Triangle Insight Meditation Community

Vipassana Practice in the Theravada Tradition
June 2021 Newsletter 
triangleinsight.org
MEDITATION GROUPS
Our home is the Episcopal Center at Duke
505 Alexander Ave. | Durham, NC 27705 (when safe to gather in person)  

Morning meditation: Monday and Thursday
Wednesday evening meditation with Dharma Talk, or Insight Dialogue (below)

In this time of continuing uncertainty, Triangle Insight is committed to offering a safe and stable refuge for the Sangha as a whole. 

Until we are able to meet again at the Episcopal Center, Triangle Insight will use Zoom for meditation meetings and for study or social group activities. Thought now is being given to continuing Zoom meetings in addition to in-person gatherings.

Zoom connections are emailed one day before the Wednesday evening sangha (meditation and dharma talk, or insight dialogue) and the Morning Meditation sessions (meditation and heart practice).

Information about participating in all sessions is posted on the TIMC Website.
SCHEDULE

Wednesday Evenings
6:30 - 8:00 PM (Insight Dialogue from 6:30 - 8:00 PM)     

June 02 – Ron Vereen
June 09 – Scott Bryce
June 16 – Cornelia Kip Lee(Guest Teacher)
June 23 – Phyllis Hicks (Insight Dialogue)
June 30 – Sharon Shelton (Guest Teacher)

July 07 - Ron Vereen
July 14 - Scott Bryce
July 23 - TBD
July 30 - Phyllis Hicks (Insight Dialogue)

Monday and Thursday Morning Meditation 
7:00 - 7:45 AM (click here for more info)

Zoom locations to be emailed.
Zoom Email Subscriptions
If you would like to receive an invitation to one or both Zoom meditations, please subscribe on our Schedule webpage, or tell us the Zoom list(s) you would like to join.

To receive this monthly newsletter, please complete the newsletter subscription on our Newsletters webpage, or send your request to the info email above.

If you would like to change any part of your subscription(s), please email us and we will make this change for you.
The Practice of Insight Dialogue at Triangle Insight
Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice and is offered at Triangle Insight once monthly, usually on the fourth Wednesday of the month. It brings the mindfulness and tranquility of silent meditation directly into our experience with other people. 

The new website for Insight Dialogue is an excellent resource for learning more about the practice: www.insightdialogue.org

The evening begins with silent meditation practice, followed by gentle mindful movement, and then shifting into dyad practice where interpersonal mindfulness is explored with a partner in response to a contemplation that is offered. The dyad practice is optional so that anyone who chooses to remain in silent practice may do so, rather than shifting into dyad practice. One can investigate the guidance of the contemplation internally, noticing the moment by moment unfolding of internal experience. Note that the ID practice goes from 6:30 to 8:00 pm while meeting on Zoom. When it is possible to resume in-person meetings the time will return to 8:30 pm, to allow for more spaciousness and time for questions. We hope you will be able to join us.
Reference Notes for Wednesday Dharma Talks
Triangle Insight Meditation teachers invite us to consider these notes to the references they used for their Dharma talks. Please click on links below to see teacher notes for the current month.

May 05 – Karen Ziegler (Guest Teacher)
May 12 – Scott Bryce

RETREATS and SPECIAL EVENTS
THE HEALING JOURNEY, a Wisdom 2.0 webinar for Exploring Trauma, Resilience & Transformation

A Daylong Training Workshop on Collective Trauma, with Thomas Hübl

Thomas Hübl is an internationally known teacher of mediation and core principals from the wisdom traditions. He is the founder of the Academy of Inner Science, as well as the Pocket Project, a non-profit research and study effort dedicated to understanding collective and intergenerational trauma. Hübl is the author of Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds.
Friday, JULY 16, 2021
Presented by Wisdom 2.0

A LIVE Interactive EVENT
Purchase event TICKETS HERE
General Admission
$50.00 + $3.49 Fee
  • Sales end on Jul 16
  • Select your language

Discounted: Student, Senior, Low Income
$25.00 + $2.24 Fee
  • Select quantity
  • Discounted: Student, Senior, Low Income

