Through referencing the parable of the cook (S.47:8), we are encouraged to get to know the mind in order to choose the meditation theme that suits it best. There are a range of themes you can use to counteract hindrances: such as death contemplation, unattractiveness of the body, lovingkindness, Buddha and breathing. Through trial and error, find out what is needed.

Renunciation and restraint return us to our innate happiness, happiness not reliant on external objects or conditions. Wisdom helps us discern what kind of happiness takes us out – or brings us back to ourselves.

When we meditate, we might notice reactive and compulsive surges of energy (saṇkhārā). If we can step back from getting involved with them, they gradually wear out. Then the mind stream becomes something we have a say over. There is an ability to make wise choices; this is a mark of freedom.

The five khandhā provide a frame of reference for contemplation. Rather than trying to get rid of them, we examine them in order to understand that the seemingly solid basis of our experience is actually changing, inconstant, and dependent on consciousness.

When the mind is relieved from pressure, we can review the experience of what’s running through the mind, feeling the changes in terms of somatic energy. This energy body has primary intelligence, and retains learnt impressions. Through mindfulness of breathing, we calm and soothe this energy body – with resultant clarity.

This teaching describes the running of psycho-somatic ‘programs’ (saṇkhārā ) – in terms of those that are default and those we can intentionally induce. In this way, in meditation, we develop skills that can change our psychological patterns. The method is: first step back from the torrent of mind; then, cultivate enlightenment factors.

Mindfulness is about knowing how one is affected. We come to know where impulses and intentions/motivations come from, whether these are spiritual or worldly. With skilful intention, there is the possibility to generate pleasant feeling within ourselves. We can find joy in our own presence rather than through external means.

Mindfulness offers the ability to sustain, to notice, and therefore to be wise. Through this we can experience feelings that arise as energy in the body. Stepping back, there is a shift from being in these to a knowingness of them, with resultant dispassion. This is the liberating process of insight.

In general, practice is about creating the type of environment which can hold, accommodate and handle our kamma – whether that is internal and external. Enlightenment factors work to dissolve the encrusted compulsive reactions. Then we have more space, more choice in what we do and don’t do.

The process of liberation is sometimes referred to as ‘transcendence’. Transcendence means you meet feeling, and mind gets bigger than that, includes it all. It is a natural mode of the mind, to meet and include. Enlightenment factors enable this stepping back and non-involvement. We can then meet the results of kamma and realize liberation.

Cultivating a softer happier state of being is valuable in its own right, and also has a profound purpose – to release mental programs that bind us and restrict us, so we can experience a greater sense of ease and freedom.

Training the mind involves restraint, steadying and gladdening. Then it isn’t so mesmerized by its stories. Several specific practices are described for such training.

A guided meditation that focuses on accentuating the receptive aspect. Receiving energies without spinning out or tightening up, and without the ‘push forward’ reflex. Body and breathing form the basis of this practice.

The underlying bent of the mind is craving, that leaning of the mind to have, get, find, belong. In meditation we practise with loosening that craving energy, and introducing calming subjects for recollection. Walking meditation is a skilful means for loosening and gentling the mind.

The mind drags us into places, and we easily locate ourselves there. This is what I’m stuck in, this is what I am. How to get a handle? The samādhi approach is to deal with the energy, not the topic. The sīla approach is to refer to the skilful. The pañña approach is to recognize this for what it is. We need to know how to handle the energy of the mind, and to practise ethical intentions and investigation.

In meditation, rather than getting involved with liking and disliking, we practise letting things just pass through. The movements are just shifts in energy. Learn how to move with the changes rather than reacting with sorrow, resistance or craving. Cultivate patience with your mind as it rattles on, and with a life that isn’t going the way you want, until the mind becomes big enough to hold it all.

An exploration of the action of becoming, noticing how the sense of who we are arises with reference to past, future, self or other. These are boxes that leave many things out, while homing in on our kammic tendencies. Take action on the enlightenment factors to come out of the boxes.

Mindfulness is held up as the one thing in Dhamma practice, but although it’s important, it works along with a range of factors. Descriptions of mindfulness applied to the aspects of the 8-fold path are given.

We try to avoid suffering, but end up perpetuating it instead. In meditation, we can tap into two aspects of wisdom – the ability to unhook and the ability to see. These allow us to relate to the experience of suffering in a way that brings it to an end.

Cultivation is both about doing and not doing. Sometimes it’s about restraining and letting the roots of old habits die out. This requires the ability to step back and witness, and to stand firm against emotional pressure. When we can remain as the witness, there is the immediate fruit of freedom in that moment, and the long-term fruit of changing the tendency.

Generally, mind becomes tangled with concerns for the future, planning, wanting things to be completed, finished. But nothing is solid or definite; it’s never quite right. This is the First Noble Truth. In meditation we take attention off the topic to how am I handling the topic: how am I affected, does this lead to more suffering or less? Open, soften, let it travel through.

People talk about absolute truth, but what about absolute honesty? Honesty about craving and clinging. Craving and clinging focus on pleasure, but through following that we get addicted. To get off that, the recommendation is to cultivate enlightenment factors for support. Develop an inner axis, use one’s collectedness as a prop.

The Buddha’s last words were: ‘All sankhārā are impermanent; make an effort with diligence.’ Is there a place where self, other, past, future don’t happen? That’s what we meditate for. It takes us under the froth to the root of where the turbulence is coming from. These formative patterns have energy, but through bearing presence, they gradually lose their intensity and dissolve.

Learning to stay with the flow of experience in a non-conflicting way is quite difficult. Recollecting how the Buddha called on the Earth for support when confronted by the host of mara, we too can find support in the ground of our presence and virtue.

In meditation we can come to recognize what the mind leans upon and why – and how everything it leans on falls apart. The most stable and secure abiding is unsupported consciousness – the removal of all props – ‘this is peaceful, this is sublime.’ It leads to cessation, a place of rest.

Space seems like the opposite of boundaries, but space is there because of boundaries. So in order to give yourself some space internally you have to create boundaries in the mind. Know what to set aside, and moderate what you pick up in terms of future, past, self and other people. Those are the four areas that turbulences occur around. You don’t have to be trapped and meshed up with this.