buddhism

What is it about the cold months in Park Slope that make Brooklyn stand out like a Charles Dickens village? With all the chaos and commotion of our city, our world and our speck in the universe, it is Brooklyn that remains unchanged. Even with new renovations, new neighbors, new schools, hospitals and restaurants, the true heart of winter lives and thrives on the streets of Brooklyn. Some of this has to do with the deep roots of our borough, the history of Park Slope and it’s surrounding neighborhoods. But, some of it also has to do with Yoga.

Yoga has become a phenomenon in western culture. Brooklyn is no exception. This is nothing new. As human beings our attachment to the affects of yoga are great. Also, let’s face it; aside from the benefits we enjoy the community. It is in a yoga class where people find they can be alone. It is also in a yoga class that most people find they are not at all alone. So how great is our suffering during this season? How much time have we spent on our own hearts between the cool rush of holiday shopping and New Year’s promises? Winter in Brooklyn gives us the opportunity to deepen our practice in an open and more vulnerable way.

[pullquote]The four noble truths can guide us through a cold season and bring to light our own noble hearts. After all, winter is not about gifts or holidays or even resolution. Winter is about a solace we can find when we are quiet enough. [/pullquote]The true heart of winter resides somewhere between Windsor Terrace and Prospect Heights. I mean to say that if one walks through all of the neighborhoods that relate to these two places, there will be an abundance of coffee shops, a plethora of bars and a vast array of yoga studios. In the coffee shop laptops and frothy cappuccinos prepare us for our daily grinds by serving the daily grind. The bar allows us to unwind from the stressful perimeters of our work, family and home life. But it is inside the yoga studio where we may enter, remove our shoes and respect where we are in the moment. We do not try to escape the cold. Instead, we seek refuge and our own bodies feed us the warmth of our tired souls.

There are four noble truths that can be incorporated into these long months of winter; four noble truths seem to follow us on our paths to the heart. These truths ignite the cold months with a fiery reality. What we might find at the coffee shop, the bar or the yoga studio throughout the year is dukkha. Dukkha is the first noble truth in Buddhism and it roughly translates to “life is suffering”. I know, it sounds depressing right? Although this sounds awful it actually should have the opposite affect. It is a teaching that enriches the idea of impermanence. Our happiest moments can be considered dukkha because they too will end, and so we can say that our saddest moments are also dukkha. They will not last. Dukkha is significant in winter because the cold season too will end. Flowers will bloom again and so we can carry the first noble truth in our mind’s eye as a compass and as a means of letting go.

The second noble truth is tanha. Some translate this word as “craving”. This has to do with our human attachment to the things we desire, or just desire in general. Our need to attach ourselves to material objects, ideas and people create chaos within our hearts and minds. This truth has been realized on yoga mats all over the world. In Brooklyn throughout the cold months and the buying frenzies tahna sticks its tongue out at us and dares us to enjoy our lives as they are. Tahna asks us not to try and change anything but to see everything with a third eye as if we are hovering over ourselves without judgment but with a greater awakening of the spirit. It asks us not to hold on.

Nirhodha is the third noble truth and it is also an instruction on the end of suffering. It sounds so simple: just let go, stop craving things, stop attaching to things. But, I really want my cappuccino! This truth arrives at a slow pace. Through our yoga practice and meditation it comes. The need to grasp dissipates. We may awaken. We may stay asleep. But we practice. This is our path, which then leads us into the final and fourth noble truth.

The fourth truth, magga is our path. It is often referred to as the eightfold path because it is comprised of different areas and aspects of our lives and instructs us on how to walk our own path. In a nutshell it is a mindful way of living. The first three noble truths cannot exist or be realized without this one. The magga is like a sacred duty we have to ourselves and to the world around us.

The heart of winter in Brooklyn can be brutal. Or maybe I’ve just attached myself to that idea. But where there is a lull in the season, there is an opportunity to awaken on the yoga mat. The four noble truths can guide us through a cold season and bring to light our own noble hearts. After all, winter is not about gifts or holidays or even resolution. Winter is about a solace we can find when we are quiet enough. When we walk past the coffee shop, skip the bar and take off our socks at the yoga studio in order to look at our own feet, the ugliness, the beauty, the impermanence and the silent possibility of our own wonder.

