life changed again. Everything suddenly was online, and because I live alone, this meant that most of the time my only contact with "real people" would be my grocery shopping and my weekly runs with Stefani Nellen (who is the best storyteller ever!). Yet, at the same time, this also brought me a lot: I realized how interconnected we all are by the internet. Because now all the ballet classes were online, I started to reconnect with dear teachers in India and the USA. This was incredibly inspiring. Also, seeing the amount of creativity in the arts sector, which immediately started to offer ballet classes online on instagram and youtube, was stunning. I have also watched live-streamed performances, which were surprisingly wonderful. I even watched while live-commenting on it through WhatsApp conversations with a friend.

I also felt very much connected to my friends and family in other countries (despite the fact that for the first time in my life borders became a thing). I never really felt alone, maybe because I was talking to my computer all day ;-) For the first time in years I started calling my parents regularly, and that renewed connection has been gratifying. On top of that, the covid situation has made my awareness of impermanence much more embodied. Never yet has life changed so quickly. One day you can be giving a ballet performance, the next day you can enter a lockdown. I am grateful for how daily reflections on impermanence in the context of my Buddhist practice have already prepared me for that a little, but still, the understanding has significantly deepened in the past year.

Another treasure given to me by 2020 is learning many new skills. I love learning things (which is why I enjoy being an academic). Pivoting teaching online means that you have to completely reorganize your teaching, which is at once exciting and time-consuming. On top of that, student supervision has become more time-consuming, because understandably each of them was struggling with a whole life placed upside-down, so I felt like a counsellor at times. Nevertheless, this was also rewarding, because I felt like I could actually do something. 

I felt tremendously grateful for my Buddhist practice, which had already prepared me for dealing with change, and encouraged me to look for meaning within, rather than outside. As my Tibetan monk colleagues said at the beginning of the pandemic: now is not the time to travel outside, now is the time to travel inside. Wise words indeed. Now of course this is easy for me to say, because I still have a job, and I am already fairly introverted, so staying at home was not too difficult. This is a nice moment to bring to mind the next slogan in the #lojongchallenge: slogan 37 says "don't make gods into demons." It is really important to ensure that your Buddhist practice does not make you more proud. So, I am not writing this to show off. Just like everyone else, I am muddling around, but i do find that reconnecting with the fundamental goodness of my buddha nature, and the buddha nature of all beings helps me to maintain meaning in the midst of the change and chaos that 2020 created.

So, I would like to end this blog by remembering that while 2020 brought many challenges and completely changed everyone's life, it also brought new opportunities: I learnt a lot, I developed a solid ballet practice at home, I connected with people across the globe in my work, Buddhist practice and ballet, and went back to the essence of life. I hope that in the new year, I will be able to continue learning, remember to take moments to remember gratitude, and continue to connect to people across the globe, online and hopefully also in-person. All my best wishes for the new year!

Why is it so difficult to turn off? Investigating competitiveness

Logan slogan 35 is "don't be so competitive" (the next iteration in the #lojongchallenge). There is hardly a slogan that is more apt in today's competitive world. In the academic world I am part of, competition is part and parcel, because we constantly have to compete with colleagues to win grants and get our research published in the top journals. Of course there is also a lot of collaboration within science, especially in my department, in the end the evaluation and reward system is highly skewed towards recognising only individuals. A particularly powerful example of this are the Nobel prizes, which were awarded last week. These almost assume that science is done by individuals, rather than by a team, as it is in reality. Pretty much all universities require you to be in the top-whatever to survive as an academic (which obviously is impossible, because by definition not everyone can be the top). This is slightly problematic because science really thrives when you combine many different viewpoints and ideas.

Somehow I internalized the competition to such an extent that I find it difficult to turn off: there is always something more to do, and I find it very hard to give myself permission to rest. Of course it's easy to blame that only on the external world. Probably I myself am at fault at least just as much. But nevertheless, the external world really facilitates that. I think taking the time to be still and rest is almost a revolutionary act.

For me, working against this innate and external competitiveness is a constant struggle that requires a lot of vigilance to recognize these patterns creeping up, and to drop them. I found two things really helpful here: first, practising joy when someone else gets ahead or does something good. When you look at it, seeing someone else succeed and seeing them happy is actually really nice and pleasant, and it improves your relationship with them as well. In one of the ballet schools I take class at the students tend to applaud for each other when they do something well. A very nice gesture, I think. I also try to remember to tell other people what I like about them, and especially to appreciate my students. A little positivity goes a long way!

