The Five Mindfulness Trainings remind us of our deep aspiration to live each day with a calm mind and an open heart. They provide invaluable guidelines for mindful living.
The Buddha’s precepts encouraged his lay followers to abstain from five actions that create suffering: killing, stealing, engaging in sex with inappropriate partners, lying, and using alcohol and other intoxicants. In the Plum Village tradition, we study and recite the precepts as the Five Mindfulness Trainings, a reformulation for our time by Thich Nhat Hanh. The trainings are guardrails on the path of mindfulness that preserve and encourage our practice.
Our commitment to the trainings deepens when we receive them formally, in a Five Mindfulness Trainings transmission ceremony. This transmission publicly joins us with the tradition of mindfulness practice passed from teacher to student in an unbroken line from the Buddha, through many generations of Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese teachers, through Thich Nhat Hanh, to us. This year the transmission ceremony will take place online on Saturday, January 8th, 2022, beginning at 9:00 am (Eastern time).
Practitioners who are interested in receiving the trainings on January 8th are asked to participate in preparatory classes, with options from the teachers at Still Water and at MPCF, which will both offer a series of five classes, each exploring one of the Five Mindfulness Trainings.
At Stillwater, each of the training classes will be offered twice per week, on both Thursday and Friday evenings, from 7:00 to 8:45 pm, starting Thursday November 12. Aspirants need only attend one of the evenings per week, though they may attend both evenings if they choose. If you are interested in receiving (or possibly receiving) the trainings in January, you are invited to register for the Still Water preparatory classes so we know of your interest. When you register, you will receive a Zoom link for both Thursday and Friday evenings.
At MPCF, teachers will present the Five Mindfulness Trainings for six Thursday evenings, starting Thursday November 4, after the evening regular guided meditation. There will be no session on Thanksgiving Day, November 25. The last presentation will be on December 16. You are requested to use the Zoom link for morning and Thursday evening sessions to get access to the class. If you do not have that link, please click here to register.