Decades ago, Le Kelty saw the Dalai Lama speak at Emory University. Then the audience asked a big question. “Given everything going on in the world, what is the most important thing a person should do?”
“You could feel 1,500 people sitting on the edge of their seats in that chapel, waiting for an answer,” Kartai recalled in an interview this week. “It felt like an eternity. He was silent for maybe 10 seconds. And he just laughed. He chuckled and said, ‘I don’t know, do something.'”
No one would dispute that Mr. Kartai did no such thing. This week, he launched a new Buddhist center in Chattanooga. There, people, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, interested in practicing meditation or studying the religion can find Tibetan-style teachings and retreats.
From yoga to meditation, practices rooted in Eastern spiritual traditions are firmly entrenched in American life.
if you go
Om Room, 3230 Brainerd Road.
— How to Meditate, Thursdays 7-8:30 p.m.
— Overcoming Stress and Anxiety: Managing Emotions with Meditation, Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Growing up in the South, meditation teacher Paul Peterson, also known as Upsaka Upali, said in a phone interview that he would have been afraid to tell people he meditated. But today it seems that everyone is interested in this concept.
How do I get started? Although some programs, such as the Mindful Living Center, have been discontinued in Chattanooga, there are still options for locals looking to calm and sharpen their minds. On Mondays, meditators can receive guidance in the center space. The space is typically operated by Upari from its St. Andrews Center in Highland Park. Most Thursdays, guided mediations and spiritual talks are available at the Chattanooga Insight Meditation Community in Brainerd.
The nonprofit Paramita Center Southeast will be added to the mix. The nonprofit organization will be publicly launched this week with a brief visit from head teacher Lama Lobsang Samten, a Tibetan-born monk based in Canada who will teach classes Thursday and Friday. Silence and anxiety in the city.
(Read more: Chattanooga expert talks about the benefits of meditation for mind, body and soul)
These events are a precursor to a broader program directed by Mr. Cartay, who plans to begin teaching classes this summer in the rented Center Space Studio at St. I’m considering whether or not to rent a house. Specifically, he said he plans to pass on the teachings of Lama Lobsang Samten, who inspired him to engage more fully with the spiritual traditions he has been thinking about since his youth during the pandemic. Ta.
The young man took shape during the Vietnam War. Although initially attracted to the idea of nonviolence, Mr. Cartai became disillusioned with the Catholic Church’s inability to take a stand.
Still, Mr. Kartai has found an outlet for his deep Catholic obsession with ritual, tied to something like the more robust spiritual and political philosophy of Buddhism, a multifaceted Eastern religion dating back thousands of years. He said he found it.
However, Kartai’s engagement with Buddhist practices, of which meditation is central, has been intermittent and dissatisfying, and has had a clear impact on his way of life as he struggles to find a guide who can guide him. He said no.
For many years, he fought against the tide of attraction. For example, Kartai found in the Dalai Lama a unique person who was not only smart and able to get things done, politically speaking, but also incorporated those qualities into an abiding spirituality.
Cartay was living in Atlanta at the time, but later moved to Chattanooga for a job in clinical psychology. But it was hard work, and after her child died shortly after birth, Kartai realized she needed to step back.
“I’ve always said that experience was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but in some ways it made my life immeasurably better,” he said. . “Because of that experience, I no longer have to ask what is important.”
He knew that he was overworked and that other children only grew small once. He took a part-time job reviewing disability records for the insurance company Unum. It wasn’t something he had imagined for himself during his graduate school years, but he found himself enjoying the work and wondered how he could put it aside at the end of the day. I noticed that.
Eventually, as the children grow up, they become interested in applying Buddhism in the workplace, and they stop looking for teachers so much and just focus on practical ways to apply Buddhist ethics in all fields. He said it was a turning point in his life. Everyday Life – A complex and often paradoxical set of teachings that Kartai sums up when he says, “Live to be the best you can be for the most people.”
But as he got older, Kartai started thinking about his future, and since the pandemic began, he decided to approach meditation like a beginner. He went online and found Toronto’s Paramita Center, headed by Lama Lobsang Samten. According to his online biography, he settled in Canada with a vision of sharing the teachings of Buddha with all people.
(Read more: JJ McCarthy’s meditation habit helps clear mind to lead No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 2 Ohio State)
In an online video class, Kartai discovered the concept of meditation, which felt refreshing.
For many people, meditation seems to be simply a way to relax, a practice of observing but not following your thoughts, he said.
“It has all of these elements,” Kartai said, recalling what he learned. “But the important thing is to learn to sharpen your mind so that you can really explore the way things are, the way I am, the way you are, the way the world is.”
For Lama Lobsang Samten, Kartai had the feeling that “this is the real deal” that he had felt for the Dalai Lama decades earlier, and eventually received permission to start an offshoot of the Paramita Center here in Tennessee. asked monks — the first in the U.S.
Like the leaders of other meditation centers in the city, Kartai emphasizes that you don’t have to be a Buddhist to meditate.
“This method of meditation can be practiced without believing in anything,” he said. “But we can’t not talk about it and teach about it, because it’s part of the tradition. For me, for us, it’s part of the tradition.”
Contact Andrew Schwartz at aschwartz@timefreepress.com or 423-757-6431.