The other trick I use is to investigate again and again the effects of suspending competitiveness for a moment and just letting be. When I take a few minutes to just rest, I find that actually my performance improves, because I often recognize things that I had overlooked until that moment, and thereby make fewer mistakes. Moreover, it also really feels good. But somehow it's still so hard to do--to overcome the ingrained 'doing' habit. With this blog, I try to commit again to taking more moments of silence and being. Just another reminder...

How are you doing? Do you notice these kinds of tendencies as well? How do you work with competitiveness?

Speaking and writing inspired by the thermal baths

I was reflecting on the next #lojongchallenge slogan while relaxing in the thermal baths. This slogan is number 33, "don't bring things to a painful point." It's kind of an interesting thing to reflect on in an environment dedicated to promoting wellness and the absence of pain and suffering!

So what is meant by this slogan? It is about avoiding blaming others for your pain and suffering. Maybe it is especially easy to understand in a wellness centre, because the owners have thought for a long time on how to create an environment in which it is pleasant to hang out. This slogan asks us to create such an environment for the people around us. One way you can do this is to think before you speak or write something about the following:

Is it truthful? 

Is it helpful? 

Is it inspiring? 

Is it necessary?  

Is it kind?

The slogan is asking us to speak in a way so that we don't harm others. More importantly, it is asking us to see whether we can avoid blaming our own misery on others. This is typically a bit more challenging because it is so attractive to blame others for things. For example, in COVID-19, to complain about others' reckless behaviour, or alternatively, their fearful behaviour which makes us uncomfortable. But of course that is not really going to help much if you think about it--in fact, it probably only creates feelings of unrest and annoyance. Khandro Rinpoche also says that many obstacles are created because of our own stupidity or ambitions. And then we try to cover that up by blaming others for it. Of course that eventually creates painful situations. If on the other hand you are able to just be honestly who you are, with all your defects, not blaming anyone else for it, then there is less to protect and eventually also less to worry about.

Image from the wellness centre (captured by Stefani Nellen)

Amazing food at the thermal baths

Hotelfie at the thermal baths

It all seems so logical and simple. Then why is this so difficult? I think it is due to the heavy emphasis of our society on success, and the constant feeling that we do not measure up. Counteracting that takes a lot of reflection--again and again--until it becomes natural. That's why I do the #lojongchallenge!

Reconsidering "I told you so"

The next slogan in the #lojongchallenge series is "don't wait in ambush". This slogan talks about how we can brood on "getting someone back" if they've said or done something nasty to us. A more noble response would be to instead return their unkindness with kindness.

Now of course being kind to someone who has treated you poorly is not always that easy. My personal response is usually to simply avoid this person. Then at least you know you won't cause them harm, and they also cannot cause you harm. For example, today I was on the train to Amsterdam, and when I see people who do not wear masks, one response is to be nasty to them, but another response is to simply go outside their way (which may either way be a smart thing to do in either case...).

A more subtle tendency that this can refer to is put forward by Khandro Rinpoche. She says that it also refers to cases in which we may allow situations to worsen so we can say in the end: "I told you so", rather than preventing the mistakes to happen. I personally don't think this always works, because sometimes you just need to give people the space to make their own mistakes. Nevertheless, at that time it is still not very compassionate to respond with "I told you so", rather than helping that person to clean up the mess, which would be a bit more supportive. There is sometimes quite some satisfaction in the smugness of saying "I told you so", but it's a good reminder to self that it is pretty much never helpful when you think about it.

Ballerina waiting in ambush? Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

On the whole I must confess that i am lucky that I never enjoy seeing people suffer, not even when they have hurt me. What I am trying to cultivate more of is to enjoy it when people do well. This morning I was in a ballet class in Amsterdam and I was able to really enjoy some of the beautiful dancing of the other dancers in my class, instead of being jealous of them, which can also happen sometimes. That was my little win of the day. And in the end, it makes your own life so much better as well (but of course it requires changing of habits, which is always a challenge...).

Seeing the buddha in your chance encounters

Today my retreat finished and I am easing back into daily life. I already had my first interaction with a friend I randomly ran into in the marketplace. But in the end, the whole purpose of retreat is not to run from life, but rather to prepare to engage in life in a more productive way. This is why I felt it was quite a good idea to write these blogs while I was on retreat so I could think about how to interact with the world once I got back into it.

