Quakers and Buddhists

Clare,

I am glad you had a good time at the contra dance. I enjoy contra dancing at our spring weekend retreat every year. This year though they aren't having a contra dance…they're trying to see if people want something different….less and less people have been dancing over the past 5 years. I think they're offering an interactive theater experience this year.

The Buddhist afternoon was interesting. I found the teacher/priest to be amazingly informed and insightful, but arrogant at the same time. He said several things that stayed with me though. He was talking about community, I think, and he said, "our strengths do not connect us", and then continued on another path. So I held onto that until the question and answer period and asked, "if they don't connect us then do our weaknesses connect us?" He spent 15 minutes discussing weakness and vulnerability as the key to connection and genuinely being open to each other. It's interesting because when I do intakes at the clinic we ask strengths and weaknesses. Then as we are creating goals we have to write which strengths we are going to use to achieve those goals. Perhaps we have it wrong. Perhaps we should ask about the weaknesses we are going to use to create rapport and connection before the strengths can be developed.

We also talked about detachment. It's one of the concepts of Buddhism that confuse me the most. How can I be detached from the people I love? The discussion came to the "middle way" or finding a balance between attachment and aversion that allows connection without the need to possess or control. He also talked about being attached to a person without the attachment to specific expectations and outcomes. This hit home as I was thinking of my sons who are struggling with growing up and I want certain outcomes for them…success. I have to allow them to define success and let them assume the consequences for their choices. I can guide and offer advice, but not control them.

It's funny, opening exercises at Meeting this morning was a young woman reading poetry and she had a singing bowl, just like yesterday. I was comforted to see how close Quakers and Buddhists really are.

Love and Light beautiful sister,
Maggie