Review

Afternoon Dharma Reflection

On the occasion of the publication of her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind, Shaila Catherine shares a progressive series of strategies to overcome the hindrances of restlessness, obsessive thinking, and rumination; dispel thoughts of anger, hatred, and anxiety; and curb habitual distractions. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators can calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, comprehend the nature of the mind, experience emptiness, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.

In this guided meditation, Shaila Catherine introduces a progressive series of strategies to overcome restlessness, obsessive thinking, rumination, and habitual obstacles and hindrances. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) n the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.

What are you committed to? Where is your path leading? This talk uses the Simile of the Heartwood to reflect upon various attainments and corruptions of insight that can occur through the practice. Minor attainments can support our path, but they may also become attachments if we become enchanted with them, allow them to stall our progress, or if we become negligent. We can nurture a deep aspiration without falling into traps of self-doubt, conceit, envy, or discouragement. We can aim for the ultimate goal, the liberating potential, of this path.

We first explore further the "three ways of seeing that free" (examining the "three characteristics" of phenomena), with particular emphasis on a practically-based overview of anatta (not-self). We then see how samadhi practice and insight practice develop, as they progress, toward a third mode of practice--opening to "awakened awareness" or "radiant mind." We look at the nature of awakened awareness, and point to several practical methods of accessing awakened awareness.