Brahma Viharas

I'm off to a retreat at Aryaloka.  Over the winter of 2001/2002, I went on a Brahma Viharas retreat for a week that blew my mind.  Ten years later I'm going on a weekend retreat for outlying sanghas.  In my meditation this morning, I realized how excited I am to meet two new people I don't know yet.  New York City has some people in wide orbits, and I'm one of them because I work on Monday night, so I go to one or two sangha nights a year, and I go to a practice day about once a quarter.  So I don't get to know everyone like I used to, when I would sub for Vajra when he went away in the beginners class, or sangha night or practice days.  So I'm excited to meet someone from NYC who has caught the Dharma through TBC.  I'm also excited to be on a Brahma Viharas retreat, with it's near and far enemies, for metta, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.  Equanimity is more of an insight practice.  On the retreat I went on we meditated 6 times a day, starting with mindfulness of breathing, the 4 Brahma Viharas and then just sitting--and a puja.  I fell in love with pujas, reading Ritual and Devotion, and made my first offering to the shrine.  Anyway, I'm very excited, and after 10 years of practice, I still get very excited for retreat.

(My computer died, so promised writings projects have had a big setback.)