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mysite blog http://www.abet.net.nz/news/ Sharda http://www.abet.net.nz/sharda/ Awakening the Wisdom Mind/Heart
A daylong retreat led by Sharda Rogell
at the monastery, 17 Rakau Grove, Stokes Valley
March 17 &bull; 9:00am to 5:30pm
$50 + dana for the teacher
Bring own lunch, tea and refreshments provided

The true expression of the Buddha&rsquo;s teaching is to live a life of wisdom and compassion. But what is this wisdom and how do we cultivate it? Wisdom awakens by cultivating and deepening our moment-to-moment awareness. In this way, we have the power to transform our habitual impulses and inclinations towards a higher good that impacts our speech and our actions in the world. This brings about a happiness that only leads to more happiness and a deep sense of well-being. This is called the &ldquo;happiness of the Buddha&rdquo;.
In this daylong, we will have the opportunity to spend a day in silent practice in order to support and nourish deep inner listening and realization. We will deepen into our mindful awareness together through sitting and walking meditation, dharma talks and discussions in the hall.
This weekend is for both new and experienced meditators.
To register phone Erin on&nbsp;04 973 8900 or send an <a href="mailto:erin@originalnature.co.nz?subject=question%20from%20abet.net.nz">email</a>.
&nbsp;
 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:31:00 -0800 http://www.abet.net.nz/sharda/ Give, receive and dance http://www.abet.net.nz/give-receive-and-dance/ Here's a wonderful TED talk by Nipun Mehta, founder of Service Space, on generosity. What do you think of it?
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdDWKqDykI">Link to video on youtube.com</a>
&nbsp;

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 Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0800 http://www.abet.net.nz/give-receive-and-dance/ The Importance of giving http://www.abet.net.nz/importance-of-giving/ Giving needs to be practiced and developed because our underlying tendency toward attachment, aversion, and confusion so often interferes with a truly selfless act of generosity. An act of giving is of most benefit when one gives something of value, carefully, with one&rsquo;s own hand, while showing respect, and with a view that something wholesome will come of it. The same is true when one gives out of faith, respectfully, at the right time, with a generous heart, and without causing denigration.
- Andrew Olendzki, &ldquo;Dana: The Practice of Giving&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/dana-practice-giving" target="_blank">www.tricycle.com/-practice/dana-practice-giving</a> Wed, 18 May 2011 06:42:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/importance-of-giving/ What a wonderful week http://www.abet.net.nz/what-a-wonderful-week/ -- a few words on Martine and Stephen Batchelor&rsquo;s Taupo retreat
All the dross from the teachings was removed, allowing us to desist from trying to find a way through all the various techniques, which may or may not have helped through the years.
For me it was so helpful to get rid of everything else apart from the four noble truths and the eightfold path.
Over the years of course, one knows the way down the path but one is seduced into thinking that there might be an easier or quicker way. Stephen just cleared all the extraneous bits for me, so now it is on with the teaching just as it is.
It has also been interesting with my own teaching. There is no waffle; there is no other way. This is it. Why go anywhere else, when it is all there.
The Buddha seemed very clear, so did Stephen. Martine was a joy to listen to with her clear directions for following the path. Her accent was a joy for me to listen to.
Having been with them both at Sharpham for three years, it felt like I was back in the family, and of course I am and it was wonderful to connect with them again after 16 years.
My week was one of joy, heartfelt thanks for the dharma, and tremendous love for Stephen and Martine, who continue to bring us the teachings pure and simple. Thu, 13 Jan 2011 06:26:00 -0800 http://www.abet.net.nz/what-a-wonderful-week/ Car stickers ... and for elsewhere too http://www.abet.net.nz/car-stickers-and-for-elsewhere-too/ In green and yellow like this website, four new car stickers are now available. To get one send a message using the Contact Us page with your postal address saying which one(s) you want.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<img class="left" src="http://www.abet.net.nz/assets/Uploads/_resampled/ResizedImage399600-carstickers.png" width="399" height="600" alt="" title="" />
And you don't just have to put them onto your car...
Thanks to FotoFirst in Palmerston North for generously producing these for us - http://www.fotofirst.co.nz Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:27:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/car-stickers-and-for-elsewhere-too/ First teacher supported http://www.abet.net.nz/first-teacher-supported/ We have supported our first teacher. ABET trustee Viv Blackshaw has received $694 towards the costs of bringing insight dialogue teacher Gregory Kramer from Seattle to New Zealand. As trustees it feels really good to know that our efforts in setting up Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust are bearing fruit.
