Upcoming Classes:

I hope you can join us Sundays at our beautiful location at Namaste North Yoga studio 10-11:15am. It's very close to the Snow City Cafe. Please remember to either pay for parking or find a spot on the street.

Sundays 10-11:15am
Namaste North Yoga
400 L Street, Suite 150
Anchorage, AK 55501 Suggested Donation is $12/$6 for students and seniors

January 20, 2024

Dear Meditators,

I hope you can attend meditation class tomorrow. It’s a beautiful and quiet studio: Namaste North Yoga studio right across the street from the Snow City Cafe 10-11:15am.

Tomorrow, we’ll have a class on practicing Patience (Jan 21) drawn from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s  book, “How to Solve Our Human Problems.” No class the following week on Jan 28. More patience info below.

In February and March (Feb 4, 11, 18; March 3, 10, 17) we’ll be studying and meditating on material based on another book by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso called, “Universal Compassion.”  See details below.

Thank you so much!

Rick Zelinsky

907 250-9454

Patience on January 21

Over a thousand years ago, the great Buddhist Master Shantideva wrote:

“There is no evil greater than anger,

And no virtue greater than patience.

Therefore, I should strive in various ways

to become familiar with the practice of patience.

We all know that anger is one of the most common and destructive “delusions” or distorted ways that we see things improperly. It harms both ourself and others.

What is anger?

What is patient acceptance?

What are the faults of anger?

“We should remember that every opportunity to develop anger is also an opportunity to develop patience.”

“If we were truly peaceful inside and had our mind under control, difficult people or circumstances would not be able to disturb this peace, and so we would feel no compulsion to blame anyone or regard them as our enemy. To someone who has subdued his or her mind and eradicated the last trace of anger, all beings are friends.”

We should not think that eradicating anger from our mind is an impossible goal.

What is patience?

We’ll really understand anger and the opponent, which is patience. We’ll meditate on our determination to practice patience as explained in the class.

February and March (Feb 4, 11, 18; March 3, 10, 17) : Developing our Love and Compassion

Buddha explained that there are different levels of spiritual maturity. The first level is concerned with the happiness and freedom from suffering of ourselves. The second level is the determination to eradicate our own suffering and attain liberation. The third level is practicing to improve ourself in order to benefit both ourself and others. This third level is called bodhichitta.

Based on the teachings presented in “Universal Compassion,” there are six parts/meditations to develop bodhichitta. We’ll go through all six!

Feb 4: Cherishing others as much as we cherish ourself.

Feb 11: The negativity of self-cherishing.

Feb 18: The positivity of cherishing others.

March 3: Introducing a new way: exchanging our self with others.

March 10: The practice of Taking (away the suffering of others) and Giving (happiness to all beings.)

March 17: Meditating on bodhichitta—wishing to help all beings and in order to do that we need to keep improving ourself.

Thank you so much for reading. I really hope you can attend and find benefit in these lessons.

Best Wishes,

Rick Zelinsky