Event Schedule
The programming will be held over Zoom.
All sessions will be recorded and provided to attendees after the event.
All times listed below are in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT):
9:00 - 11:15am: Interviews & conversations
11:30 -12:45pm: Small group breakouts 
12:45 -1:30pm: Break
1:30 - 4:15pm: Interviews & conversations
4:15 - 5:30pm: Small group breakouts
Please use these links to visit the website for this information
PROGRAMS
Welcome Committee and TEAM INFO
Sangha means spiritual community, and it is treasured because without it awakening cannot be sustained. - Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry  

The Welcoming Committee wishes to foster the experience of belonging to a diverse, tolerant community connected through mindfulness practice, where all feel welcome and safe. We seek to link all members and newcomers to ongoing activities and to ensure the Zoom connection is available.
Spiritual Friends: Kalyana Mitta & Racial Affinity Groups
Having admirable people as friends, companions, and colleagues is actually the whole of the holy life. - The Buddha
Kalyana Mitta
One of the benefits of our Spiritual Friends groups is the opportunity to practice with Wise Speech. As Gil Fronsdal says in Speech that Unifies, “Our speech, as with all ways we communicate, begins in ourselves and flows out from there into our interpersonal relationships. This close connection between what goes on within us and our relationships with others outside of us means that if we want to care for one of these areas, we should care for both.”
 
He further notes that with practice, “...mindfulness reveals the personal, inner consequences of both unskillful and skillful speech. It shows us that it is for our own personal benefit to speak in skillful ways—that is, in ways that benefit both self and others.”
 
Our Spiritual Friends Groups provide a safe, supportive space for this relational practice. A beautiful aspect of this process is that as the heart of the dharma is enriched in our own lives, we are contributing to the spiritual journey of others. In this way, the third jewel of sangha illuminates the path that we travel together.

KM Group Openings
Insight Dialogue and Raleigh each have openings
Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Secular Dharma each have a waiting list.
Please contact Sarah Tillis, KM Coordinator, about starting new groups, or other concerns. sarah@triangleinsight.org
***********************

The KM-RA Coordinating Team of Sarah Tillis, Beth Lauderdale, and Tamara Share expresses deep gratitude for the dedication of our sangha.

May our Kalyana Mitta and Racial Affinity groups be of great benefit to all.
Racial Affinity
Racial Affinity groups, known as RAGS, allow people to deepen self-awareness around issues of race in small, racially homogeneous groups.
 
Waking up to the realities of racial legacy, conditioning, and systems is a challenging process, and the acceptance we bring each other, as well as our shared understanding of the dharma, help us to heal and act more skillfully in the world. RAGs provide a safe space where members can integrate the dharma into their exploration of racial belonging and racial habits of harm.

To support this process, groups follow Triangle Insight's Mindful Sharing Guidelines and Ruth King's Racial Affinity Group Guidelines.

The current RA Group coordinator is Beth Lauderdale. Please contact Beth for more information about Triangle Insight's RAGS: marybethboswell@yahoo.com.
Sangha Support: Caring Circles
A TIM Sangha Initiative connecting and strengthening the bonds of our shared practice.
Caring Circles offers the Triangle Insight Meditation Sangha a simple framework for requesting and providing services to cope with the uncertainties and needs of everyday life. In this time of the coronavirus pandemic, knowing there is a helping network for sharing and receiving is a great joy and safe haven.  
 
Currently, two TIM Sangha members coordinate service requests with other TIM members who are ready to volunteer their assistance as a form of dana service. 
To request aid, contact Mary Mudd, one of the Caring Circle coordinators, or
send an email to Caring Circles, caringcircles@triangleinsight.org, or use Caring Circles Request for Assistance  (optional form)

In your initial communication, please let us know if the request is of a sensitive nature. The coordinator will make special arrangements with you. 
Financial Support 
Scholarships for Training Programs and Workshops in Racial Justice and Diversity
Our goal:
To help individuals and the community deepen their understanding of how unexamined views of race can limit the mind and human systems.

A Scholarship Fund for this purpose exists through donations from the TIMC General Fund and the generosity of several Triangle Insight members.

If sangha members would like to receive scholarship support for training with OARNC, White Awake, or other programs addressing racial injustice, please email the Board at board@triangleinsight.org.
We invite the community to join this initiative by contributing directly to this scholarship fund.

