The breath is like a mirror for the mind. When there’s greed, anger, delusion, they’ll show up in the breath. And you find that not only does the breath reflect the mind, but you can use the breath to have a positive effect on the mind as well.
When the breath in the body is full, you find that it’s really resilient and eases your burdens in lots of ways. So experiment to see what a “full breath” is.
The mind is like an animal: that if it hasn’t been trained it’s difficult to live with. Once we train it, though, it stops creating so much suffering for itself. So we begin by staying in one place with something really simple: the breath.
Aging, illness and death have been called treasures for those who understand them. For in facing their issues and learning how to die we are in fact learning how to live.
(PERSONAL CAT) Paying attention to volitional formations and consciousness helps us to understand the selfless nature of this body mind process. Ends with a short guided meditation.
Each of the Buddha's Suttas is about our lives. How do we test these teachings to see if they are beneficial or not? Some examples from the Anapanasati Sutta are given.
(PERSONAL CAT) We name, label and categorize experience through the process of perception. These perceptions are conditioned & therefore can be distorted. Learning to let perception do it's function & not to identify with it.
This talk continues the exploration of how the practice cultivates happiness and joy. Topics include mindfulness as appreciation, wonder, gratitude, bliss of blamelessness, letting go, mudita, friendship and liberation.
The Buddha valued "gladness connected with wholesome states." This is the first of two talks on the importance of inclining the mind toward happiness and joy as well as how to do it.
(PERSONAL CAT) Paying attention to the pleasant, unpleasant or neutral aspect of experience brings us right into experience before we react through likes & dislikes. This helps us to break the cycle of becoming.
Compassion is an attitude of facing reality with a noble heart, “noble” in two ways: 1. It is courageous and tender at the same time. 2. It is a heart that is able to open to the First Noble Truth.
Dharma practice has two functions: First it makes us healthy, then it makes us free. The talk explores both these phases, as well as their accompanying attitudes, and explores the process of healing in relation to fear.
(PERSONAL CAT ONLY)Continues the introduction to the aspects of experience that we so often cling to and moves more specifically into the material form.
This tape explores an introduction to the different ways that we solidify around our experience that creates the "I, me and mine" that is so painful. It ends with a guided meditation to aid this in being an experiential understanding.
Approaching anger skillfully, both by developing a proper understanding of it and by using the many tools that can be used to keep the mind from being overcome by it.