We thank everyone who supported Gregory&rsquo;s visit as well as those who along with Viv gave their time to organise his retreats. Thu, 27 May 2010 21:09:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/first-teacher-supported/ Nelson meeting on ABET http://www.abet.net.nz/nelson-meeting-on-abet/ DHARMA DISCUSSION&nbsp;
What is the Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust
Come for afternoon tea and a discussion with two of the trustees, Ramsey Margolis and Brigid Lowry
Sunday 14 February 2010 &bull; 3&ndash;4pm &bull; 23 Britannia Heights, Nelson
&ndash; info Brigid 03 548 2877 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:01:00 -0800 http://www.abet.net.nz/nelson-meeting-on-abet/ Slow take off but the journey's a long one http://www.abet.net.nz/slow-take-off-but-the-journey-s-a-long-one/ Launched in September 2009, Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust has received donations from a small number of people in the first three months, but the extent of the generosity has been both truly heart warming and surprising. We&rsquo;re aware it will take time for the wider dharma community to become aware of the fact that ABET exists, to see value in the work of the trust, and decide to support it. What has been given, though, has taken the trustees by surprise.
Here&rsquo;s how things stand with each of the four appeals:
Gregory Kramer&nbsp;(coming to teach in March and April 2010) $80.00 Martine &amp; Stephen Batchelor&nbsp;(coming to teach in November 2010) $50.00 Eric Kolvig&nbsp;(coming to teach in April 2011) $50.00 General fund&nbsp;$1,959.44
There are two further donations on their way through givealittle which are visible on the website but not included in the above. When discussing the notion of a charity to pay the travel costs of overseas insight meditation teachers, what we heard was that people wanted a way to help bring a specific teacher here which is why there are separate bank accounts for each teacher.
The wonderful surprise we&rsquo;ve had is that there are those who are keen to to see the buddhadharma develop in New Zealand, who are prepared to give substantial amounts to do so, and they realise that ABET is an avenue for this. We weren&rsquo;t expecting to get large donations into the general fund right away but we&rsquo;re really glad we have, of course.
Tricycle community Those familiar with the excellent magazine Tricycle may not be aware they&rsquo;ve started an online community at http://community.tricycle.com. The publishers&rsquo; intention being to create an online sangha, their main attraction is the large number of groups and discussions. It also contains audio and video dharma resources, blogs, photos and even live chat. When you join this community you&rsquo;ll see there is a group associated with ABET &ndash; Aotearoa Buddhist Education Project.
Please join this group and help us talk up the work of the trust. Find it at http://community.tricycle.com/group/aotearoabuddhisteducationproject/.
The practice of generosity is very much more developed among US buddhist communities, so it would be no surprise to find a small number of overseas practitioners welcoming a way of helping to make the practices and principles of insight meditation more easily available to folk in other countries. Your help with this would be of great value.
Payroll giving From 7 January 2010, a new government initiative encourages charitable donation directly from your salary, in such a way that you receive an immediate tax credit. How much you give, and how often you do it, is up to you.
Assuming you are paid monthly and wish to give $100 each month to ABET. Doing so, you&rsquo;d receive an immediate tax credit of $33.33. This means your wages would be just $67.77 lower than previously as your employer remits $100 to ABET in your name.
Previously, an individual could only claim back one third of qualifying donations up to a maximum of $630. The amount you can now claim back has gone up to the level of your taxable income.
When you tell your employer you&rsquo;d like to make a donation from your pay to Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust, give them the ABET bank account number your donation should go to [found elsewhere on this site] and point out that they can find us on the IRD&rsquo;s list of approved donee organisations.
Finally We thank all those who have given, whatever your intention and whatever you&rsquo;ve given, and we encourage anyone who is considering developing your practice of generosity to take a look around this website. You are invited to get in touch in you have any questions.
-- from the December 2009 INSIGHTAotearoa Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800 http://www.abet.net.nz/slow-take-off-but-the-journey-s-a-long-one/ Tricycle group created http://www.abet.net.nz/tricycle-group-created/ All you social networking people out there will be interested to learn that a group called Aotearoa Buddhist Education Project has been created in Tricycle magazine&rsquo;s online community. Come on down and network with us!