The 31st slogan of Lojong is "don't malign others." This is quite an obvious slogan: don't speak ill of people. As I mentioned quite a few times before on this blog, sometimes it feels good to take others down, so we can feel better about ourselves. But apart from the fact that this feeling good is only short-lived, in the end, it also does your relationship with the person you are talking with no good. After all, who likes to talk to someone who only complains about others?

Khandro Rinpoche also says that it's very easy to judge--it doesn't give the other space to make mistakes, to work with themselves. it may sound naive, but giving others the benefit of the doubt usually improves the quality of your interactions. If you assume others have good intentions then I find that often people feel that and proceed to interact with you in a more positive way than when you assume others' bad intentions. I find this relatively easy now but when I was bullied as a little kid, I always had the feeling that other kids were speaking bad about me, and this made me very anxious. So this habit is definitely shaped a lot by your experiences with other people. Now most people approach me positively I find it quite easy to do.

Saying hello to the door. Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

Yet, I don't think this means you can never criticize people. I actually sometimes have that tendency because I don't want to make other people angry. But that in itself doesn't help either because tensions are built and never spoken off. Or even worse, people who behave poorly and harm others get never any headwind and therefore step by step make their behaviour even worse because they think they can get away with it. So, just like all these slogans, I think they should be applied with care. Nevertheless, seeing things from the perspective that all people are inherently buddhas-to-be, and therefore inherently good, definitely makes the world a better place.

Playing the unpredictable in an uncertain post-COVID world

We are halfway in the #lojongchallenge! The 30th slogan is "don't be so predictable." This refers to our tendency to respond very habitually whenever we are challenged, mostly by feeling sorry for ourselves. Do you recognize this? I certainly do! In these days of COVID-19, this tends to happen for example when the internet breaks down just at a moment that an important meeting or teaching is happening (like yesterday). My natural reaction is to make a big drama out of that, which obviously won't make anyone feel better, not even myself.

More specifically it also refers to the case where someone causes you trouble. Our natural reaction is to respond nastily in response. In a way, this is also what society expects from us. But what if we don't follow that pattern? In a way, when someone causes you trouble, they hope you get annoyed, and if you don't, that not only surprises you but them as well, thereby breaking the chains of action and reaction that we call karma.

Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

Breaking this chain of karma is very significant because it helps us to break our habitual patterns of reactions. If you are able to do so, it feels so good because you have gained freedom! However, it is not so easy, so you have to start with small actions. Khandro Rinpoche for example suggests surprising yourself by being generous, or maybe try being patient. For example, right now it is quite hot. A natural reaction is to feel very sorry for myself it is so hot, and then to slump down in tiredness. But maybe I can also just feel the heat and enjoy it while it lasts (I mean, next week I am going to a sauna: even more heat, and then voluntarily ;-) ). 

The practice of meditation is also very much about not being predictable. Our predictable patterns are to indulge in thoughts, especially self-related thoughts, and forget about everything else. Meditation is instead an invitation to be curious: to watch your mind, to see where your awareness comes from, to explore just being, and just doing nothing, taking space. In our busy society that is almost a revolutionary act.

And maybe, when we are less predictable in how we respond to things, we can also respond better to an unpredictable world, which very much characterizes this COVID-19 situation, and which is probably one of the biggest challenges of it for most people. Maybe the attitude of playfulness towards our own reactions can also translate into a playfulness towards the daily surprises that COVID throws at us.

Dropping the self from the meditation

We're moving along quite nicely in the #LojongChallenge! Today I want to discuss slogan 29: "give up poisoned food." Of course it is never good to eat food with poison, but obviously here this is meant more metaphorically. The idea here is that when you practice, you do it not so that other people think you are an amazing person, but rather, for the benefit of others. This is not surprising, since the whole Lojong is pretty much about that. Nevertheless, it is important to keep examining your motivation in whatever you do.

Here I would like to focus a little more on the case of meditation, since I am currently doing a meditation retreat. In meditation too, it is attractive to want it to be a kind of quiet and peaceful state in which we feel good and feel like we are a great meditator. But of course, meditation isn't always like that! Often meditation is just like a big mess of turbulent thoughts that go all over the place. And many of these thoughts--in fact--are self-related. We know this from neuroscientific research: whenever people are left to their own devices, a brain network known as the default mode network turns on, which consists of a set of mostly midline areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex that are thought to be strongly involved in self-referential processes. And in my lab I have demonstrated that the moment people are prompted to think about themselves, they get distracted and do worse on cognitive tasks such as a memory task.

