He came out of her SIDE??!!

And thus started the January 17th book club.
We opened the meeting by discussing the "new book" and the merits of pursuing an academic rather than a practice based read. Some specific questions about the different Buddhist styles were fielded by Ken who also mentioned a handful of other books which could be helpful (see his comment on the previous post for titles and short descriptions). We decided knowledge of the history and basic tenets of Buddhism would serve us well in both this group and the Monday night sangha, so we will continue with Essential Buddhism for at least another month.

Other topics included:
• Buddhism as a philosophy vs. a religion - many of us seemed to view it as a philosophy and were not so interested in the religious trappings
• What enlightenment/liberation/awakening might look like. Is it a destination or something that comes in fleeting moments? Bob thought if you reached enlightenment you wouldn't actually be able to recognize it because your ability to dichotomize would be gone!
• Karma and reincarnation (did not prompt any real discussion)
• The importance, or not, of how word choice relates your ideas and thoughts
• Suffering. Can suffering enhance compassion? Is suffering always a "bad thing"?

Much discussion was generated around the idea of attachment. Are there levels of attachment? Is there any point in exploring them? How can one love yet not be attached? Nadine posited that attachment was really aversion to the loss of that thing and thus can only exist when one is engaged in future thinking (future loss). Does being in each present moment mean attachment cannot exist in that moment?

Attachment segued to aversion and the idea that "pain is inevitable suffering is optional". Pain will be experienced in life but aversion, resisting the pain is what adds the extra layer - the suffering to the experience.

We had a great turn out and another lovely Sunday morning at Ginny and Claudine's in front of the fire.
The next meeting will be Sunday February 21. Homework is to have up to and including Chapter 4 of Essential Buddhism read with the focus on Chapter 4 ready for discussion.