Rajanaka Newsletter February 10, 2024

Learning How to Learn Invites a Lifetime of Learning

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Aho’ Rajanaka,

I hope this finds you well. 

One of the reasons I so enjoying talking to folks like you---curious adults who’ve made a lifelong commitment to learning---is that you are you.  I know you want to keep learning and, truth to tell, you help me find purpose in my life.  “I’m good for sumthin’,”  I tell myself,  and there’s nothing quite as soothing as having your own personal soothing fiction. Some might even be true.

Adults can’t often be dissuaded because we’ve spent so much of our lives already persuaded.  We’re creatures of experience---for better and worse---and we’d rather think we’re right than admit we could be wrong.  We don’t like things complicated or confusing, but we know so many important things are just so.  We think we prefer simple until we realize that doesn’t feel right either (‘cause we do know better).  To stay willfully vulnerable is so very important because it’s how we prevent ourselves from becoming too fragile, brittle, or flimsy.  And all the while, we need to carry on, welcome goodness, and feel the grace every moment we possibly can.

It’s no easy task learning how to learn.  Learning runs both towards and away from the truth, especially when we recognize truth to be yet another moving target.  We want to feel grounded, trust in our experience, tell ourselves that we know our hearts but, at the same time, we’ve gotta’ keep the mind open, our eyes peeled, and our treasured certainties in honest perspective.  A good paradox keeps you engaged---let’s call that yoga---and it’s important to “make the yoga” and let the unfinished process of feeling human carry forward, even when so many everyday things about this world may make so little sense.  Buddhism is a good place to take up these important issues.

This evening, Saturday the 10^th at 5pm we have our second Session introducing Buddhism.  One of my favorite features of Buddhist thought is how the tradition evolves its own juxtapositions, especially our need for certainty and doubt.  Buddhism is at its best when it wants things both ways, neither way, no way, and every way.  We can sort out that complexity and learn so much about ourselves in the process.  We don’t need to be Buddhists to find the incredible value of their learning.  This course is about history and teachings and practices.  Come join us.  Here’s the Zoom link that requires no special codes, just come!

https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

Here is the entire 411, in case you want that:

·      BUDDHISM

The Saturday Conversation for Winter Semester:  January-April 2024.

Buddhism: Origins & Evolution, Philosophies and Practices

For 12 Weeks we will study the origins and development of Buddhism in south Asia.  This course will give you a solid foundation in how the Buddhist tradition began its journey into a world religion.  We’ll focus on Indian Buddhism and cover the development of early traditions, the sources of the Pali Canon that form the core of “early” mythology, theory, and practice, and the evolution that brought about the Mahayana or Greater Vehicle, and at last Tantric Buddhism.  (After this course, we’ll look further into Buddhism’s development in southeast Asia, Tibet, China, and Japan.  But first we need a solid groundwork.)  If you took a class like this in college, then it’s probably been a long time since.  If you never had that opportunity, I think you’ll find this kind of study deeply satisfying both intellectually and personally.  We’ll do the facts, naturally, we’ll take history and the resources of learning seriously---what is the deep background, how do the stories and texts, the earliest artifacts, and the philosophies of practice evolve?  And we’ll take to heart what Buddhism in its core traditions have to say to us. There will be a syllabus and readings, or you can just listen along and take it in as you please. 

There will be 12 Sessions, each about 90 minutes.

All Sessions are at 5pm Eastern and will use the same Zoom link (the same as all Saturdays past). 

A downloadable Archive of recordings will also be available each week. If you can’t make the Sessions live on Zoom, this is a good option, you can listen anytime.7

Tuition for all Sessions in advance is $120. This includes access to the Archive and all study materials.  Otherwise, tuition for individual Sessions will be $12.  Please use the usual methods: Venmo (douglas-brooks-8 or svcourses@gmail.com) or PayPal (svcourses@gmail.com).  If you can’t afford tuition, please let me know because you are always welcome.

Scheduled Dates:, Feb. 3, Feb. 10, Feb. 17, Feb. 24, March 2, March 9, March 23, March 30, April 6, April 13, April 20.
Zoom Link requires no special codes, just come! https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

The Dropbox Archive will include all lectures and handouts here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yted2ht281tfrn74ig0c2/h?rlkey=8j5bvomcf9ate80us41n2vj25&dl=0

(To listen to any Dropbox you must download the file to get the entire recording.  No risk, no cost.)

