Several body meditations including death

Encountering aging, illness, and death have the power to awaken us out of the sleepy trance of our daily routines. How this happened for the Buddha and how it can happen for us are explored in the first of two talks.

How the teachings and practices of insight meditation (mindfulness) help us navigate the stormy seas of old age, sickness, and death.

We are bound by our biology, and our health, longevity and death are largely out of our control. This talk explores the way our biology impacts us, including the influences of the sex drive, the survival drive and the social drive. Martin looks at how we can explore and understand our biology in such a way as to inhabit it freely.

Kittisaro reflects on his father and his death. The ending of greed, hatred and delusion is nibbana. An analogy from the Shurangama Sutra. Entering the living silence.

Kittisaro reflects on his father's life, as his father approaches death. Seeing and working through the force of greed, hatred and delusion.

The practice of renunciation. Leaving behind & going forth. Contemplation of death. Tolerating uncertainty. Entering the flow of Life as an act of trust. The Great Earth & times of radical shift. Grace. Wisdom of the KoiSan People

Finding a place to rest; preparing a nest to allow the citta to settle with the body; breathing through the body; releasing the past, cleaning the house; mindfulness of death; forgiveness of oneself and others

Our capacity to live and love fully is entirely related to how we open to the truth of impermanence. This talk examines how our ways of trying to control life solidify our perception of being separate and threatened. We then look at the wings of mindful presence and compassion that open us to loss and grief, and reveal the loving awareness that is beyond birth and death.

Introduction to a day on preparing for death.

This talk was given as a part of the series "Enhancing Mindfulness Skills: A Seven-Week Series Dedicated to Cultivating Transformative Insight." This talk focuses on "Four Elements." It is a traditional practice of mindfulness of the body. In ancient India, the materiality of the body was thought to be composed of four elements—earth, fire, wind and water. These four elements, in turn, have twelve characteristics—(earth) heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness; (fire) heat and coolness; (wind) pushing and supporting; (water) fluidity and cohesion. All of these characteristics can be known with our mind and in our body. Discerning the characteristics of material elements will lead to a profound contemplation of impermanence and death. Seeing the impermanence of the body, we know we cannot control it. The body is not-self, it is not possessable, not I, and not eternally me. Understanding the impermanence of material elements and this body composed of elements, we learn to let go. This talk concludes with a guided meditation of body scans, with emphasis on the four elements and their respective characteristics.

This talk was given as a part of the series "Enhancing Mindfulness Skills: A Seven-Week Series Dedicated to Cultivating Transformative Insight." How do we approach the breath? The breath can be used in a variety of ways to enhance mindfulness and to cultivate the insight into impermanence. Observing the breath calms the mind and allows us to tune into present moment experience. By observing the changes in breathing we can assess our feelings, emotions, and moods. Realizing the impermanent, conditioned, changing nature of the breath supports a skillful and powerful recollection of death. Let this contemplation of death be poignant enough to stir a sense of urgency. Reflect on what is really important in life.

The Buddha's advise on death

Maranasati , Mindfulness of Death, reveals the potential for awakening as we live our life and open to the normalcy of death.

Turn to the deathless. Conceptualization and beyond. Your authentic sound.

In this discourse Sariputta gives a teaching to Anathapindika, the greatest patron of the sangha, on his deathbed regarding not clinging to the body or mind as a doorway to liberation.

Just returned from a month of retreat practice, i offer various reflections on retreat theme, including impermanence and death, working with inner guidance, and taking all experiences in a learning context, and on core practices, (concentration, insight, metta, and open spacious awareness), ending with a brief song.

We continue the Sutta series exploring the Vacchagotta suttas from the Majjhima Nikaya. Vacchagotta asks many questions of the Buddha. In a series of conversations, the Buddha expounds to Vacchagotta on such topics as whether or not he's omniscient, on various speculative views about what happens after death and if nuns and householders can be enlightened.

