We spend one final week with Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life, staying with chapter nine (Accompanying the Dying).  There’s a little detail Thay tucks into the larger story he tells.  It’s subtle and, at first read, might not seem to have much bearing on what Thay wants us to know . Yet I think there’s something here worth noting.  In the story, a man is dying who has been a supporter of the Buddha; a booster, patron, and financial backer more than a spiritual disciple or mentee.  As the Buddha’s teachings are recited to this man, on his deathbed, he finds the teachings moving and helpful. So much so that, as his dying request, he asks the Buddha to share his teachings with all people, and not just with monks and disciples.  Noting this “universal” appeal of Buddhist practice , Thay says, “if both monastics and laypeople are motivated by a deep desire to practice the mindfulness trainings and to look deeply, they can be very intimate friends, co-workers, and co-practitioners.  There is no discrimination.”  

Thich Nhat Hanh was a monk and Buddhist teacher by profession.  At Friday Reflection, no one of us practices professinally. We are all “lay people,” me included. We’ll all taking in these ancient practices and teaching each other, through our shared practice, about what these teachings mean for us, in the lives we live out and about in the world at large.  In tomorrow’s practice, we will sit with this question of what it means to be a “non-professional” mindfulness practitioner. As “regular people” practicing mindfully what are we receiving?  And as friends and neighbors connected to a larger community, what might we — like that early “Buddha booster” — have to give back, from out of what we receive?

Come and sit gently with yourself and others, and hold these questions with openhearted curiosity.  You do not have to be reading along to join in, though reading along might enhance your experience.

Friday Reflection meets weekly at First Parish Scituate from 9:30-11:00, and is open to members and friends of Mindfulness Plus and First Parish Scitaute.  There is parking out front and on the right side of the church building.  Come in through the front doors, we meet in the sanctuary, inside and to the right.