Wisdom and love working together.

Including Q&A

An introduction to the practice of mindful awareness and deepening experience of freedom that naturally unfolds.

Note: Week 6 not recorded due to technical difficulties

Note: Week 2 not recorded due to technical difficulties

7th Factor of Awakening : Equanimity

6th Factor of Awakening : Samadhi (Concentration)

5th Factor of Awakening : Tranquility

4th Factor of Awakening : Joy / Rapture

3rd Factor of Awakening: Energy / Effort

2nd Factor of Awakening: Investigation

1st Factor of Awakening: Mindfulness

This course examines the Buddha’s teachings on: mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquility, stability of mind, and equanimity. It is the development and balancing of these seven wholesome factors that set in motion insight and the release from all grasping and stress. Here are three study resources to use as you wish, including the passage that I read from last night:

We meet tonight for week seven and begin a more direct investigation into the escape from the oppressiveness of our attachment to sense desire that arise in this world of sensuality. Here is a recent article that you might find useful:

Tonight we will finish our discussion regarding the drawbacks and limitations of sensual experience. Please be prepared to share with your small group your own direct experience how the habits of fear, attachment, craving... create a sense of weight and suffering around our sense experiences. We'll spend the last two weeks looking at the "Escape" from the stress related to sense experience. Here is a good article to read written by a senior Buddhist nun in the Western Ajahn Chah lineage, Sister Siripann

We have now completed half of our course examining our experience of sensuality. As we have begun to reflect on the limitation of sense experience we want to specifically look into the limitations of what we might consider wholesome experience. What danger, if any, is associated with wholesome experiences? At the end of MN 13, The Discourse on the Great Mass of Stress the Buddha uses the example of meditative peace as a sense experience with the allure of gratification, with drawbacks and with an escape. So if even the deepest states of meditative peace have drawbacks what about the pleasant wholesome states that our minds are still dependent on? Are these experiences a set up for disappointment, stress and suffering? What has our experience taught us? Let's notice the ephemeral quality of our wholesome moments. Are they stable enough to provide lasting satisfaction?

Please take this week to more clearly discern the gratification & allure of sense experience and the drawbacks & limitations of sense experience. Remember, the practice is to collect honest data. The purification of view that the mind has toward sensuality does happen because we want to shift our view, rather, it happens because the data that the mind collects through being mindful overwhelms older views/beliefs about sensuality and allows for a newer, more refined, wiser view to arise in its place. One theme you might use for your small group sharing is, what if any data has this mind or heart, collected in the recent past that demonstrates the limitations and drawbacks of sense experience? Some Additional Readings for Week 4:

After spending the first several weeks looking more closely at the experience of gratification of sense experiences, starting with week 3 we will bring into view a more honest reflection on the drawbacks and limitations of sense experience. Below are study materials for Week 3:

What is Mindfulness Practice? Mindfulness is the practice of opening to and accepting life just as it is - a constantly changing, conditioned process. To begin, we must make the necessary effort to calm the mind and body. Without this first step our intention to be present is often overwhelmed by our habits of reactivity and struggle - trying to fix or control the conditions of the moment. To calm the mind and body we practice connecting and sustaining our attention to ordinary experience in each moment; for example, the sensations of the breath coming and going or the sensations of lifting and placing each foot as we walk. This simple and clear patient knowing is at the heart of mindfulness practice. Tranquility arises by training the attention to return to the present moment experience over and over again. This training is directed by an understanding heart that appreciates that no matter how difficult it appears to be, our practice is to recognize what is happening and to gently return the attention to the conditions as they are in the moment. It is our persistent effort that calms the mind, energizes our practice and leads to insight. We can use ordinary experience, such as the breath, as a refuge - a place to keep coming back to. Over time, this capacity to be present becomes a great friend and allows us to relate to all experience with greater clarity, trust and acceptance. The ability to abide with the flow of experience creates the context for insight to arise. Wisdom, compassion and peace of equanimity are the fruit of these deepening insights.

This first part of the course is emphasizing the actual experience of sense gratification. In other words, we are learning how to be interested, intimate and discerning as the sensitive heart connects with the reality of this world of sensuality. Are we willing to meet this sense world honestly, with real interest in order to better understand the experience of gratification? Here are some reflections for week two in preparation for small group discussions: What have you learned in specifically observing, being intimate with experiences of gratification of sense experience. How have you experienced happiness in the past? How much of this happiness has been related to the gratification of desire? Reflect on the experiences of gratification and disappointment. What is the ongoing effect of these past successes and failures on your life? Honestly map out those places in your life where you see enchantment with sense experience. For example, desires that seem to promise real lasting happiness for oneself. Below are Study Materials for Week 1 and Week 2:

This talk was given on Sept. 24th at Common Ground Meditation Center. Because the talk the week before was cut off due to battery failure, we are publishing this one here, by popular demand.

Because this talk is cut short at 21 min., we are also going to publish Mark's talk give on Sept 24th at Common Ground : Understanding Joy as the Means for the Fruit of the Path

Metta

Metta

Review of the Buddha's gradual training in light of living in the world with wisdom

Meditation instruction emphasizing awareness of the feeling tone

How wisdom and seclusion allows for equanimity with the inevitable pain in life

Awareness of body in attitudes of mind

Understanding mindfulness of body as a basis for liberating the mind

We will discuss wise speech and then break for our small groups to talk about our experience and insight into the middle three precepts of not taking, refraining from sexual misconduct, or wise speech. Here are two study materials related to wise speech that you might want to use:

Here are some additional study resources to use:

Here are some resources to begin our study of the Buddha's teachings on Integrity, Ethical Conduct and the practices of non harming. A friend, Lynn Kelly, has an excellent blog that discusses all the issues of ethical conduct for Lay people from the perspective of the Buddha's teachings

Learning to see and what is changing, suffering in what is suffering, non self in what is without self, and what is un-lovely as such

Keeping it simple, something being known.

Understanding the Boundless Quality of Love. (Metta)

Reflecting on Metta