[Downtown Dharma Listserve] Re: Next Month's Reading Group

Hi all,

As a reminder, this Saturday we will meet for the Downtown Dharma reading group to discuss Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators by Guy Armstrong.

Meeting Information:
We will be doing a combined in-person/Zoom meeting this time. We ask that participants only come in person if they have been fully vaccinated.

June 26, 6:00-7:30 pm 

Address: Justin Koufopoulous' place (thank you, Justin!) 2726 13th Street, 
Washington, DC 20009

Optional group dinner afterwards--I thought that since this is our first in person meeting in a long time, we could all go out for a casual dinner somewhere afterwards. I'll be thinking of options, but if you all have suggestions, let me know. 

Zoom Information is at the bottom of this email. 

Reading: 

We'll be reading Chapters 1 through 6 this time (pages 1-82) Apologies, I had sent out 1 through 8 before, but I think this amount of reading is more manageable for this discussion. If you read ahead, that's ok! Also, if you don't get to read all of it, that's ok too.

Instead of discussion questions this time, below are some of the major topics from this book. I encourage you all to think about what you learned about these topics, your impressions, and any questions you have or issues that the book raised for you: 

Topics for discussion:

• Emptiness- what is it? 
• Self- What does "no self" (or not self) mean? What are common beliefs about the self that we hold? What does Armstrong claim is wrong about those beliefs?
• Sense bases and the five aggregates
• What is "self" really? How do we create a view of the self through thinking and attachment? 
• What is the "conventional" versus "fundamental" view of the self? 

Zoom information: 

Topic: Downtown Dharma Book Group
Time: Jun 26, 2021 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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Meeting ID: 857 2647 3126
Passcode: 407803
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Looking forward,

Kavya

On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 3:24 PM Kavya Sekar <kavsekar9@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

Once again, as a part of the Downtown Dharma reading group we will read a book over the course of several months. This time, we'll read Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators by Guy Armstrong. This is a continuation of our exploration of concepts from the last reading group; the book dives into some core concepts of anatta (no-self) as well as other difficult concepts such as the nature of phenomena, karma, compassion and many more.

We will be doing a combined in-person/Zoom meeting this time. We ask that participants only come in person if they have been fully vaccinated.

Meeting information:

• Date and Time: June 26, 6:00-7:30 pm (with an optional group dinner after)
• In-person meeting: Justin Koufopoulos's place in Columbia Heights (address forthcoming)
• Zoom link will also be provided closer to the meeting time. 

Reading: For this session we will read chapters 1 through 8 (Introduction through "Bearing Emptiness.")

And as a reminder, everyone is always welcome to attend reading group, even those who have not attended before. It is also ok to attend if you have only done part of the reading. 

Looking forward, 

Kavya

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