At Harris Park – Mettā meditation guided by Bhante Akāliko; Q + A session with Bhante Sujato on translating "sankhārā" and on conversations with members of other religions
As you review what’s arising and passing for you, establish balance and continue with non-engagement. It’s just the human citta doing what it does. Awareness, firm and focused, lingering – in that you’ll find a quiet happiness.
Keeping the focus of eye consciousness still and soft, aware of the one who sees. This seer doesn’t speak, it just sees. Notice when mind consciousness begins chattering – nothing to talk about, there’s just the seer.
Beginning at the abdomen – the center of the body, the energy center – use a combination of awareness and breathing to open, relax and release areas of the body.
Body’s somatic intelligence is receptive to signals – suggest signals of safety, space, freedom. Settle more deeply into the core stability of the body, where it’s not mediating with internal or external phenomena – restful, like a tree.
With recollection, we drop meanings into the heart and listen. It’s how we come to know experience directly. Recollections of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha help frame up our meditation and cultivation – how to act, what to put aside, what to say no to, what to say yes to, and how to do that in a measured way.
In meditation we’re resetting the dynamic movement of mental and physical energies with open energy. Using body as a guide, resonate the sense of balance and stability throughout. Let mindfulness deepen and maintain a wide-open energy that is receptive.
Deal with the compulsions of becoming by tackling energy in the body. Thoughtful breathing becomes comfortable and soothing. Its rhythm moderates the floods, diffusing stressful energies and psychologies. Heart and body draw close in the enjoyment. From this place of samādhi you can stand back from the most fundamental flood of becoming.
