What is mindfulness; What is investigation; Unusual images arising in meditation; Death and afterlife; How to deal with vulnerability of heart?

Clearance and renewal is a heart process. It entails meeting emotional material where it begins, with an energetic resonance. Body receives and moderates the energy, clearing the way for fundamental heart qualities to meet phenomena.

Take advantage of being in this natural realm. Move around very slowly and relate to everything from the heart. Notice the felt sense that is evoked, how nature touches and speaks to you. Nature reflects back aspects of your own heart.

The essence of meditation is engaged receptivity. This is the skill of pausing for a minute and witnessing the flow of dhammas. It becomes fully established by strong mindfulness, so that ‘full knowing’ (sampajañña) gives the view of the causal web: that dhammas arise from causes and are not self.

This Path often leads into unknowns, disorientation, places where things don’t fit our normal ways. Meeting these places with strategies doesn’t work, but good qualities of heart leads into a quiet, joyful openness. This supports faith.

As phenomena arise, align understanding to direct experience. Clear away inferences such as time and the notion of the body. All phenomena arise within awareness. Extend awareness through breathing. Pervade the body with tonalities of goodwill rather than of ill-will or no will.

Being comes before doing. Openness needs the protection of Refuge, not the defensiveness of ill-will. Renewal is not a case of planning or trying something new, but of stopping the re-creating of the old self. Citta then renews by itself.