How to reach jhana; how to know if I’m meditating; feeling warm during meditation; elaborate on channeling breath out of solar plexus; meditation on death; emotions and feeling that arise in meditation – why and what to do with them; doubt; meditation practice vs. study of suttas
We explore through reflection and a ritual, the process of renewal - stopping, opening to both the difficult and the beautiful, letting go and setting intentions.
Liberation requires clearing citta of its contracted state. We can learn to care for our citta, to know what lifts and steadies it to bring it out of contraction. In meditation we try to concentrate and feel even more constricted. Opening up the body and accessing the vitality that comes from mindfulness of breathing can have a calming effect.
Meditation is not a set of techniques; it is authentic, direct access to your inner heart/felt subjective experiences. Many times what’s found there is dukkha. Much of it can be resolved just by developing the inner body and clearing the hindrances.
Bear this in mind when meditating. With unpleasant or painful mental feeling, the tendency is to contract. Try opening up instead. It stops the cycle of agitation and resistance that keeps the pain there. Use the body to do this, as a source of strength and energy to stop the mind spinning out into story. In order to withdraw and stand back, we must have a place to stand back into. That’s what the body is for.
This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others.
The practice of recollection involves picking up a particular line of thought that triggers a particular mood or realization. Just saying ‘stop thinking’ or ‘don’t worry’ won’t work to calm and steady the mind. Those are commands. Through recollection the mind can find a degree of stability and comfort, providing refuge under unpleasant and uncomfortable conditions.
Viveka, stepping back, is about adjusting attention and energizing in a different way. Morning chanting, for example, is a beautiful way to bring up energy. It’s not about doing or making something happen. Rather, it’s very much towards stillness. Most cittas will benefit from the inner stability of the body, where the nervous system is awake but not firing, stirring, agitated.
An essential element of mindfulness practice is to cultivate a willingness to be with our experience just as it is. Consciously cultivating qualities of deep-rooted acceptance, kindness, and interest in our experience supports freeing our minds and opening our hearts.
In this guided offering, we explore Metta as a technology — a software upgrade we put into the hardwiring of our conditioning that requires a learning curve AKA practice.
How does renunciation naturally arise? It is a conditioned phenomena like everything else and will naturally arise when the conditions are supportive. What are those conditions and how to bring them about - is the theme of this talk.
This solstice talk explores two pathways to realizing the Secret Beauty that is our essence. One is through the compassion that arises when we stay with vulnerability and suffering, and the other is through love that arises as we learn to see the goodness that shines through all beings.
After a brie account of the nature and centrality of "insight" in our practice, we focus on one core area of insight-studying and practicing with dukkha, interpreted as reactivity. Ten ways of such study and practice with reactivity are offered, leading to a deepening of non-reactivity.
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.