·      BE THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM (you know, in a good way)

This past Thursday we had a pretty wonderful time in the Tantric Ganapati Practicum.  We continue this week.  There are recordings.  You can catch up, come along, just join in anytime.  I think you will find the conversation worthwhile and the practices compelling.

Again, the information you’ll need.  See you Thursday at 7pm. 

Ganapati Practicum:

In Tantric practice, there are dozens of forms of Ganesha, each associated with different kinds of insight and empowerment.  We’ll take up ten and see them as a kula, a collective, such that the practice can focus on any one of these forms or as a group.  We have studied Tantric Ganapati before but have not considered the work as a practicum: this means we’ll be looking through the lens of practice in ritual and meditation with a particular focus on the subtle mantra body.  No prerequisites, just bring your open heart!

The Practicum will be 10 Sessions, each about 90 minutes. 

All Sessions are at 7pm Eastern and will use the same Zoom link (the same as all Thursdays past). 

A downloadable Archive of recordings will also be available each week. If you can’t make the Sessions live on Zoom, this is a good option, you can listen anytime.

Tuition for all Sessions in advance is $100. This includes access to the Archive and all study materials.  Otherwise, tuition for individual Sessions will be $12.  Please use the usual methods: Venmo (douglas-brooks-8 or svcourses@gmail.com) or PayPal (svcourses@gmail.com).  If you can’t afford tuition, please let me know because you are always welcome.

Scheduled Dates: Feb. 1, Feb. 8, Feb. 15, Feb. 22, Feb. 29, March 7, March 21, March 28, April 6, April 13.
Zoom Link requires no special codes, just come!

https://rochester.zoom.us/j/98183733328

The Dropbox Archive will include all lectures and handouts here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/aj2q0pqv6k62vaxy2h810/h?rlkey=ag6ijieez888x4yi9kjggthq2&dl=0

SAVE THE DATE FOR RAJANAKA SUMMER CAMP

·      Dates are July 11^th-July 15^th.  That’s the weekend after the 4^th.  More about this soon.  Put is on your calendar.  We’re going to have a topic and a plan to make this fly.  Worth your effort.  There’s nothing like it.

3.         Sunday Mahabharata, 5pm Eastern for Winter Semester: February-May 2024

For those of you who have been with us (or at least some of the time during these last two years), we carry on!  Every week there is a complete story, a Session that stands on its own.  You’ll have context and a way in each week even if this is your first time or you just like to drop in now and then.  There is nothing better than Mahabharata.  And I rarely speak in absolutes.

We begin on Sunday, February 4th.  For this Semester we’ll have 15 Sessions, each about 90 minutes. 

All Sessions are at 5pm Eastern and will use the same Zoom link (the same as all Sundays past). 

A downloadable Archive of recordings will also be available each week. If you can’t make the Sessions live on Zoom, this is a good option, you can listen anytime.

Tuition for all 12 Sessions in advance is $120. This includes access to the Archive and all study materials.  Otherwise, tuition for individual Sessions will be $12.  Please use the usual methods: Venmo (douglas-brooks-8 or svcourses@gmail.com) or PayPal (svcourses@gmail.com).  If you can’t afford tuition, please let me know because you are always welcome.

Scheduled Dates: Feb. 4, Feb. 11, Feb. 18, Feb. 25, March 3, March 10, March 24, April 7, April 14, April 21, April 28, May 5.
Zoom Link requires no special codes, just come! https://rochester.zoom.us/j/314987250

The entire Mahabharata Archive is here ANYTIME: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wn3icbb418qcsrjqhk6ke/h?rlkey=nzdh43ld5xitb96duffoflhlg&dl=0

I hope you have been enjoying the Pilgrimage Diaries.  There are two more episodes coming.  They are free and on the Rajanaka Substack.  Subscribe and it costs ya’ nuthin’.  Offer a paid subscription and you’ll be helping to keep our good work in India alive.  We can still make a difference for others and for ourselves by the ways we commit our time and offer our efforts.   It’s not going to get easier this 2024.  Our politics cannot be dismissed or ignored---everything about justice and democracy is at stake.  We can’t turn away from the world afire, not without resigning our humanity.  We’re going to need one another and we’re going to need to take to heart what we each can do.  Who do you want to be?  What do you dream?  Drop me a note, anytime.  I’m interested in what you’re learning, how you’re feeling, and what you want to do. If you drop me a postcard (with a return address), I'll send you one back.  What in the world isn't great about getting a postcard?  It's the little things too that make a difference.  Carry on, Rajanaka!

Take care,

With affection, saprema,

/Douglas