Absorption Advice (Jhana Meditation)

(jhanasadvice.com)

Pa Auk Sayadaw is a Theravada Buddhist scholar-practitioner. Two of his accomplished Western students are Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen. They are offering retreats, day long meditations, and interviews (advice on practicing to gain profound serenity).



2011 Retreats

3-day meditation retreat at Cloud Mountain, Dec. 9-12, 2011



Dharma Talks, Daylongs, Interviews

• Tina Rasmussen was recently interviewed by Nonduality Magazine, an online magazine featuring interviews with teachers from a wide variety of traditions. Stephen Snyder will be interviewed for the next issue.

Dharma Talks

• Sacramento, CA on April 21 & 22, 2012
• We have posted a Dharma talk recorded in November, 2009 when Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw invited us to teach at the Theravada Dhamma Society near San Francisco, California.
• We were interviewed in 2010 by Vince Horn at BuddhistGeeks.com. It was a lot of fun talking about the "Jedi Warrior Training" yogis described experiencing at our Dec. 2009- Jan 2010 retreat. Click here for the link, and scroll down to the interviews (in two parts).

Upcoming 2012 and 2013 Retreats

• 25-day Retreat in Washington, 2013: We will also offer our first 25-day retreat, October 13-November 8, 2013, at a private retreat center on Samish Island, near Bellingham, Washington. The estimated cost is $1,350 and all rooms are single cabins. Pre-registration is now open.
• These retreats are in addition to our usual 13-day annual retreat at Cloud Mountain, which next year will be held Sept 8-21, 2012. See Events page for details.
  
  

Spirit Rock Daylong: In Jan. 2011, we held our first daylong at Spirit Rock Meditation Center (near San Francisco). We were delighted that 120 people attended with very positive feedback.

Practicing the Jhanas Book

• Now available for e-readers! The e-reader version of Jhanas Advice is sold at a reduced cost, on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and Google.
• Practicing the Jhanas (Shambhala Publications) is available in major bookstores and most Internet booksellers. Or order from JhanasAdvice.com (Books page).
  
  
• The original Jhanas Advice from Two Spiritual Friends was purchased by more than 550 people in 31 countries on six continents in a two year period. The Shambhala version contains one additional chapter on "First Sit to First Jhana" as well as an expanded section on the Purification of Mind. Several wonderful reviews of our book have been released, including Yoga Journal UK, Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal, and Buddhadharma. The latest can be found here.

Knowing and Seeing by Pa Auk Sayadaw

This seminal text is now available at cost for purchase on Amazon.com thanks to two yogis in our sangha -- Ted Weinstein and Michael Nagy. The book is beautiful and much easier to read and use than the downloadable version. It sells for $15.99 (nonprofit) with any small proceeds being donated to Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Burma. Click here to order. For a description visit Books/Dana page.

Vesak 2011 celebrations in Los Angeles

A brief outline of the life of the Buddha (dimc.net)

May in California is punctuated by Vesak celebrations. Temples usually divide up weekends to hold events. The Sri Lankan community has seven temples in the Los Angeles area and celebrates the event on different dates. (The final Sinhalese event in the area will be held on May 22, at Maithri Vihara in Sun Valley).

Today, the actual full moon observance day, was observed in a massive event at Dhammakaya Int'l Meditation Center (dimc.net) in Azusa. Two-hundred Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana monks from 11 different countries (Japan, China, Korea, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and the USA) were in attendance along with -- by our estimate -- 1,000 white-clad Buddhists.

There were short welcoming speeches, chanting in various languages, guided meditation, and respectfully circumambulating holding candles in honor of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as it sprinkled and thoughts of gratitude went out for the Dharma wishing the world peace.

Thai, Cambodian PMs fail to end border war

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Southeast Asian leaders made little headway Sunday in helping Thailand and Cambodia end a deadly border dispute that could undermine peace and stability in the region as it pushes for economic integration.

The prime ministers of the two feuding nations held talks Sunday -- mediated by Indonesia's president -- as part of efforts to hammer out a lasting cease-fire.

But neither seemed in any mood to back down.

"There's no conclusion," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters after the trilateral meeting, providing no details. "We'll need further talks after this."

Other topics discussed in the two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit included Myanmar's bid to take over the rotating chair of the regional grouping in 2014-- something that appeared likely despite lingering concerns about human rights abuses, according to a draft statement seen by the Associated Press.

Spiraling food and energy prices and security in the South China Sea also were also on the table.

The main maritime dispute is over the potentially oil-rich Spratly islands, claimed in whole or in part by China and four ASEAN members --Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Vietnam.

The smaller nations, together with the U.S., worry that China may use its military might to seize the area outright or assume de facto control with naval patrols.

That could threaten one of the world's busiest commercial sea lanes.

"We deemed the South China Sea issue, in all its various dimensions, as having the potential to undermine the stability of our region," according to the draft ASEAN statement.

Member countries agreed to work toward ending a nine-year disagreement with China that has blocked completion of guidelines for an accord aimed at preventing armed conflicts over the disputed islands, it said.

Those guidelines would allow all the claimant nations to pursue joint development projects to ease tensions in the South China Sea region.

The annual meeting between leaders of the 10-member regional grouping was supposed to focus on steps needed to create an integrated regional economic zone by 2015. More

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The only thing that can be added to this intractable story is that border disputes between these neighbors extend back to pre-Buddhist times. While Buddhism and the reign of Buddhist kings may have helped these two great kingdoms (even through the period Cambodia was the magnificent Khmer empire), it has not been enough to end the greed that makes kings and tribes rapacious and vindictive. Land is held because of natural borders, power, and the ambition of rulers. While that may led to peaceful coexistence for some time, it certainly did not resolve issues to everyone's satisfaction out in open jungle and ocean. The dispute is geopolitical, which is confounded by ethnic differences and historical animosity as one side tries to outdo the other. Buddhism does not figure into it. Both lands are Theravada Buddhist with Hindu histories and interaction, according to their own mythologies, with space traveling entities that inspired their technological prowess and expanding influence at different times in history.

• PHOTO: Cambodian-style Buddha with chief male disciples Sariputra and Maha Moggallana (trekearth.com)