Thursday, January 18, 2007

First Post

Good morning, and welcome to my new blog. It's a snowy one in Raleigh, unusual for this warm winter. My intention is to use this blog as a way to communicate events in Avril's and my lives with family and friends. Since we've moved to Raleigh, many of the people we know and love haven't gotten alot of information about what's happening with us. I know others may see this blog and I hope, if you're interested and like-minded, you'll join our community of friends.

Here's a quick bio. If you're a friend or family member, you can skip this posting if you want and return in a few days when I'm posting more about current events.

My name is Andrew Weiss. I'm a pre-Baby-Boom man, born when WWII was still going on (by 6 months) and FDR was still President (by 5 months). I grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, went through the public school system there, and went to college at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire. My interests ever since childhood have been literature, music, people and spiritual life. I've pursued each of these throughout my life.

I've been married twice. My first wife, Sara Brookwood, died in 1982 waiting for a liver transplant. Sara's story is a beautiful one, and I will most likely post pieces of it on this blog from time to time. My second wife, Avril, and I married in 1989 and have been happily together ever since. I've had no children from either marriage. I've lived most of my life in New England -- Connecticut until I was 18, New Hampshire for 4 years, and finally Massachusetts from 1971 until this past August, 2006. That's when we finally made the move south, to North Carolina.

My work life has been varied, and interesting (to me, at least :-). I started my work life apprenticing as an optician in my father's optometry office while I was in high school. After college and graduate school (MA in English, University of Wisconsin), I taught high school English, then worked as a writer and consultant, did drugs and fell apart, moved to Massachusetts, and started work as an optician again. Then came law school (Boston College) and 20+ years of work as a solo-practice lawyer, working primarily in special education law, domestic relations, real estate, small business and nonprofit management, small estate planning, and a little bankruptcy. I've always been a good listener and I had a strong emphasis on mediation and alternative dispute resolution. I finally got my mediation credentials from CDR Associates in Boulder, CO in 1992. I retired from law in 2000, burnt-out and acknowledging that I'd never really been comfortable working as a lawyer, and I returned to optics, working as an optician in Acton, Massachusetts until September last year.

My spiritual life was active, and Jewish, through my teens. Then it went dormant for years, subsumed in my love of literature (especially poetry and the sound of language) and music. It came back full-force when I turned 40. As Avril tells me, I'm a Capricorn, and Capricorns are late bloomers; it takes awhile for us to get our feet underneith us, but we have strength and stamina for the long run.

I began my journey in Buddhism and Zen in late 1985, studied on my own some and then had the good fortune to meet Zen Master Seung Sanh and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, within 6 months of each other. I studied with both of them and with teachers in Seung Sanh's lineage for many years, practiced hard and learned a great deal about myself, my mind, the world and how we create what we have here. I had also started a journey into energy work, clairvoyance and the metaphysical in early 1985, and I continued to do spiritual readings (tarot, channelling) and healings (hands-on energy work) throughout the late 80's and 1990's. I had the good fortune to study with Eleanore Moore of Peterborough, New Hampshire, an incredibly talented Jungian bodywork healer and intuitive who could blow out the electrical circuits on her side of town when she really got rolling.

Avril has had her own, deep spiritual life, independent from mine and deeply grounded in the Siddha Yoga community. She met Baba Muktananda in 1974 in her home Australia, and practiced in that community ever since, living for periods of time in the ashrams. She took me to meet Baba's successor, Gurumayi Chidvalasananda, in 1988, and I had the privilege of spending many days in the Siddha Yoga ashram and center, spending time with Gurumayi and the swamis and other devotees, and doing practices with (frequently) large groups of people. Having a wife with a strong and different spiritual practice has been good for me; I can't get too much of an ego about my own practices that way.

In 1991, Thich Nhat Hanh ordained me as a Brother in the Tiep Hien Buddhist Order (Order of Interbeing), and in 1994 my friend Harrison Hoblitzelle turned over to me his mindfulness meditation class at Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Thus began my life as a spiritual teacher and counselor. I taught the CCAE class, began offering teachings ad hoc in a local meditation group, and began compiling mindfulness practices to teach to my students. A book grew out of this called "Beginning Mindfulness", which I self-published from 1996 through 2005 and became a basic instruction manual for many of the Thich Nhat Hanh-oriented meditation communities in the US and Canada.

In 2006, New World Library picked the book up and published it, and since then it's sold over 15,000 copies and, I hope, has been a useful guide for many people in learning the benefits of living a mindful life. I've continued to teach, at the New England School of Whole Health Education teaching business law and ethics, communication skills and mindfulness, doing a stint teaching Law and Social Systems at Tufts University, and eventually settling in as the director of the meditation program at Shakti Yoga and Healing Arts Center in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where I was fortunate to have a core group of students who studied steadily with me for 4, 5, some up to 6 years and whose dedication has spurred on my own spiritual development.

I also made a strong connection with Claude AnShin Thomas in the mid-1990's. Claude and I became friends, and in 1999 he ordained me in the White Plum Zen Lineage. Claude is the author of "At Hell's Gate", an amazing and powerful little book tracing his journey from VietNam-era soldier, rock musician, drunk and destitute to his current life as a Zen monk. Claude's life and presence offers great hope that we can transform our suffering and turn our lives around.

Then in 2002, my wife insisted that I take a workshop with her clairvoyant teacher Sharon Turner. I rapidly became Sharon's student as well. Sharon is a remarkable, unique teacher, combining aspects of psychic/clairvoyant work with Native American initiations and Christian Mystery School initiations. Like my Buddhist teachers, like Gurumayi and the siddhas, she has changed my life.

One part of the change has been this move to Raleigh. Avril and I had talked about moving south for a couple of years, we set the intention, and here we are. Avril got a job at Montessori School of Raleigh; we trusted the Divine and moved. It has not been easy readjusting at this stage of life, but we've done it and we're learning all the time. This is the subject of a whole other set of blog entries.

I have my own website for my book and spiritual work, it's http://www.beginningmindfulness.com. This blog is mostly for personal information. If you want to know more about what I do and what I offer, the beginningmindfulness.com website is the place to go.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to post your comments. I'll come back to this blog periodically to update on our slow and steady process of settling into this beautiful land in North Carolina.