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.

Consider what is useful to focus on for this meditation period. What is a suitable meal for citta to dine on? What gives a natural sense of vitality? What gives a sense of good heart? [Instructions end 9:52]

1. I am not able to get the breath at the nostrils. What should I do?; 2 (19:20) Could you discuss body energy more?; 3. (46:17) How can I deal with my many mental proliferations in mindful daily life, in interacting with the surrounding environment and other people? 4. (53:54) Have you been introduced to tantric Theravada practice? 5. (57:05) Is it useful to develop psychic skills?

Sati-sampajañña, mindfulness and full knowing, are the basis of mindfulness. These are the holding and handling in meditation. Sati is the foundation for samadhi (unification), sampajañña is the foundation for pañña (wisdom). Sense of ground is generally the necessary starting point. [Instructions end 9:52]

Use the word “yes” to meet whatever is occurring. Without agitation or resistance, without results or trying to change anything. A reference point begins to form, there’s willingness and openness that has its own stature. Use sympathetic resonance with whatever arises.

In meditation practice we need to moderate the meditator. Influenced by the business model, attention can be rigid. Wisdom, which we all have access to, is sensitive and flexible in its mode of attention, helping us find the right touch to meet experience.

1. Is aspiration (not the chanda type) the same as becoming? How can we not make aspiration into bhava tanha (craving for becoming); 2. (12:30) How do we have skillful mindfulness or more effective awareness of sensations? I find my mindfulness is rather superficial; 3. (18:25) How can we abstain from killing living creatures when doing daily duties? For example finding ants in what needs to be swept in the kitchen; 4. (25:22) Is it possible to be aware and work fast at the same time - like in the kitchen? 5. (43:10) Please talk about spiritual by-pass and how to avoid it, especially as it relates to the idea of not self.

The thing to assess is where the dukkha is, the stress, pressure, longing. Find your refuge place. First attend to where your strengths are, where your ease, humour and resources are, and be nourished there. Don’t let yourself get pulled into your struggle until you’re ready for it. Aspiration, recollection and assessment are necessary prologues to direct application. [Instructions end 23:55] [Begins again 59:15] Sensing how it feels to come back into the group form after a period of individual practice. Sharing blessings and receiving them.

“What is greater, the water in the ocean or the tears shed in this faring on?” We cling to the aggregates, tearfully in search of something stable, permanent, comfortable. But it hasn’t happened. However, subjectivity - that which seeks comfort - is itself a source of comfort and stability. It’s called the citta and depends on itself - doesn’t depend on the aggregates. What needs to be undone is not the aggregate but the clinging to it. So we find a way to maintain presence with these aggregates in all their moving and changing. We use embodiment to bring a heft to awareness, to bring a sense of presence.

1. Further comments on spherical experience of the breath and the experience of the body; 2. (19:43) What is the role of metta bhavana in practice?; 3. (47:32) If the body energy and breath have settled should one proactively introduce an object or wait for an object to present itself?; 4. (48:44) Is it important to be grounded all the time? What about the arupa jhāna non-grounded states?; 5. (51:38) Could you say more about the citta?; 6. (51:53) Can you speak about stream entry and how it arises?

A lot of the Buddhist approach is in not doing - relaxing, softening, and relinquishing harmful and unskilful inclinations. Establish a firm foundation from which to let go. Don’t get fascinated by content, just establish the frame of reference. Everything is “yes” in terms of its existence, but “no” in terms of getting activated by it. Just acknowledging and letting go, recognizing there’s an alternative, and the energy of the activation shifts by itself and discharges.

1. Could you say more about the citta? 2. (6:47) I believe you suggested this (the conditions for the citta to understand) is where things have to be undone. Could you explain this please? 3. (31:10) Could you talk about “the patience that crosses over”? 4. (44:00) If you know someone who is very dishonest and a Buddhist, what is the most appropriate way to interact?

In meditation we can be confronted with inertia or pushing hindrances. Recommendation is to use physical enactment of energy - bowing, chanting -so you’re not gliding along but rising up into the occasion. Cultivate with a sense of sappāya, that which is appropriate, comfortable, manageable. Finding a frame of reference that can support moving against hindrances with patience and opening. This must be a fundamental aim in meditation. [Instructions end 12:43]

How is walking when there is nowhere particular to go and you want to know how this whole thing operates together? An encouraged skilful means is aimless walking. Frequent pauses to check energies and perceptions, come back into the feet and legs, how does it feel to be in this body now? [Instructions end 3:38]

What is it that moves us? In the business model, getting things done is generally what drives us. It’s not about appreciation the quality of experience, it’s about arriving at an end result. That root perception gets embedded. The nature of kamma is that the root quality of the intention will appear in the action and also appear in the result. Still the mind, and separate out mental intention from body energy. Mental intention sets up the aim, then let the body follow through with action.