Confidence is crucial for any undertaking, also for our spiritual journey. Our confidence in the teaching, the actual practice, and in our ability to do the practice grow and deepen as we move along the way.
We entered retreat as “personal packages” that unfolded into a collective field of Dhamma. This field has immense capacity to hold wholesome potencies beyond the world of space and time. We can continue to enrich and access this field after leaving the retreat form as support for our ongoing Dhamma practice.
Imagining there is only an hour left to live, recollect what has been meaningful and of value. The word just acts as the suitcase, then we have to open it and get a feeling for it in the heart and body.
Through understanding the nature of thoughts, we come to understand the nature of the mind. Thoughts are not to be feared or condemned but to be closely looked at and mindfully observed.
Why did you become a monk; the place of women in this lineage; relational snags; strengthening pāramīs; what survives death; stream entry; identifying is another word for clinging; responses to the group process exercises
Instructions for restraining the human tendency to dominate. Learning to set up the right relationship and allow experience to speak for itself. Only after the truth is spoken can there be silence.
Getting a sense of the tones that arise in the body. Don’t act immediately, awareness is open and non-intrusive. Noticing the tendencies towards favoring and opposing.
When we see our shared humanity and understand that we all seek happiness and do not want suffering, the heart’s response is naturally one of kindness and friendliness.
One thing to keep in mind about wilderness training: you’re never ready, but that’s how you cultivate pāramīs. Stay in touch with your Dhamma field and you’ll always be ready to meet the uncomfortable.
Through pūjā we take refuge not in a world of time and structure but in what the mind knows. We take refuge in knowing the heart can open to suffering.
