Developing awareness of Vedana or Feeling Tone, that each moment has a valence of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Guided meditation on this theme and the habitual reactivity that accompanies each.
This talk introduces formal instructions for metta practice in the traditional form of phrases and categories. After sharing about the spirit and principles behind the practice, we engage in a guided meditation first receiving metta from a benefactor, then offering metta to a benefactor, and finally offering metta to oneself.
After guidance in developing concentration and mindfulness, we practice in silence. Then there is guidance related to mindfulness of the feeling-tone (the Second Foundation of Mindfulness), particularly the pleasant or the unpleasant (and whether there is reactivity, grasping after the pleasant and pushing away in some way the unpleasant), related to the theme of the talk given after the meditation.
Instructions and guided practice on meditating with strong emotions - light RAIN with somatic experiencing using orienting, titrating, and pendulating.
We expand or awareness of our interconnectedness as humans when we practice Metta for both the "Neutral Person" and the "Difficult Person". Sometimes the Difficult Person can be ourselves. The end of this Guided Practice offers a compassion practice for oneself.