So what to do? One strategy I am playing around with right now is to focus on the process rather than the result. Just the fact that you sit down to practise is awesome. Sometimes the practice will feel good, sometimes it won't, but slowly you will make progress anyway. It is also said that it is better to leave your analysis and judgment of how the meditation went until afterwards, and to during the practice mostly focus on being relaxed and spacious. One quote of Sogyal Rinpoche that illustrates this well is "meditation is becoming naturally assimilated in it." It says that instead of working hard to do something, it is more about un-doing, and trusting that you will land in your buddha nature. What a beautiful and soothing idea in this stressful world!

Can we be without a goal?

An intriguing slogan in the Lojong text is number 28: "abandon any hope of fruition." Here in the West, we are strongly conditioned in being very goal-directed, having specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound goals. This contributes to getting things done. So why are we to let go of a hope of fruition, or in other words, "achievement"?

Sometimes the tendency to try to achieve things can be in the way of accomplishment. This is particularly true with these Lojong teachings, because achieving something tends to often be associated with a feeling of self-cherishing. It's not bad to feel good a bout yourself, but feeling superior is a problem.

Moreover, the tendency to always be goal-directed also gets in the way of taking time to just rest and being present with what is. A large part of Buddhist practice is about sitting there and doing nothing--and through that, through observing what happens, becoming familiar with the nature of reality that is to be found within, rather than in busy activity.

Approaching the goal. Picture by Anna van der Meijden, https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

But yet, how can we then still motivate ourselves if we shouldn't hope for fruition? Maybe it is the case that we will never reach fruition, but we will still make some progress along the way, and we can still celebrate those little moments in which we were able to transform an emotion or approach a situation in a different way. And at the same time realize that that is only a tiny step along the way. Then it is key to go back to your motivation and use that as your major impetus: whatever you do, be it action or inaction, can be with a motivation to help beings and eventually to becoming a truly healthy and happy person (something which Buddhists call enlightenment).

Looking for focus: a case for just being

The next slogan in the #lojongchallenge is number 27: "Work with the greatest defilements first." Of course the whole Lojong programme is about working with our emotions. A wonderful thing of this programme is that is has a fantastic array of methods. This is at the same time a challenge, because we can get lost in it and not end up making substantial progress in any of them. I notice this tendency most strongly in ballet classes I take: when I strongly focus on fixing one bad habit (such as forgetting to suck in my tummy or not stretching my legs fully) then I make much more progress than when I focus on whatever is that day's teacher's particular focus. The same applies of course to working with your negative emotions.

Just being happy with flowers. Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/ 

How do you know what is your most insistent emotion or habit? One clue is to look at what you tend to put off, because that is often where the strongest obstacle is located. The good news, according to Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is also that all the different emotions are in some way related to self-cherishing. If you deal with one of them, then the others will automatically be improved as well.

For myself, I definitely recognize this tendency to try out many different things and not persist on one path until the end. It is just too easy to get lost in doing, instead of spending time in being--doing nothing in particular but just being with what is and seeing what emerges. Sometimes just being can be the most productive because, as Khandro Rinpoche says, it allows the natural compassion to shine out. It is also where we can drop our competitiveness and instead just connect.

Maybe this is for me the greatest obstacle or habit: to get lost in the doing. Getting lost in doing is an easy way to avoid facing things, and at the same time it is also often driven by the need for recognition--recognition by others for all the amazing things you are doing. This is just one manifestation of what Buddhists call "attachment"--in this case attachment to praise. But when you think about it from the Dzogchen perspective: you are already totally fine. Your nature is the Buddha, and if you only let it out, it will shine all by itself with brilliant wisdom and compassion. If only it weren't so hard to trust that... 

Exploring together-apart mind and reality in times of COVID-19

Last week I attended the European Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. I have been lucky enough to attend many such events over the course of my career, and it is safe to say they have shaped my career as a contemplative scientist. During these Summer Research Institutes, scientists and contemplatives get together to discuss about issues in the field of contemplative science, but also do a lot of contemplation themselves. Unsurprisingly, this year's edition took place online.

