Viveka, stepping back, is about adjusting attention and energizing in a different way. Morning chanting, for example, is a beautiful way to bring up energy. It’s not about doing or making something happen. Rather, it’s very much towards stillness. Most cittas will benefit from the inner stability of the body, where the nervous system is awake but not firing, stirring, agitated.

The practice of recollection involves picking up a particular line of thought that triggers a particular mood or realization. Just saying ‘stop thinking’ or ‘don’t worry’ won’t work to calm and steady the mind. Those are commands. Through recollection the mind can find a degree of stability and comfort, providing refuge under unpleasant and uncomfortable conditions.

Bear this in mind when meditating. With unpleasant or painful mental feeling, the tendency is to contract. Try opening up instead. It stops the cycle of agitation and resistance that keeps the pain there. Use the body to do this, as a source of strength and energy to stop the mind spinning out into story. In order to withdraw and stand back, we must have a place to stand back into. That’s what the body is for.

Meditation is not a set of techniques; it is authentic, direct access to your inner heart/felt subjective experiences. Many times what’s found there is dukkha. Much of it can be resolved just by developing the inner body and clearing the hindrances.

Liberation requires clearing citta of its contracted state. We can learn to care for our citta, to know what lifts and steadies it to bring it out of contraction. In meditation we try to concentrate and feel even more constricted. Opening up the body and accessing the vitality that comes from mindfulness of breathing can have a calming effect.

How to reach jhana; how to know if I’m meditating; feeling warm during meditation; elaborate on channeling breath out of solar plexus; meditation on death; emotions and feeling that arise in meditation – why and what to do with them; doubt; meditation practice vs. study of suttas

How to contemplate on death and sickness; “Russial doll”contemplation of body; how to practice for insight; mindfulness as a refuge in busy city life

When starting meditation, begin with balancing and calming the body and breathing, but just getting it good enough. This is something that is gained through direct practice over time. Bring certain signs (nimita) to mind to aid in calming. The mind’s tendency is to focus on negative things. Practice bringing the beautiful to mind and make much of it.

Introducing the Buddha’s lesser discourse on emptiness, Ajahn Sucitto refers to his own experience on sabbatical for a year. He describes ‘uninventing’ himself, tuning into the signless – anicca and anata. Whatever we think, conceive, generate has been generated by mind and is subject to change. How to cultivate recognition of what’s not there, emptiness.