This is the fifth talk in a 5-part speaker series titled "Balanced Practice." Richard Shankman begins by exploring the nature of the liberation and awakening pointed to by the Buddha, and then examines how meditation supports us on that path.
While the brightness and warmth of our hearts is always here, like the sun when blocked by clouds, our intrinsic love can be obscured. These two talks explore how we become arrested in a confining story of separate self, and how remembering love releases us from this trance. The first talk emphasizes inner pathways of freeing our heart and the second talk explores awakening bodhichitta actively in relating with each other.
This talk explores the second foundation of mindfulness, the feeling tone (vedana -- pleasant, unpleasant, neither pleasant nor unpleasant) and the teachings in the Sallatha Sutta (SN 36.6) on the second arrow.
