There is a style of mindfulness practice where we lightly attending a central, familiar anchor of attention, such as the breath or scanning the body, and then intentionally choose to watch our minds move through its habits and its nature. In this style of mindfulness practice we can watch our attention move through our six sense doors of stimulation. With this style of meditation we can directly see the dharma nature of our mind. With this style of practice we have to be careful we not lose attentiveness, which can be a shadow side of choiceless attention. We want to keep learning and discovering the dharma, and not space out into half committed mindfulness.

An incredibly important aspect of mindfulness is to direct attention to "vedana" which is the tone of every moment which is either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This one tone of conscious experience is at the very root of all suffering and therefore all liberation from suffering.

5 mins for chanting refuges and precepts, then a careful guided meditation on mindfulness of thought. We create a base of being mindful with the breath and body to allow us some perspective on thought as a direct stream of phenomena.

Spirit Rock has blessed lineages from both Ven. Ajahn Cha and Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. From our deep connection to these traditional lineages, we can see at least three different kinds of Nibbana: 1. Nibbana for Everyone; 2. Dealthless Awareness; and 3. Complete Zero. As a maturing community of western Insight practitioners rooted in several lineages, we have the benefit of many styles of practice and Buddhist understandings. We also have the challenge of there being so many practices, and experience to where they lead. Here in this talk we explore three common understandings of Nibbana and how the various traditions guide us to them.

In the Pali Canon the process of awakening typically passes through four stages of awakening: Stream Entry, Once Returner, Non Returner, and Arhat. For lay people in the west the two most important are experiential Stream Entry and the aspiration of the full awakening of an Arhat. These four stages are most clearly laid out as the breaking of the 10 fetters.

With a wise expectation of the three kinds of vedanā, we steady our mindfulness to intimately connect with unpleasantness, pleasantness, and neutral experiences. This is the first step with vedanā. The second is to cool off the old habits of reactivity , and the third is seeing vedanā is not inherent in the objects of our attention. Vedanā arises due to contact with the 6 sense doors, and operates on its own independent conditinality. This is difficult to see in daily life, and a precious opportunity on silent retreat.

Key to all of our suffering and eventual freedom, mindfulness of vedanā disrupts our unconscious struggle to reject unpleasant experiences, crave pleasant experiences, and ignore neutral experiences. Since vedanā is a tone or aspect of every moment in the stream of our consciousness, it beocmes increasingly clear our agitation with life begins with reactivity to vedanā, and the training of a new kind of well being comes as we develop the ability to breath inside the stream with all three vedanās.

Exploring the third foundation of mindfulness, including emotions and cognitive activities

In progressing through the four foundations, we come to my mindfulness of mind (citta). This includes emotions and cognitive states.

At the beginning of breath awareness practice we can feel our attention is either with the breath or distracted. As we deepen out faith and dedication to mindfulness of breathing we learn to breath in and breath out in all conditions. The breath becomes a sanctuary to accompany us in all conditions.