Lama Rod Owens is the guest teacher for this evening. Members of POC Sangha and Insight Out LGBTQI Sangha are invited to attend. The usual 5/22 Insight Out meeting is cancelled.
This sitting group provides instruction in insight meditation and fosters mutual support and understanding among the growing community of people of color who find nourishment and inspiration in the practice of meditation.
The balance required in standing supports an uncontracted body. Lengthening, widening and deepening the somatic field, discordant energies, which may manifest as troubled moods, thoughts or impressions, can be ventilated and released.
There are 3 kinds of wisdom: discernment, skillful means and realization. Walking meditation and appropriate mindfulness are skillful means for cultivation. Together they bring around a stewarding akin to that of the sheepdog that moves within the flock, not outside it. This results in the deep harmony of samādhi.
A guided meditation through the Ānāpānasati sutta. Establishing a comfortable, upright posture, incline awareness toward direct experience of the body. Sustain appropriate mindfulness and citta will sensitize to the qualities we call 'body’. This exercise resets the mind, which is then gladdened, steadied and cleared so that insight can develop.
An important theme in mind cultivation is to relieve pressure – mental, emotional, physical. This is done through moderating the quality of ground and space. When these are sensed through the body, citta picks up their signs and relaxes its own pressure.
Sensing the space beyond the skin boundary, and the space felt ‘within’ the body. The two can blend. In this way, they facilitate our experience of breathing.