I was not sure how an online version of this event would work out, but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of connection that I felt with the other attendees. This was achieved by some quite inventive meeting formats. Before the meeting itself, the faculty had recorded brief (20-30 min) lectures that you could watch and ask questions about. These questions were collected on a board that allowed for upvoting of your favorite questions. Participants who presented posters had submitted PDFs and 2-minute video presentations of their posters and all gotten a Slack channel to discuss these posters during the meeting. Every day of the meeting started with contemplative practices: a choice of meditation, and a choice between chi gong, yoga and juggling. I ended up mostly not following those but taking a ballet class instead. After that, the first session was a plenary meeting with the faculty in which they briefly recapped the essence of their talks, followed by a panel discussion, partly driven by the submitted questions. There was also a brief period in which we were put in breakout rooms to discuss possible questions to ask. I must confess that during most of these sessions I ended up instead just talking to the others about their fascinating work! In the afternoons, we then had breakout groups with the day's speakers in which we discussed a bit more deeply. Before that, we would often have a fun activity, for example answering a question with one word on mentimeter that then transformed into a word cloud. The afternoon ended by bringing everyone back together with reports from the breakout groups and more general discussion. As the week progressed, there were also more and more self-organized zoom meetings for discussions and chats. As usual, there was a much-needed silent meditation day in the middle of the week which also featured a teaching by Mingyur Rinpoche, who talked about his wandering retreat and meditation in general.

Now the contents of the meeting. We started the first day by talking about perception: how do we derive knowledge from the world? This questions was approached from neuroscientific, philosophical and contemplative directions. Michel Bitbol for example argued that our experience of the world is just the part we need, which is an optimal way to perceive the world, but we should remember that that is not reality. There were many discussions about how we continuously make up stories about the world, and then confuse them for reality. Yet even if science is just another story, Michel Bitbol argued that it is a very efficient way towards knowledge, for example in the case of a search for a COVID-19 vaccine.

The second day was dedicated to interoception and emotions. Holger Yeshe talked about how the Buddhist teachings give us tools to investigate where our suffering, and our negative emotions (which are the source of this suffering) come from. Micah Allen talked about interoception--the feeling of our body from the inside, and argued that many psychiatric disorders are accompanied by problems in interoception. There have been claims that meditation improves interoception, but the evidence for this is not unequivocal. He also argued that we need more replication in the field of meditation reserarch and called for a Many Labs experiment in this field. I fully agree, and I am working on a project to work towards that! On a more poetic note, Giovanna Colombetti argued that emotions are not a feeling of the body but a feeling through the body. A lot to think about!

Thursday was dedicated to embodying knowledge. All too often, we think that knowledge is just in our heads, but dancers will know that you can also know and investigate through the body--a perspective that was also shown by Asaf Bachrach and Hsuan-Hsiu Hung. Asaf Bachrach showed an intriguing experiment in which people were moving in virtual reality, where he found that people felt very calm, and he noticed that when people moved slowly, they felt more together than when moving quickly. Despite the wisdom there is to be found in movement, Guiseppe Pagnoni argued that by keeping body and mind still during meditation practice, you can detect changes in the body-mind complex with much greater precision, which affords you to be less enslaved in your habits.

The last day was dedicated to artificial intelligence. Luisa Damiano argued that in addition to the empirical cycle of scientific research, we need the synthetic cycle in which we simulate the world and explore the world in-silico. Father Tiso discussed how artificial intelligence allows us to appreciate the sphere of interconnected minds through the internet (as was indeed happening there and then during the summer research institute!). Venerable Aileen Barry summed up the Ai day very beautifully by arguing that behind every AI there is a human, and a motivation, and we should watch this motivation.

Altogether, the ESRI was a very rich and beautiful exploration of what it means to know, and what it means to connect as humans--through technology. My head was spinning by the end, and there was as always too little time to explore this richness in ideas, but it was definitely a beautiful experience. And now it is time to take that wonder into my own retreat.

What does it mean to do retreat in times of COVID-19?

As I am writing this, I am entering into a retreat. A retreat not at the Buddhist centre of  Lerab Ling where I usually go to, but at my own home. In one of the first sessions, it was mentioned that the moment you leave your home, the retreat is half accomplished. Of course that makes a lot of sense, because you have already physically retreated from ordinary life. This made me reflect on the question of what is means to retreat, when you do not leave your home. 

For me, retreat is about taking the space and time to reflect on the Buddhist teachings--something I nornally only have little time to do. When you are in a Buddhist retreat centre, the whole environment is conducive to thinking about this, and the place is usually so beautiful that meditation almost arises naturally. The aim of this is of course to transform our minds so that it works a little bit differently, with a little more sanity, in everyday life. So how can I create that in my own home?