D : Definitely E : Equality A : Afraid T : Time H : How

It is transforming to simply pause, sense and listen instead of immediately filling up the space. When we become sensitive and attuned to the neutral tone in life it can become an entry to the stillness of the ground of being. With the help of poetry and stories, unfabricated silence and the power of not knowing is invited into the practice space. An invitation to shift our weight, more profoundly than the mind can imagine, to the unfabricated, the unconditioned, the deathless.

Birth and aging inevitably lead to dying and death. The Buddha suggests this pattern can be broken by waking up to the sequencing of Dependent Origination. We cannot prevent the body from dying but we can opt out from the paradigm in which "I" die along with it. When we live encased within the idea of "me," with the "me" as real as the physical form we embody, then as the body ages we will fear our death. Interestingly enough, by eliminating everything that lives within the cycle of birth and death, we find our way out of death. Investigating what remains after death or what cannot be born or age can begin to move us away from dependency on form. We cannot rest our answer on the visible world because all we see will be taken away. If _what_ we see dies, perhaps the invisible _seeing_ itself holds the deathless. What is it that sees out of our eyes? Again, not what we see, but the seeing or awareness itself. Awareness gives us the capacity to see, but awareness cannot be seen. Though awareness cannot be seen, it can be intimated through a felt-sense of the body.

As we move from birth to aging, the sense-of-self is dragged along in time, and we begin to notice the effects of memory and accumulated experiences on consciousness. Aging can create a burdened and heavy toll, but when used correctly this maturation process can culminate in wisdom and help us understand Dependent Origination. Maturation brings perspective and when coupled with dharma practice, it reveals the limitations and struggles inherent in our desires and aversions and begins to free us from many of our youthful oppressive states of mind. It can also slowly season our intention toward moving into the here and now. But aging can also be a time of great protest and bitterness. Our life did not turn out the way we wanted, and we now see only death in front of us. We must close this bitterness gap quickly, or it will define our later years. If bitterness arises, ask, "In the present what is left unfulfilled? What is left to do? In the present, how has the past betrayed me?" Our bitterness cannot enter the present, because the present sees the past and future as thoughts arising in the present. Here then is the final step of our maturation. Do we want to carry ourselves through time and arrive at our death with all the scar tissue time gives us, or do we want to enter the timeless present and leave ourselves behind?

Chanting of: Invitation to the Devas; Karaniya Metta Sutta - followed by sitting meditation. Period ends with short chant in Pali - impermanence and death reflection.

This talk explores the five aggregates as a way to understand the Buddha's teaching on anatta or not-self. This insight helps us gain a small glimpse into the mystery of death.

Martin explores the indivisible nature of life, the mystery of an existence that is constantly slipping away from us, and love as the true heart's response to the inevitability of death. This talk stands alone, yet also builds on the themes of the previous two teachings from the same retreat.

The quality of equanimity is a significant factor in coming to terms with impermanence and its manifestations: agin, illness and death. Learning to find balance with regard to the reality of change is explored

Marana Sati, Mindfulness of life and death, is an inherent aspect of Buddhist teachings and practice. Both life and death are doorways to awakening.

Tara interviews Frank Ostaseski, founder of Zen Hospice, on a contemplative approach to death and dying.

Love for self and other as a door to the Deathless.

The Five Reflections from the Upajjatthana Sutra are: 1 - I am subject to old age, 2 - I am subject to illness, 3- I am subject to death, 4 - I must be parted and separated from everyone and everything dear and agreeable to me, 5 - I am the owner of my karma and the heir of my karma.

How come we forget about impermanence or try to deny the reality of change, aging and death. What happens when we turn toward this fact - so it supports life, freedom and well being and we use it as a inspiration to practice and experience the preciousness of the moment

Sariputta's instruction "Turn you mind to the deathless". Relinquishment of acquisitions. Shurangama (durable) samadhi.

Some reflections on how awareness of the transience of our life helps us to appreciate its preciousness and clarify our priorities.

The practice of being present can deepen our capacity for compassion - even in life and death situations.

End of creation - methods into realization of the deathless

Initiation, Forgiveness & the Timeless Realm

Buddha's Birth, Death, and Enlightenment day -- Full moon May 6th, 2012 Shakti Vihara