There is no final cure for the body, but the mind can be freed. No matter how much craving, anger, sorrow, fear or obsessive negative thoughts keep storming the mind, don’t let discouragement become another hindrance. Every new moment is a chance to see these hindrances for what they are with pure awareness itself. Patient, courageous and wise, we are ready to receive the gift of ‘bread’ and to win back the boundaries of our hearts.

On the path to freedom, every moment in every life situation is an opportunity for training the mind. We plant seeds of virtue, watering them with renunciation, respect, contentment, generosity and valiant effort. We clear the cobwebs of lifetimes from the mind with wisdom and mindfulness guarding us from the eight worldly winds, while forgiveness, love and compassion hasten the heart's awakening to Nibbana.

From the point of developing the Five Jhana Factors to establishing absorption in meditation, there are processes of purification. Yet as we purify our hearts and minds, a deeper happiness and contentment arises from within.

This talk was given as a part of the series "Where Rubber Meets the Road: A Series on Mindful Living." A real place for us to check our practice is in our relationships. After all, we are deeply relational beings. Sometimes, our deepest grooves in our minds are only stimulated in relationships. Defilements and habits of mind, such as greed, anger, and delusion, arise in ways that they don't in other situations. In other words, forces of suffering that are latent in other situations can arise in the context of close relationships. Fortunately, this is actually not bad news. Rather, it offers us opportunity to practice, to see ourselves more clearly, to become more free, and to see how we can untangle the love from clinging.

Exposition of S 45, 49-62 / S v 29-32: Seven keys to the arising of the Eightfold Path. A teaching outside of the famous Buddhist charts and yet more than pertinent to the development of the Gradual Path.