Israel

Shut up, sit down: Reflections on a Jewish meditation retreat in Israel

Brian Blum, Haaretz: A weekend of meditation based on Hasidic mindfulness practices that were almost wiped out in the Holocaust proved to be unexpectedly transformational.

My wife and I recently went on a silent Jewish meditation retreat. There wasn’t much to say. The end.

Just kidding. There is in fact very much to say about the retreat, which was organized by Or HaLev – the Center for Jewish Spirituality and Meditation, established by Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels at Kibbutz Hanaton in the northern Jezreel Valley.

As described in its mission statement, Or HaLev seeks to “teach concrete Jewish techniques for deepening our lives and to …

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Suffering as a call to attention

“Reality is always kinder than the stories we tell about it.” – Byron Katie

Can you imagine understanding, even loving, someone who belongs to a group of people responsible for killing your father, brother, or best friend? Can you imagine growing close to someone whose people have driven you from your home, humiliated your family, and turned you into a refugee in your own country?

Twenty-two teenage girls from Israel and Palestine were flown in to a camp in rural New Jersey, where they would live together in the face of these questions. As part of a program called Building Bridges for Peace, these young people were called upon to examine beliefs that seemed central to their identity, beliefs that had fueled estrangement, anger, hatred, and war.

Even though they had volunteered for the program, the girls were initially mistrustful of each other, and sometimes overtly hostile. One Palestinian teen drew a line in the sand right from the start: “When we’re here, who knows, maybe we’re friends. When we return, you are my enemy again. My heart is filled with hatred for the Jews.” In another exchange, an Israeli girl told a Palestinian: “You expect to be treated as a human being, but you don’t act like one. You don’t deserve human rights!”

Yet from this harsh beginning, some of the girls left camp having formed deep bonds, and for most, it became impossible to see each other as the enemy. What allowed for this change of heart? The girls contacted the truth of each other’s pain and the truth of each other’s goodness. Reality, when we let it in, dismantles the iron grip of our beliefs. As one Israeli girl put it, “If I don’t know you, it’s easy to hate you. If I look in your eyes, I can’t.”

The Buddha taught that ignorance—ignoring or misunderstanding reality—is the root of all suffering. What does this mean? He surely didn’t mean to deny the inevitable pains and losses in our lives, but he wanted his followers to grasp how their beliefs about what is happening—their thoughts about themselves, others, and the world—represented a contracted and fragmented view of reality. This distorted view, described by the Buddha as a dream, fueled the cravings and fears that confined their lives.

The Buddha also told an ancient teaching story that we still repeat to our children. A king instructs a group of blind men to describe an elephant. Each man feels one part of the elephant’s body—the tusk, leg, trunk, tail. Each gives a detailed—and very different—report about the nature of the elephant. Then they come to blows about who’s right. Each man is honestly describing his immediate and real experience, yet each misses the big picture, the whole truth.

Every belief we hold is a limited snapshot, a mental representation, and not reality itself. But some beliefs are more fear-based and injurious than others. Like the teens in Building Bridges, we may believe that certain people are evil. We may believe that we can’t trust anyone. We may believe that we’re fundamentally flawed and can’t trust ourselves.

These beliefs all arise from the primary fear-based belief the Buddha identified: that we are separate from the rest of the world, vulnerable, and alone. Whether our beliefs arouse self-loathing, trap us in self-destructive addictions, ensnare us in conflict with a partner, or send us to war with an enemy, we’re suffering because we’re mistaken about reality. Our beliefs narrow our attention and separate us from the living truth of how things are. They cut us off from the full aliveness, love, and awareness that is our source.

The sage Sri Nisargadatta teaches “illusion exists . . . because it is not investigated.” If we are attached to untrue beliefs, it’s because we have not examined our thoughts. We have not met them with mindful investigation; we have not asked whether they truly represent our current, living experience of reality.

Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs. For the teenage girls in Building Bridges, the call to investigate was the hatred tearing at the fabric of their lives and society.