Visit <a href="http://community.tricycle.com">http://community.tricycle.com</a>, sign up and join the group. We'd love to hear your ideas about ABET and your ideas for better ways to publicise the work of the trust. Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:47:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/tricycle-group-created/ Newsletter interview http://www.abet.net.nz/newsletter-interview/ INSIGHTAotearoa is the monthly newsletter of New Zealand's insight meditation practitioners and communities. Editor Deborah White interviewed the ABET trustees for the October 2009 newsletter.&nbsp;Seeing as we are spread geographically &ndash; Vivien is on Auckland&rsquo;s North Shore, Ramsey is in Wellington, Brigid in Nelson and Christine in Port Levy &ndash; she interviewed us by email.
IA: What was the origin of this charitable trust? How did you work together creating this project?
ABET: The idea of a charitable trust arose out of conversations among a number of insight meditation practitioners who were concerned about the affordability of retreats that were coming up which are to be led by overseas teachers. Starting with our desire that as many people as possible might be able to benefit from these teachings, we talked about the fact that those individuals and communities who organise retreats need to be fiscally responsible, which means to at least break even, and wondered how we might help in the process. When Stephen and Martine Batchelor came to New Zealand in 2004, there was a big fundraising effort through your newsletter. This lowered the cost of their Otaki retreat and allowed free entry to the public talk Stephen gave in Wellington, but it didn't help towards the Christchurch retreat, and in hindsight this was unfair to South Islanders. So the question arose: how can we raise money in a coordinated, national way to bring teachers over? The answer was a charitable trust which appealed for funds through a website from those who know the benefits of these teachings and who appreciated that this was a way to help others discover those benefits.
A: Why just fundraise for their travel costs?
ABET: Good question. What could we appeal for, we wondered? Well, the first thing to go for is a teacher&rsquo;s travel costs, as it&rsquo;s a huge part of the cost of a retreat. If we are wildly successful and more than cover their air fares, the cost of the retreat goes down even further for everyone. If we don't raise enough, then the trust has a general fund which can be used to top up what has been donated for a particular teacher. Another, major, thread of our conversation was about generosity; how this develops in Asia through the culture, but which we as westerners need to cultivate, and how this charitable trust might be part of a practice of generosity. Following on from these conversations and wanting this to be a national initiative rather than one which simply came out of Wellington&rsquo;s insight meditation community, Ramsey took the initiative and, with agreement from Brigid, Christine and Vivien to be trustees, got to work and set up Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust.
IA: How will you let people know about this wonderful initiative?
ABET: This newsletter, INSIGHTAotearoa, is the most important way that people will learn about Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust. We have a website at http://www.abet.net.nz, which we encourage everyone to take a look at, and of course there&rsquo;s there will be links and mentions on www.insightmeditation.org.nz and www.insightaotearoa.org. We also ask that people share info on the trust with their sangha and friends. If anyone wishes to do a fundraising activity themselves, ABET has registered with givealittle.co.nz and this means that people can set up their own fundraising page for the trust there. Already there&rsquo;s a teenager who may do a sponsored run for one of the teachers, and there&rsquo;s even talk of a sponsored weekend sit! With three writers and an artist as trustees, the website text is an object lesson in plain English. Bruce Staples has built a beautiful website, and Adam Shand is taking care of the hosting. We are very grateful to Bruce and Adam. There was a piece on our intention to form the trust in the July INSIGHTAotearoa. Following this, we were offered a significant donation, which we gratefully used to open a bank account at the SBS Bank in Nelson.
IA: How will teachers be selected to come to New Zealand, and who qualifies for funding?
ABET: We've started off raising funds for those teachers we have invited to come here: Gregory Kramer, Stephen and Martine Batchelor, and Eric Kolvig; as well as a teacher that one of us wants to bring here: Pracha Hutanuwatr. Should a community or an individual want to bring over an insight meditation teacher they should contact us with the name of the teacher, some information about them, their website, and so on. If ABET is to raise funds for a teacher, we will all have to agree to this happening. Could we say that we're keen to support teachers who are predominantly from, or who have worked with the insight meditation tradition, at least in the first couple of years, rather than spread ourselves too thinly.
IA: How do we donate?
