June 2025
Dear Common Ground Friends,
Early next week I will begin a two-month meditation retreat. I don’t consider this an easy choice. Leaving behind my duties, relationships, and distractions feels scary and intimidating. At this time of uncertainty and so much suffering, it feels especially poignant to be turning my attention away from the troubles in our world. As challenging or suspect as retreat practice can appear, I trust it as a wise, compassionate, and courageous way to address the suffering in my heart and in our world.
Throughout his 45 years of teaching, the Buddha taught that our world is burning with the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. We experience this directly whenever our mind gets entangled with our likes and dislikes, resulting in attachment and fixed views. Sincere practice is a powerful force for healing and releasing. It helps us to show up in our lives in ways that creatively, nimbly, and effectively address suffering in and around us.
Our Buddhist practice does not tell us specifically how to live our lives. Instead, practice develops a wise, tender, and embodied sensitivity that allows us to feel our way through all the twists and turns of life. This skillful and compassionate navigation doesn’t arise from fixed ideas but rather from a refined ethical and spiritual sensitivity. I believe that this is the medicine that our world deeply needs. Our practice supports us in finding our own way to express a wise and compassionate response, moment by moment. Although we may aspire to alleviate suffering, without this careful discernment, our actions might be the cause for more suffering, not less. The Buddha taught, “Hatred never ceases by hatred, by non-hate alone does hatred cease; this is an ancient and eternal truth.” Wise and compassionate action depends on humility and an ongoing sensitivity to our heart’s underlying motivations and views.
May we contribute to the causes for the deepest healing and peace, in our hearts and in our world.
Mark Nunberg
Co-Guiding Teacher
