Over time we experience of the limitations of body and mind. What we rely on doesn’t actually work. Life is a failure, but we can make it a glorious failure. The practice of Dhamma-Vinaya helps keep the spirit bright and impeccable in what we do. Dhamma means to establish ethical clarity, mindfulness, lovingkindness; Vinaya is bringing these ideals and aspirations forth into a living context.
There is no need to be afraid of our personality....embracing all the condtions of our experience brings us to deeper levels of understanding. By recognizing times of deep contentment in ourselves, we plant a cellular memory of happiness that allows us to more easily find a natural resting place for the mind.
How do we express ourselves authentically, without falling into the extremes of indulgence and repression, where our ego is out of control, where we withdraw, hide behind our Buddhist practice, and lose touch with our vitality and our awakeness?
What is your experience like when you feel safe enough to open your heart? When we pay attention directly and we are not rejecting our experience, we can explore the quality of love in three centres of Being - head, heart and belly.
Shrouded in the cloud of ignorance, we believe that suffering will never happen to us. But when we emerge from that fog into a radical simplicity of heart, suffering becomes our teacher. Our eyes are opened thanks to Right View and direct experience of the Four Noble Truths. At last we transcend the tyranny of fear.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
Mindfulness illuminates our present experience and allows for the qualities of openness, curiousity, interest and trust to arise as we explore what it means to be awake to our experience, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant.