Art by Heather Heckel

When Pema Chodron, the well-known Western Buddhist writer and ordained nun, went to the dentist and he asked her what she did, she responded that she taught meditation. He told her that one day he would begin meditation when he was less busy. She said you probably won’t need it as much then.

A daily meditation practice is like getting to the gym: The longer you stay away, the harder it is to return to, and the more you do it every day, the more your body eases into the habit. When I first started my daily practice several years ago, I fought the usual demons: Restlessness while sitting, lethargy, laziness in getting to the cushion. It was only through repeated group practice at the non-lineage Interdependence Project in lower Manhattan that I began to integrate a daily practice into my life and start feeling the benefits.

[pullquote]Ultimately meditation and daily practice—however it transpires in our lives—can be our treat to ourselves and those around us throughout our lives (and especially the winter).[/pullquote]

In Brooklyn itself there are many centers that provide courses and spaces for mindfulness and meditation, including the Vajradhara Meditation Center in Boerum Hill, the Brooklyn Zen Center, and Third Root Community Center. Paul Sireci, dharma teacher at Third Root, started practicing when he was fourteen or fifteen. A former monk, he’s had a daily practice since he was twenty. “I think it’s given me a better perspective on my emotions. My lows are less low and my highs are not necessarily less high but they don’t seduce me in the ways they did before. I’m more content and when you are more content you don’t need to be wildly happy.”

A daily practice of even fifteen to twenty minutes can be surprisingly difficult in the beginning. Often sitting alone with our thoughts provokes more anxiety in us than peace, even though (or maybe exactly because) the primary purposes of meditation is to become friends with our own minds. People may not find slowing down easy or pleasurable. My husband enjoys his sitting practice except ironically when he feels particularly stressed or anxious, which is when meditation can really help ground us. Sitting with your own thoughts and feelings can be daunting, and it’s not until one begins to trust how they arise and pass, and approach themselves and others with gentleness and kindness that meditation becomes an essential part of one’s day.

Another hurdle to daily practice is prioritization— it sometimes feel overwhelming to bring in a new daily task amongst all the other responsibilities one has. The crucial turning point often comes when you can begin to see the benefits and changes your practice has for yourself and others around you. There’s a leap of faith and often some amount of discipline to go from the intention of having a daily practice to embracing one. At some point, not meditating feels like not taking a shower—like something is amiss.

Practice doesn’t always have to mean sitting. In fact, sometimes the rigidity of having a sitting practice itself intimidates many and can be an obstacle to meditation. Peggy Horwitz, a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist emphasizes mindfulness and kindness to oneself. “I’ve been meditating for over twenty years but for me practice means paying attention and going inward with kindness. For clients who already judge themselves for not sitting long enough or daily, practicing mindfulness throughout the day and in other ways can be equally powerful.”

While having a specific place and time for practice can help structure the daily routine, I often find that being mindful on my commute or while I am in line can be powerful elements of practice. They involve being kind to myself and others, of relating to those around me, and of paying attention at those key moments when we often forget ourselves and our surroundings the most.

Besides habit, there’s also faith. A teacher at the Interdependence Project, and long-time Brooklyn resident, Kate Johnson is a student at Brooklyn Zen and New York Insight. She remembers how it took her nearly three years to make daily practice a reality. “I had this unconscious belief that I was the one person in the world for whom meditation just wouldn’t work. Of course, I was wrong.

“I think I was inspired to practice daily when I noticed how much kinder I was to myself and others on days that I practiced, and how much more I was able to let go of striving for perfection and just appreciate being alive. I practice meditation because I care about myself, and want to give myself an opportunity to feel grounded, expansive, and connected. I spent so much of my life not treating myself very well at all. Meditation is a way for me to tend to my own heart, so that I can tend to the world with love.”

Ultimately meditation and daily practice—however it transpires in our lives—can be our treat to ourselves and those around us throughout our lives (and especially the winter). And maybe if we’re finding ourselves too busy to consider it, we should feel even more compelled to sit. That challenge could be our biggest gift.

Buddhism and Meditation

Third Root Community Health Center

380 Marlborough Road

(718) 940-9343

Vajradhara Meditation Center

444 Atlantic Ave

(917) 403-5227

Brooklyn Zen Center

505 Carroll St. #2

(718) 701-1083

Rock blossom Sangha at Brooklyn community of Mindfulness: meet Sundays from 6:30-8:30 at Church of Gethsemane in Park Slope

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