For a parent, the call might be the stranglehold of worry about a child’s welfare. For a social activist, it might be exhaustion and despair in face of seemingly endless war and injustice. For a musician, it might be the disabling terror that accompanies performance. Wherever we feel most endangered, most separate, most deficient—that is where we need to shine the light of our investigation.

Adapted from True Refuge (for sale Jan, 2013).

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Warning issued against new Buddhist center in Israel

The anti-missionary organization Yad L’Achim has issued a warning against a new Buddhist center which is set to open in Israel’s Arava region.

According to the warning, an agreement was recently signed by the Central Arava Regional Council and a non-profit organization by the name ‘Wisdom and Intelligence’ which allocates hundreds of acres in the Arava for the establishment of a ‘spiritual university’ based on and operating in accordance with the international principles of Buddhism.

Yad L’Achim says it has been approached by concerned local residents who asked the organization to take action to prevent the center from opening. The organization subsequently looked into ‘Wisdom and Intelligence’ and found that its members are Buddhists.

According to Yad L’Achim, the project is headed by Lama Dvora Tzvieli, an Israeli living in the United States where she was first exposed to Buddhism (Lama is the title given to a teacher or spiritual guide in Buddhism). A subsequent investigation by the organization found that during the contacts between ‘Wisdom and Intelligence’ and the Interior Ministry in order to obtain the necessary permits, not a word was spoken about Buddhism and all the paperwork on the project simply mentioned the words ‘spiritual university’ with no further details. This is despite the fact that all the material distributed by the organization, including information on its Hebrew website, suggests that the center will be devoted to the study of Tibetan Buddhism.

An important part of Buddhism is devotion to the Buddha, and this includes bowing to images of the Buddha as well as to religious superiors, something which is literally idol worship, clearly prohibited in the Ten Commandments.

In an attempt to stop the Buddhist center, Yad L’Achim Chairman Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifshitz has contacted in a letter Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Ezra Rabins, head of the Central Arava Regional Council.

In his letter Rabbi Lifshitz wrote: “Buddhism is idolatry in every sense of the word and there is no doubt that every step possible must be taken to stop the construction of this idolatry center.”

[via Israel National News]
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Gaza settlers told to try meditation, yoga (Haaretz, Israel)

Haaretz, Israel: Try yoga and meditation and don’t listen to the news – that’s the advice Gaza settlers are giving those in their midst who are getting increasingly anxious about the prospect of being forced to move.

A brochure distributed by the Gaza Coast Regional Council calls on settlers to combine their Jewish faith with New Age disciplines to face the psychological challenges posed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s planned withdrawal from Gaza by the end of 2005.

All 7,500 Gaza settlers would be removed from their homes as part of the plan.

The brochure says settlers should seek strength in their Jewish faith – and use a variety of other methods to lower tensions. “It is possible to study, yoga, meditation, and deep breathing exercises,” the brochure says.

It also tells settlers to pay less attention to newspapers, radio and television.

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Does Buddhist Hold Mideast Peace Key?

Ruth Mason, The Jewish Journal, Los Angeles: While news of the Geneva accords hit the headlines, a group of Palestinians and Israelis were trying to make a different kind of peace — with the help of Buddhists in southern France.

Thich Nhat Hanh — Vietnamese Zen master, poet and Nobel Peace Prize nominee — has been inviting groups of Palestinians and Israelis to his practice center, Plum Village, in an effort to show them that Buddhist meditation can lead to inner peace as well as nonviolence between nations. The trips are largely underwritten by an American Jewish businessman.

Nhat Hanh preaches nothing less than personal transformation as the road to peace.

“I have lived through two wars in Vietnam, and I know what a war is. There is fear, anger, despair and if you don’t know how to manage these feelings, you will not survive,” he told his audience of 300, including 30 Israelis and Palestinians.

For businessman Amin Bara of Nablus, the palpable peace at Plum Village was an inspiration. “You walk at night, and no one asks you where you are going. You sleep peacefully with no trouble. I feel I love life more. I feel a change in my body and my spirit to be stronger in my work for peace.”…

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