Tempel Smith spent a year ordained as a monk in Burma and teaches Buddhist psychology and social activism in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently part of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program.
While we often discover samadhi (whole heartedness) first on retreat, it's finding samadhi in every day life which can give us the greatest joy. How can live with a more whole attention? And joy from within?
Following the talk on the 5 jhana factors and the 5 hindrances from the night before...
We welcome a sense of contentment in our starting conditions, take interest in our breath and remind ourselves it is all we need while meditating. From here, we aim and sustain our attention.
With mindfulness of breathing as a concentration practice we intentionally develop the 5 jhana factors. We also will definitely experience their opposites. - the 5 hindrances. As the 5 jhana factors become stronger we experience fewer hindrances.
Keeping your attention directly at the sense doors lets us cut through our habit of being lost in thought. As mindfulness increases, we can eventually by mindful of thought as it arises.
When we develop the Brahma Viharas, we also develop many beautiful qualities of heart named the Paramis, such as Generosity, Harmlessness and Renunciation.
Taking the most wisdom to access, the Equanimity Brahma Vihara practice gets is strength from a brave willingness to intimately see all truths. If we suspend out preferences for health and happiness, and away from pain and sorrow, we can bring our loving hearts in direct contact with what we see if true. Life is an ever changing and uncontrollable mix of gain and loss, pleasure and pain, and praise and blame. When we can rest in Equanimity Brahma Vihara we can hold all truths at the same time in one space of heart.
We have never met most of the living beings on our planet (and beyond), and many we have met we don’t know all that well. As we expand our loving kindness practice to include all beings we have to consciously learn how to actively care for those we don’t know well. Rather than having the typical challenge of reactivity, this group of beings is hard to love precisely because we don’t know them well. If we have learned to care for a larger group of friends and community members, then this next larger group is more accessible.
How does samadhi--the unification of the heart--develop with metta practice? And how can we use the absorption factors in metta practice to help us develop deeper metta adsorptions?
After learning to develop a kind and patient awareness of our breath and body, we have the basis to begin the traditional Loving Kindness meditation practice of repeating phrases of kindness towards our most easy being for whom we care.