  • For your convenience, you may use the dedicated PayPal portal,



Or visit our website
CLASSES and EVENTS
Racial Awakening for White-Bodied Folks
An online class with Liz Reynolds, IMCC

ONLINE, Wednesdays, June 2-July 14 (no class June 23)
7:00-8:15pm ET on Zoom

"The history of white people has led them to a fearful, baffling place where they have begun to lose touch with reality - to lose touch, that is, with themselves . . .
-James Baldwin

"Healing is learning to love the wound because love draws us into relationship with it instead of avoiding feeling the discomfort."
-Lama Rod Owens

As our nation approaches the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd and months of subsequent protests, white-bodied folks can continue to ask ourselves, What is mine to do? How can I deepen understanding of my own racial conditioning and contribute to the healing of racial separation?

For a longer description and to register, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville's webpage: https://www.imeditation.org/event-4289985
TIMC BOARD | NEWS AND REPORTS
Board Meetings

Cynthia, Leah and Ron were joined by five attendees from the sangha for the May 29, 2021 open board meeting. After reviewing the changes in the composition of the board upon two recent director resignations, as well as the interview process with a prospective board member, the board unanimously elected Martin Steinmeyer as its newest director to the board. The board will continue to explore the turnover in board members and the process for bringing on additional directors. 

A significant discussion followed regarding when and how TI would shift back to in-person meetings at the Episcopal Center, in line with the EC’s building use guidelines. Robert Seyler accepted the invitation to explore with the Welcoming Committee their interest in developing a plan for our return in accordance with these guidelines. Leah Rutchick will be working with Cynthia Hughey and one of the other sangha participants, Marion Place, to come up with a survey to send out to the sangha for a sense of the readiness of our group to return to in-person meetings. 

We will also be inquiring if there’s a tech-savvy person in the sangha who might be willing to work on a virtual option for our in-person meetings. Leah reviewed the updated features of the monthly newsletter as well as proposed changes in our website. Cynthia shared her conversation with Mary Mudd, co-coordinator of the Shramadana Project, to explore ways in which we could support other worthwhile non-profit groups in the community. Ron mentioned that we are still looking for someone interested in taking on the role of coordinator of the Racial Affinity Groups so that Beth Lauderdale, who has done an excellent job, will be able to step down. Minutes of these proceedings will be posted on the website upon approval by the board.
Newsletter Submission Pointers
To submit items for the monthly newsletter, please review these general pointers and consult the Newsletter Submission Guidelines for important details.

  • At least two weeks prior to the month in which you wish your announcement to appear, submit new items to info@triangleinsight.org.

  • New requests submitted in the last week of any month may not be accepted if time is a factor in preparing a final copy.

  • Changes to existing entries may be incorporated if submitted early in the last week of any month.

  • Entries that have not been updated since COVID may be removed. All authors are encouraged to update their newsletter entries and to resubmit, including TIM committees and groups.

  • Keep the text crisp and short, but include important details and attachments. Instead of longer texts, refer the reader to websites for additional information.

  • Indicate how many months you want your entry to be published, and

  • Stay in touch with updates if any specific details change. You are responsible for calling in changes and end dates for ongoing classes, groups or other continuing entries.

  • Special circumstances may require adjustment of the deadlines indicated here; early submission is a best practice and helps the newsletter editors determine where, how and if the item submitted shall be published (please see #1 in the Guidelines).

Please contact us through info@triangleinsight.org and include "Newsletter" in your subject line. We will help you get your item published.
Under Construction, builders needed
newsletter-path.jpg
This newsletter is on a journey. It is responding to suggestions from you, its readers, and to changing needs in our community. The current version is a step in the process of grappling with the newsletter's role, its format and content, and how it interfaces with the TIMC website. We ask for your patience as this project goes forward, and invite any suggestions, ideas, or corrections you may have. A communications committee is being formed to tackle such concerns. Not yet fully constituted, it will likely be composed of one or more Board members and interested people from the Sanga. No optimal size or mandate has yet been adopted as we want to accommodate the ideas all those who wish to participate. A special survey to gather your thoughts about such changes will soon go out, using this newsletter's subscription list.
In the meantime, and at any time, please send your comments on newsletter and website to board@triangleinsight.org. If you have questions or comments about this particular newsletter's new formatting, you are welcome to contact me directly. At this point I'm designing the product and implementing a suite of new editing features for both the newsletter and the website. As ideas emerge from experience and sangha feedback, these tools may change or be replaced.

With good heart and great hope,
Leah Rutchick, leah@triangleinsight.org

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