This talk explores the Naturally Arising Practice Method (see dharmaground.org/teachings), which emphasizes softening into direct experience rather than forcing the mind. By establishing supportive conditions and maintaining curiosity, participants can learn to ground themselves in their own capacity for knowing, allowing insight and clarity to unfold more effortlessly.
An exploration of samādhi as a gathering of body, heart, and mind into wholeness. The talk considers how mindfulness, contentment, joy, and letting go support this natural settling, and how the steadiness and clarity of samādhi provide a foundation for insight and deeper freedom.
Continuing with the body and breath, these instructions explore how to recognize subtle qualities of quiet joy and pleasantness in the body and allow them to become a support for practice. Calming and quiet joy can nourish one another, deepening ease and steadiness in both sitting and walking meditation.
Using SN 28.1 "Born of Seclusion" as a basis, we can come to understand what "ultimate goodness" is: the end of "eradicated I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit."
