This is the epitome of the Buddha's practice. As we practise abandoning our holding on to anything, we can learn how this 'need to hold' is a normal but subversive aspect of our experience.

Questions are précised and read into the file.This text is shortened further. 00.51 Q1 You said we create an imaginary world for our imaginary selves. Some people believe in the power of visualization where we can imagine a better world or a better self. 03.05 Q2 Please distinguish consciousness, the mind and the brain. 05.57 Q3 You use the word heart, but you don't use the word brain. 12.36 Q4 If there's no distinction between you and I, is there just a oneness? 13.00 Q5 Is the citta permanent? 14.13 Q6 A friend said her response to a car alarm was the same as her response to bird song. Where is the place for beauty in this? 15.29 Q7 In walking meditation, do we feel the movement and sense what your mind is doing with that experience? 21.28 Q8 Some thought patterns seem like some kind of karmic knot. They're not comfortable and yet I keep going into them. 25.08 Q9 What can I offer my dying friend to support balance for them? 32.20 Q10 Can thoughts just arise randomly? 37.02 Q11 If someone cheats us, do we just forgive them and move on? 41.18 Q12 I find that many of my interactions, conversations and what I do to work seem to be just abstractions and distractions. My desire to live more in dhamma makes me avoid people without this interest. 46.58 Q13 Do thoughts always arise from feelings? 50.03 Q14 What is time as an experience? 01.00.57 Q15 Where does collective consciousness fit into this? 01.03.09 Q16 How can we plan for the future and avoid the pitfalls of 'becoming'? 01.04.52 Q17 How to use Buddhist practice to deal with trauma and serious anxiety? 01.10.10 Q18 Is the teaching of no satisfaction /suffering more than 'there's no permanent satisfaction'? 01.13.34 Q19 It seems like the more I examine my own suffering, the more compassion I have for other people.

Finding balance means bringing our life-energies - thinking, emotions and embodied presence – into an even balance.

Mental balance is extremely precarious given the world of pushing and pulling that we live in. Finding and stabilizing presence in the eye of this hurricane can take time, but it's possible.

Reflecting on the retreat title - ‘A joyful liberation’ - Martin looks at nuances of joy, and at that which is liberating, pointing beyond our formal meditation practices, into the wider realms of an integrative dharma practice with its personal, social and ecological dimensions.