ABET: Okay, now we are officially launching Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust to the world! The flags are flying and the fireworks will be going off after dark. We ask readers to visit www.abet.net.nz and we hold out our bowl for your dana. You can contribute by cheque, using online banking and by credit or debit card, and your donation can go towards a particular teacher, or into the general fund. As we are a registered charity you can make what they give even larger by claiming tax relief on their donation if you pay New Zealand tax. We are encouraging people to claim that tax and then give that also to Aotearoa Buddhist Education trust.
&ndash; from the October 2009 INSIGHTAotearoa Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:30:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/newsletter-interview/ Creating opportunities for generosity http://www.abet.net.nz/creating-opportunities-for-generosity/ &ldquo;To embrace dukkha&nbsp;is to fully embrace the suffering of the world. When the Buddha talks of the path, the whole business beginning with fully knowing&nbsp;dukkha, it&rsquo;s also an injunction to compassion. When we begin to be more attuned to the tragic nature of our own existence, when we begin to wear down the rigidity of our selfcentredness, that has the effect of making us more empathetically open to the far, far greater suffering that is going on all around us; in others, in the environment.&rdquo;
&ndash; Stephen Batchelor, from &ldquo;The Secular Buddha&rdquo; a talk given at a London Insight Meditation retreat, September 2008
WHEN people begin to explore the practice of meditation, more often than not it&rsquo;s because they feel there&rsquo;s something unsatisfactory in their lives: they believe there&rsquo;s something wrong with &ldquo;me&rdquo;, with what&rsquo;s going on in &ldquo;my life&rdquo; and they want to find out if meditation will help.
If then they attend an insight meditation session or retreat, they find they&rsquo;re encouraged to be generous; that while there may be a charge to attend the retreat, in addition they are asked to make a donation &ndash; give dana &ndash; to the teacher for the teachings they have received.
This could seem like they&rsquo;re being asked to pay for something twice. That it&rsquo;s part of a tradition, well whoopeedoo, what a cool tradition, and they reach into their pockets or their purses and pull out a coin or two or a bill with a picture of Sir Ed to put into the dana bowl.
The brave among them will ask for guidance. Consider what a night out in the city costs, they may be advised, with film tickets, popcorn and a latte, and give accordingly, or they might be asked to compare an evening with a meditation teacher to a yoga session.
Generosity of spirit is rarely instilled in westerners as we grow up. While well-off Victorians had the practice of charity as a way of easing their conscience about the injustices around them, generations x and y learn with some difficulty sometimes that there is a world beyond themselves.
For our part, we need to be patient, using these opportunities to assist them develop generosity as an important and integral part of the way of meditation, supporting them as they work with their dis-ease.
So, following the injunctions of the four ennobling truths, as we embrace suffering, let go of grasping, experience stopping and create a path, this we do in the hope of curing ourselves of this sense of dissatisfaction.
Those who persist with the practice of meditation discover that this sense of dissatisfaction, or dukkha, is more about &ldquo;us&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;me&rdquo;. We become hugely more aware of the suffering of others, that our own suffering is so tiny by contrast with the suffering of the world, and that there is a direct and very real connection between the world and ourselves. And that&rsquo;s the point that generosity becomes a significant part of the path.
As repeatedly our heart goes out to all beings in metta practice, it becomes a felt sense rather than repetition by rote and, surprise, we come full circle. We discover the joy that arises out of generosity, from being there for other people, and for other beings.
And from that generosity the &ldquo;me&rdquo; actually grows and gains so much. As practitioners, how can we enable others to become aware of this process? As well as the injunction to practice, those of us committed to a buddhist path need to ensure that our communities offer newbies a number of opportunities to practice generosity.
With this in mind, four dharma buddies from around the country have come together and started a charitable trust, Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust, the object of which will be to raise funds to bring overseas insight meditation teachers to this country.
Our initial aim will be to ask Aotearoa&rsquo;s insight meditation communities to help us to at least cover a teacher&rsquo;s air fares. New Zealanders would then be able to taste of Buddha&rsquo;s teachings more affordably, leaving more in their pockets and purses to offer as dana.
When the results can be seen clearly, we hope that enough of you will feel the value in donating to the trust, and we would hope to be able to cover more of the cost of running retreats. Perhaps all? We would hope so.
&ndash; from the July 2009 INSIGHTAotearoa Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:48:00 -0700 http://www.abet.net.nz/creating-opportunities-for-generosity/