Trust, faith or confidence is an important quality of mind on our path - enabling us to set out on the path, to engage with the teachings, to keep going even when facing challenges and to open up to the fullness of our experience. What prevents faith and trust and how can it be nurtured and developed?
What are your objectives in life? What are the situations, internal and external, that you find yourself involved in, from moment to moment, and how you can do something about it, to some extent. Small objectives finally come to be seen as not separate from the big picture, our Objective.
Sutta quote: Directed and Undirected Meditation (S 47.10 The Bhikkhuni’s quarter.)
The four main aspects and their respective stuck places are described in psychological terms.
A digression on the nature of dissociation, its uses and dangers and some of its telltale signs in meditators is offered.
When we are stressed, our attention narrows and fixates, often into obsessive thinking, worry and judgment. This meditation relaxes and opens the mind, first by a body scan and a “smile down,” and then by including all changing experience in a spacious awareness. As our attention shifts from mind objects like sensation and sound to the space of awareness itself, we discover the Beingness that is our formless home.
Like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill, we can spend many moments busily trying to manage our life. This two-part talk explores how we can awaken from our non-stop doing, including the incessant inner narrative, and discover the mystery, love and freedom that arises in Being.
