The world pulls us out with the promise of security in external things, but there’s only one place suffering stops. It’s in the release of mental activations. Using careful attention, yoniso manasikāra, we meet the causes and conditions of dukkha by noticing how we’re being affected by the world. This is how we can be free from the world while living in the world.

1. Can a stream enterer lose contact with the Dhamma? 2. (1:47) Can non-Buddhists become stream enterers? 3. (12:12) Should we observe defilements or cultivate wisdom to get rid of them? 4. (21:17) Should we as lay people work to get rid of mental dukkha? 5. (26:04) What is the difference between causes and conditions? 6. (29:09) How do we know “what’s needed now”?

Laying the groundwork for retreat, yogis are encouraged to stay in touch with qualities of mindfulness, persistence and right energy. Such steady practice fortifies the citta, rather than the thinking mind, as the source of stability in an inherently unstable world. 30:35 Guided Meditation: Guidance for getting grounded, establishing safety in the space around, making the space you’re sitting in your refuge.

Puja invites the total participation of body, voice and mind. It allows a group to come together in harmony. It invites skilful recollections of wholesome qualities. Before the familiar “me” energy takes over, puja helps set up a different context of presence, one that is purifying, steadying and clearing.

Conditioning of the business model - performance, achievement, self-criticism - drives us up into our head. Purification of the unskilful, of self-hood, is possible. It’s accomplished through awareness and energy. Balancing yin (receptive) and yang (driving) energies in the body resets our system, easing the compulsive self that has been formed personally and energetically.

Body can be experienced in multiple ways - physical, perceptual, somatic, and energetic. In this light, body is an experience rather than a thing. It plays out in meditation. It’s important to establish a more accurate body, clear of perceptual taints and distortions, biases and kammic impositions.

Find your anchor, that core quality of stability. What is suggested is a spinal, upright sense that goes down into the ground. Take your stand there to repel the forces of Mara. [Instructions end 7:09]

1. Is this a vipassana retreat? 2. (12:15) How to train mind to have energy to overcome mental dullness?

Puja means to praise or offer the heart to that which is worthy. It’s a going forth of citta from the habits. Citta is not in the head, it’s not a thought. It’s much more direct. Citta gets obscured, but we can clear this by staying with awareness, breathing through blocks, and sustaining the bodily presence. The body gives awareness a foundation; an open heart gives awareness the willingness to be with this process.

We struggle against the uncertainty and unsatisfactoriness of the phenomenal world. Wisdom lets us know: I can be aware of all of this rather than resist it - I can pause, reflect and determine an appropriate response. As awareness arises the response (not a reaction) is goodwill.