The power of mindfulness and self knowing frees our hearts and minds of the burden of past conditioning, opening us to a creative process learning and unconditional relaxation
The Buddha offers us a recipe for cultivating a strong and clear mindful attention that's grounded in kindness and patience that meets the experience of the moment and sees it clearly, just as it is. We can learn to experience afflictive emotions without getting caught up or swept away and overcome by them. It's as though we learn to see them so clearly, that we see through them, just like we see through the colors of a rainbow.
Paying attention...a non-judgemental, non-manipulative, non-grasping, non-rejecting, kind of attention to the body in the body...just the body as such...not one's feeling, ideas, concerns, or interpretations about it. How do we know the body? How are we established in this first domain of mindfulness? Are you looking in the right place and in the right way for the happiness that you are seeking?
The five Spiritual Faculties describe the importance of balance as well as explain the process of intensive practice. Faith leads to effort which develops mindfulness, which cultivates concentration which flowers as wisdom.
We focus, in this record of two talks, on the nature of Papanca or “conceptual proliferation” its roots in compulsive craving and aversion, and a number of different ways to work skillfully with Papanca.
To be mindful is oftentimes perceived as a risk because it challenges our habits. By taking the risk of being present with all things, we move from the known to the unknown.
