Using images, stories and quotes from teachers and spiritual leaders, this talk explores the practice of equanimity, discussing the topics of dependent conditions, working with challenges to equanimity, and offering equanimity practice techniques.
Exploring how metta cheers us, how a cheerful heart calms and relaxes us; and how a calm, relaxed state ushers in more understanding and so, more metta.
The flag of trance is identifying as a separate, deficient self. This talk explores how developmentally we can get fixated on fears and unmet needs and cut off from the wholeness of Being that is our true nature. We explore the power of mindfulness --seeking not to change but to understand--and the expression of that understanding as love. The talk includes guided reflections that can help us recognize and awaken from the confines of trance.
In this second talk of the retreat, we explore further the spirit of metta, through teachings and stories, focusing as well on the themes of metta as a concentration practice, as opening a process of purification, and, as it matures, as increasingly embodied and wise.
Mindfulness of the body gave us stability of focus and mindfulness of feelings gave us the mechanism for how we project ourselves onto the world. Now we are sufficiently prepared to look at the mind itself.
The "Introduction to Metta" talk positions metta as the particular form of mindfulness that reflects the third foundation of mindfulness, attention to the contents of mind. It also is presented as the practice that follows the Buddha's instructions for Wise Effort, the purposeful cultivation in the mind of wholesome states.
How do we bring a loving presence to all of our experience- especially to our humanness, failed intentions. Cultivating mindfulness & kindness with our own experience becomes the template for living a wise life.
The Buddha showed us the way out of our human predicament of living life as if we were on a wheel in a hamster's cage. The first three Noble Truths are explored to reveal a profound liberation.
This talk invites a contemplation of three archetypal domains of spiritual awakening: Buddha-awareness, Dharma- truth (the way things are), and Sangha-loving relatedness. We explore our habit of turning toward false refuges, and the way we can find refuge in that which truely heals our hearts and frees our mind. The evening ends with a living ritual of dedicating ourselves to each of these three gateways to awakening.
To deeply realize that we are inextricably a part of a vast web of life, we are invited to open to a deeper inner connection, and to recognize that we are not different to all that is around us.
