The Story of this Mindful Conversations Site
Kalyānamitta Mindful Conversations is an online meeting place, exploring Buddhist practice. The approach is an unusual one, where Buddhist practice is understood in the light of modern phenomenology, particularly the process work of Eugene T. Gendlin.
The teacher Christopher Ash teaches Early Buddhist concepts. He received permission to teach in the lineage of Ajahn Buddhadasa. This lineage bases its practice in the texts known as the “Pali Suttas.” Pali is an ancient Indian language, and is as close as we can get to the language that Buddha spoke, while not actually being his native language.
“Kalyānamitta” (Wikipedia entry.)
The Pāli-English Dictionary lists Kalyāṇa Kalyāṇa (& kallāṇa) as meaning: 1. (adj.) beautiful, charming; auspicious, helpful, morally good. And mitta means ‘friend.’
Once when Ānanda the primary attendant of the Buddha suggested to the Buddha that: “Sir, half of the spiritual life is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.” The Buddha’s emphatic response was:
“Not so, Ānanda! Not so! This is the entire spiritual life, Ānanda, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship. When a practitioner has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, it is to be expected that he will develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.” (SN 45.2)
A Kalyānamitta is a friend who supports your liberation of heart-mind.
As regards the conversations, it is in the spirit of ‘clinging-free deliverance of the mind’ that we meet online on Zoom to explore human experiencing. (I’ll post details for contact at another time.)