Breathing gets conditioned by how we live our lives – energy can be mottled and unbalanced. It is a signifier of the heart. We can take time during retreat to take samādhi as a way of life, unifying body, heart and mind to bring into fruition the factors of awakening.

Meditation is a time to crystalize the training, to deeply take in and feel the teachings. In these pause moments we take heed, look deeply into the heart, come to know the experience of what stirs it up – clinging, aversion, becoming. We begin to prefer relinquishment, finding it a freer more livable options.

When we remember to empty out all the distraction, all the movement, all the roughness of life, nameless, formless, without identity - we touch the shore of truth as waves touch the shores of the ocean, reaching our true home in the fullness of this moment exactly as it is.

The depth and vitality of a meditation practice depends on our sincerity, and an attitude of curiosity and friendliness. With this as the grounds, our practice will cultivate the clear seeing and openheartedness that expresses our deepest nature. This talk covers basic ingredients in a meditation practice, and includes a half hour of questions and responses.

How is a sense of self constructed? What is the concept of not-self in Buddhist practice? How do we construct identity? This talk explores the traditional model of the five aggregates affected by clinging and explains how clinging occurs in contact with sensory experience. The five aggregates—materiality, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—represent an early Buddhist model for understanding how suffering forms through misperception. Clinging to misperceptions produces a sense of continuity in experience that we conventionally call "I", and a relationship to experience the we conventionally call "mine". This model clarifies the precise objects contemplated in vipassana (insight) meditation practice. This talk explains each aggregate so that insight may liberate the mind from this subtle type of attachment.

Guided Meditation/Instructions and reflection on the hindrances.