The meaning of retreat is "boundary", so the first thing to do of course is to reflect on every single thing I do: is this necessary for my retreat, or can I drop it? Of course work has to go, for sure. Social media, also pretty clear. News? I noticed I am quite addicted to news since COVID-19, so ideally this should go as well. At the same time, it is important to know when something changes in the world situation that may affect the way I live my life. So I decided to have a short "news" moment every morning. I will still keep up my ballet practice because it is important for me to have a flexible and strong body, but I will do so with youtube teachings, rather than interacting with other individuals. The wonderful thing of a retreat is to momentarily drop social interactions (not so difficult when you live alone like me) so you can devote yourself with less distractions to the study and reflection.

I must confess that doing retreat at home is challenging because I can feel the pull of the habits that like to fill my mind and provide entertainment. So this is a time to work with this attachment--after all, retreat is about reducing attachment and aversion, according to the Richö teaching. At the same time it is also wonderful to have the space and time to do something as meaningful as study and practice. And here it is important to not go into overdrive either but make sure that while you adhere to a retreat schedule, you also take enough time to relax. This is particularly important because this is not only my retreat but also my vacation. As it says in the Richö: "Generally, refrain from any noise and busy-ness, whether outside or within the mind, and simply remain perfectly at ease, effortlessly. This is the true, essential solitude or hermitage."

In the end, while I miss the beautiful surroundings of the Buddhist centre, I think it is also lovely to create new habits that may more easily transpire to life after the retreat. I am planning to keep writing blogs, so I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Happier classrooms - some ideas from the Dalai Lama (and others)

Today His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited the Netherlands to give some talks and lectures. I was fortunate enough to attend one of these, a Buddhist teaching on the Eight Verses for Training the Mind, which is actually a Lojong text as well! In conjunction with this event, Mind and Life Europe also organized a workshop entitled Education of the Heart. In this blog I share some of what I learnt at these meetings.

First the Dalai Lama gave a good tip relevant to those following the #lojongchallenge: if you have a flight delay, read the Eight Verses of Training the Mind text to yourself. Presumably another Lojong text would also do, but the main thing is to use the time for something useful, instead of getting frustrated about the delayed flights. The Dalai Lama also mentioned that you can also acquire a glimpse of the understanding of how phenomena are empty by looking at present-day quantum physics. However, in quantum physics they then go on to state that there is no objective reality at all, which is not in accord with Buddhism, which does assert an objective reality--things do appear--but just not in the way we usually perceive it. He ended by mentioning that the teachings on emptiness can really help to free the mind, because they reduce the self-centredness that causes anxiety and anger and ruin our health.

So how can we train in these skills? For this we need education. Sander Tideman mentioned that in a previous Education of the Heart meeting, one important point was that compassion is not just empathy but involves critical thinking as well. Just like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he mentioned how compassion and warm-heartedness can overcome stress and anxiety. Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi from Emory University talked about the Social Emotional and Ethical Learning program they have developed at Emory University tries to implement the vision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from his books on secular ethics (e.g., Ethics for the New Millenium) into a curriculum, which so far focuses on K-12. The curriculum includes attention training, compassion and care, systems awareness (becoming aware of the larger context of which you are a part), and ethical engagement. Crucial in this is that teachers embody these skills themselves. The program includes a lot of scientific perspectives as well as reflective practices such as journaling. Early findings suggest the program results in more self-compassion, a calmer classroom and better prosocial skills.

Also in higher education there are some initiatives. Rob van Tulder described his work in bringing the heart into the business school of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He shared an inspiring quote of how rare it is to find people with a cool head, even rarer those with a warm heart, and the rarest of all are those who use the warmth of their heart to keep their head cool. Quite an inspiring quote! He mentioned how more of these ideas are worked out in his book Skill sheets which I have not had the chance to check out. Nevertheless, one important challenge they are facing is distraction by too much information, social media, etc. I agree that this is a challenge. I think this is where structural teaching of mindfulness practices could be useful, because they could help people to acquire a sense of meta-awareness of where their attention is.

Finally, Katherine Weare presented the new initiative of the Contemplative Education hub of Mind & Life Europe, because there are many initiatives on contemplative education, but little coordination. Such coordination could allow the different initiatives to learn from each other, but also in advocacy on a societal level, and to deal with challenges such as "how to incorporate the wisdom traditions in an authentic way, yet remain open to people of all religious and non-religious backgrounds?" She ended on a happy note, reminding us that true mindfulness is not only a path to happiness, but happiness is this moment. Maybe contemplative education can help us to build happier schools, and universities. Wouldn't that be marvellous?