Question and Response from Retreat ~ After morning meditation, Tara responds to questions on deepening our meditation practice, working with unpleasant and pleasant thoughts, and forgiveness from the IMCW 2016 Spring Residential Retreat.
From the “Wasteland” of samsara, (which is generated by ignorance and craving), a natural arising of spiritual strength can occur – if we ‘touch the ground’ of truth and empathy.
Standing can put us in touch with somatic intelligence as: balance, as cohesion. Gradually the felt sense of body re-forms as a mid-line central stillness and as peripheral sensitivities and openness.
Devotional practice works through including us in bodily, verbal, and heartful actions. Words and concepts are secondary to images and romances. Images of Buddha hands carry deep meaning.
Awareness is often beset with thoughts, emotions, and narratives that cause a ‘jump’ into conceptual proliferation. With unconditional acceptance we hold awareness as a non-reactive ‘pool’ that receives and resonates with mind-stuff but doesn’t react.
Shifting our relationship with fear is central to the evolution of consciousness. Our suffering arises when our thoughts, feelings and sense of identity are shaped by fear. As we learn to attend to fear with mindfulness and care, we discover the vast tender presence that has room for the waves, and can fully cherish this life.
Life’s waters flow from darkness. Search the darkness, don’t run from it.
Night travelers are full of light, and you are too: don’t leave this companionship…
The moon appears for night travelers, be watchful when the moon is full.
- rumi
Citta is occluded by not knowing its freedom. Citta enters the sensory condition, is ‘born’, develops a person to meet ‘the other’. Here is dukkha and personal responses to that don’t work, but dukkha can be released through citta in the body.
Balance is an important aspect of bodily/somatic intelligence. It is alert, free from pressure and sensitive. Attuning to this can bring these qualities into citta.
