Drawing on Bhikkhu Anālayo's scholarship on the Ānāpānasati Sutta, this talk explores the second tetrad of mindfulness of breathing: the four steps in which joy, happiness, and the subtler mental formations become doorways into deep practice. We look at why pleasure, met clearly, has always belonged on the path, and how the Buddha's own early memory of ease under a rose-apple tree pointed him toward awakening long before any formal practice did. Along the way we'll draw on the words of contemporary BIPOC and queer dharma teachers on what it means to actually receive joy in the body, and explore practical instructions for steeping in wholesome pleasure and calming it without losing it.

A main way to understand generally our practice is by seeing it as combining (1) avoiding “unskillful” or “unwholesome” actions and states of mind (and knowing how to practice when they arise), and (2) developing skillful or wholesome qualities. We explore different aspects of this way of seeing our practice: Understanding its relationship to the teaching on wise effort; seeing the core unskillful quality as reactivity (dukkha) in its two forms as grasping after the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant, each in myriad ways; and developing positive qualities like concentration, mindfulness, kindness and compassion, generosity and the other paramis, and the Seven Factors of Awakening. We examine some of the complexities of practicing with reactivity, with a main one being that reactivity is often enmeshed with discernment; I can be judgmental and caught in reactivity, for example, as an activist who sees injustice clearly, with discernment. This calls therefore for transforming the reactivity, so we can make use of the discernment skillfully. We also look into some examples of both forms of practice, both in meditation and in the flow of daily life. The talk is followed by discussion.

We begin with a brief introduction to the theme of this evening’s talk on the foundations of our practice—avoiding “unskillful” or “unwholesome” actions and states of mind (and knowing how to practice when they arise), on the one hand, and developing skillful or wholesome qualities, on the other. There is then a guided practice, linked with the talk theme, focused on developing (1) concentration (samadhi), (2) mindfulness (sati), and (3) awareness of reactivity, developed in part by noticing how we relate to what is moderately pleasant or unpleasant.

The instructions supports the mind to incline towards ease with breathing and wholehearted attention

Instructions point to the importance of inviting a attitude of friendliness and patience in mindfulness of a breathing practice

We explore the nature of doing and not-doing, both in meditation and more generally. We begin with emphasizing the importance for the Buddha of diligence, skillful effort (one of the factors of the Eightfold Path), and doing. Yet there also is a clear place for what we can call “not-doing,” for example, in cultivating mindful receptivity to experience. We examine as well how being a “doer” is so central to many of our identities, whether in our roles or work or even in our meditation. We also look to how we often experience a kind of not-doing in everyday life in “flow” experiences in different aspects of life. Finally, we show how accessing the depths of human experience commonly requires a profound not-doing, as we find brought out, for example, in Taoism, some of the Buddha’s teachings, and Tibetan Mahamudra and Dzogchen. The talk is followed by discussion.

In the context of the basic instructions on developing first concentration (samadhi) and then mindfulness, we interweave guidance on emphasizing doing, or more active effort, and not-doing, including through opening more receptively, and some other short practices.

Pleasant, unpleasant, neither; exploring the second foundation of mindfulness; satipatthana

In this talk, on day 3 of the retreat, Gullu discusses expanding the frame of awareness from just the anchor to include more and more experience, especially thoughts and emotions.