The heart and mind are susceptible to toxins that drive action and infect intention. In the body we find a trustworthy orientation – a reliable source for knowing how it is now.
Guidance to help the body come into natural harmony. Notice the effects ground, space and breathing in the body. When the body feels safe, the skin boundary loosens and armor comes off.
Our walking is generally to get “there,” which carries with it a certain quality of distress. Instead, try walking without a “there”. Check the mental constructions of destination- including a ‘spiritual’ one - instead pay attention to how the body walks. It’s more peaceful that way!
Take a simple word or theme and bring it into the heart. Holding it, sensing it and asking what’s most meaningful? When you take the word into your heart, what happens?
Dhamma practice is generally marked by a tangle of thoughts. But thought can be used for recollection. Taking words into the heart, we consider what has meaning, what serves as refuge, setting distractions aside.
Trust, faith or confidence is an important quality of mind on our path - enabling us to set out on the path, to engage with the teachings, to keep going even when facing challenges and to open up to the fullness of our experience. What prevents faith and trust and how can it be nurtured and developed?
What are your objectives in life? What are the situations, internal and external, that you find yourself involved in, from moment to moment, and how you can do something about it, to some extent. Small objectives finally come to be seen as not separate from the big picture, our Objective.
Sutta quote: Directed and Undirected Meditation (S 47.10 The Bhikkhuni’s quarter.)
The four main aspects and their respective stuck places are described in psychological terms.
A digression on the nature of dissociation, its uses and dangers and some of its telltale signs in meditators is offered.
When we are stressed, our attention narrows and fixates, often into obsessive thinking, worry and judgment. This meditation relaxes and opens the mind, first by a body scan and a “smile down,” and then by including all changing experience in a spacious awareness. As our attention shifts from mind objects like sensation and sound to the space of awareness itself, we discover the Beingness that is our formless home.
Like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill, we can spend many moments busily trying to manage our life. This two-part talk explores how we can awaken from our non-stop doing, including the incessant inner narrative, and discover the mystery, love and freedom that arises in Being.
