A short talk introducing a new theme for the start of the new year The Way to Freedom: what hinders, and what helps Each week we'll be looking at some of the common obstacles that cause stress, distress and suffering in our lives, and what we can do to support experiencing more ease, happiness and peace, instead Focusing on what freedom means to each of us with a written contemplation, then looking briefly at the three core afflictive energies of greed or compulsion, hatred or aversion,, and ignorance or delusion

Continuing to explore freedom in the context of the Buddha's teachings, how mindfulness supports it, and some ways to maintain mindfulness in everyday life

Looking at the social aspects of craving: desire to be seen or to be invisible, for example, and the common phenomenon of comparing mind or mana

Looking at some classical definitions of Nibbāna, then relational practice exploring how you taste or touch freedom in your own life

Beginning with mindfulness of breathing and bodily sensations, then opening to the experience of hearing

An introduction to practising with the Second Establishment of Mindfulness, mindfulness of feeling-tone or vedanā

Bringing mindfulness to pleasant, neutral then unpleasant feeling-tones in relation to seeing, hearing, and physical sensations

Based on some teaching by Gil Fronsdal, looking at the role of feeling-tone in driving reactivity, when there's no mindfulness

Bringing mindfulness to thoughts and emotions (Note: the first five minutes of the meditation with instructions for settling into the body sitting and breathing, were not recorded)

What haunts you, and what helps you face fear?

How might we respond to the results of the 2024 US election?

Looking at the common tendency to turn regular practice into a duty or chore, and the importance of appreciating the benefits that come from meditation using the criteria of the ten pāramī ie generosity, ethical integrity, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve and determination, mettā and equanimity

Looking at the conditioning that can get in the way of opening to pleasant experiences, using the framework of the three core personality types: greed, aversive and delusion

Looking at two common reactions to pleasant sense-based experiences: clinging or anxiety; and the Buddha's crucial distinction between sense-based pleasures, which tend to reinforce clinging, and the mental pleasure that comes from cultivating skilful mind-states