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Join us for a deep exploration of the Four Noble Truths—the foundation of Buddhist wisdom
In 2010, our sangha will concentrate on an in-depth examination of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha himself. This examination will be based on the book Dancing With Life by Phillip Moffitt. These four truths are that:

(1) Your life is inseparable from suffering.
(2) There is a cause of your suffering.
(3) You can end your suffering.
(4) There is a path to the end of suffering.

If it is true, as the Dalai Lama says, that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness, one would think that all students of Buddhism would immerse themselves into the Four Noble Truths, the foundational first teaching given by the Buddha after experiencing liberation.

Yet Ajahn Sumedho, a noted teacher in the Thai Forest Tradition, has observed that the practical use and application of the Four Noble Truths is rarely taught and practiced in Theravadin countries and that even the Vipassana movement in the West pays only lip service to this essential teaching of the Buddha. (Ajahn Sumedho is the abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Centre and the senior Western disciple of Ajahn Chah, the revered Thai meditation master. The word “Ajahn” simply means teacher.)

Instead of concentrating on these fundamentals, those who study Buddhism sometimes fall prey to collecting the widest possible variety of teachings and transmissions as if we were all boy or girl scouts seeking merit badges and patches with which to adorn our uniforms. Society awards this approach. Too often we are foxes rather than hedgehogs. “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Isaiah Berlin, Oxford philosopher. (The hedgehog has survived in Darwin’s world because it knows one big thing—how to curl itself unto a ball.)

A Point to Ponder: “There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first.” Ajahn Chah.

Dancing With Life is designed to teach us how to move from suffering to joy in our lives. Rather than offering academic theories, it guides us on the path of exploring suffering with the goal of experiencing a direct or intuitive knowledge of the meaning of suffering in our lives. Contained within the Four Noble Truth are Twelve Insights; Phillip Moffitt characterizes these Insights as “revolutionary because they transform the Truths from a philosophical statement into a method for directly coping with suffering in your life.”

Why dancing? “Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.”  Havelock Ellis.

Mr. Moffitt will guide our teachers, Jan Cook and Sue Kochan, in the discussion of Dancing With Life and the Four Noble Truths. He is a member of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Teachers’ Council and founded the Life Balance Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to the study and practice of spiritual values in daily life. A frequent teacher of Vipassana meditation at sites around the country, he left his post of chief executive and editor-in-chief of Esquire magazine in order to concentrate on his inner life. Many of his friends call him “the practical mystic.”

The list price of Dancing With Life is $24.95, but both new and used copies of the book can be purchased at a discount on-line. We suggest you check Amazon.com.

Practice Schedule

Practice Location:
Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
1100 South Goodman Street, Rochester, New York 14620-2589
Room 211 Signs will be posted within the school each week, to guide you to the practice location.

Please bring a cushion if you have one, and blanket, or whatever you need to be comfortable. There will be chairs available for anyone who prefers to sit. Everyone is welcome, and no worries if you arrive a few minutes late. Just come in, settle in, and enjoy. No previous experience is required. Just bring an open heart! :-)