We know there is a need for letting go when we experience suffering, but how do we do it? When we find that we can't let go just because we want to, we need to know how to put in the causes and conditions so the practice ripens in letting go.
Our experience may not match what we've read in the suttas or heard teachers describe. The encouragement here is to use the teachings as guideposts and learn for ourselves what works and what doesn't.
Turn away from the measuring mind to track how experience is, and the arising and passing of stress. In this way, we engage with the ‘noble pleasure’ that leads to samadhi.
Exploring the training to refrain from misusing intoxicants and broadening it to investigate other aspects of our lives where there can be a more compulsive or addictive relationship, for example in how we relate to our phones and technology
How do we change the habits that continually bring us suffering? This is a reflection based on SN 3.13 "A Bucket of Rice" and a personal experience providing some ideas on how to let go of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair, anger, resentment, righteous indignation, and so on that keep us bound up in suffering, pointing to Nibbāna here and now.
How can we stop our habit of reinforcing the first two fetters: personality view and cultural and social conditioning that bring us suffering and keep us in ignorance?
Short Reflection & Guided Meditation including an Earth Prayer by Ralph Metzner | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene III | Online Wednesday-Mornings
There comes a point when we don't need more information, we just need to practice and to come to the practice with a willingness to work our way through whatever challenges arise. This includes the doubt that we can awaken, that we can do it. In the story of Culapanthaka, a monk who seemed unlikely to absorb the Buddha's teachings, awakens. It is a reminder that we can, too.
