Dear Friends, Today we continue our exploration of the earth element through a guided meditation that emphasizes steadiness and non-reactivity. In an early teaching, the Buddha encourages developing the mind “in tune with the earth” – learning from the earth’s capacity to receive what comes without being pushed or pulled by it. Today’s practice takes up that invitation,… Read More »
Dear Friends, To support our exploration of the third wise effort—cultivating wholesome states—here is a guided meditation by Jill Shepherd titled “Investigating skillful behaviour skilfully.” (13:24).https://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/39015/ This meditation focuses on investigating and recollecting skillful, wholesome, or virtuous behavior. Jill’s approach, which she calls “post-mortem mindfulness,” invites us to reflect on past actions of body, speech, or mind that… Read More »
Dear Friends, With wise effort, we want to abandon unhelpful states and cultivate helpful ones. There are many ways to cultivate these beneficial states, including the Brahma Vihara practices of metta (kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (appreciative joy), and upekkha (equanimity). Today, we’ll focus on mudita! Mudita is the capacity to feel happiness or gladness, to delight in someone’s… Read More »
Dear Friends, Jill Shepherd has a meditation called “Investigating skillful behaviour skilfully” (13 minutes) that explores wise action:https://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/39015/ With good wishes,Andrea
Dear Friends, In meditation today, feel free to explore any of the aspects of right view from the previous emails or from your own reading or listening and reflection. Here’s a brief meditation from Diana Clark that explores that actions have consequences:Guided Meditation on Right View (13 minutes)https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/4341 And a meditation from Jill Shepherd that explores the four… Read More »
Dear Friends, Gil’s fourth talk on the faculty of samadhi considers the state of the mind “when we are fully present, fully engaged in what’s happening.”https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11153 He talks about some of the more refined states of concentration, often called ‘absorption’ – although he clarifies that this state is not one where we are losing ourselves in the experience.… Read More »
Dear Friends, Over the series of talks, Gil Fronsdal has traced a journey along which our saddha may progress. This journey may be linear, or we may jump around, or we may spiral in ever deepening ways. We started with faith, which inspires us to practice. Then confidence, when we start to value the practice and see the… Read More »
Dear Friends, The last track in the retreat recordings, Reflection on Universal Well-Being Chant, is a traditional Buddhist chant, translated to English. Historically, teachings across many traditions were transmitted orally, and being able to chant the teachings in unison was a way to help the practitioners learn and memorize the teaching. You might have chants, hymns, or songs… Read More »
Dear Friends, One of the question themes explored in Questions and Answers was about maintaining equanimity in the midst of social injustice, the climate crisis, etc. Jill reiterated that equanimity is not about making us immune to the visceral responses that may arise. She says “We want to keep our aliveness, our humanness, our responsiveness, and use the… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Questions and Answers, Jill and DaRa respond to some of the questions that participants had written. Today and tomorrow, I’ll pick out a couple of their responses that have resonated with some of my own questions about the practice. One question was about the hindrance of doubt: Confusion is at times, natural. For example, not… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Equanimity Practice, Jill invites the retreat participants into another relational practice related to equanimity. First she brings in an interesting question, as this was the penultimate day of the retreat – inviting the participants to notice how they are responding to the ending of the retreat as that can highlight the habitual tendency we might… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Morning Instructions – Working with Equanimity, Jill sets the stage for practicing with equanimity as a heart quality. One of the ways to cultivate equanimity in practice is with the use of phrases. Jill summarizes some from various teachers that relate to cultivating equanimity with the truth of impermanence:Jack Kornfield: May I learn to see… Read More »
Dear Friends, My Facebook feed on Friday had the following news: beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has passed away peacefully at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, at 00:00hrs on 22nd January, 2022, at the age of 95. We invite our global spiritual family to take a few moments to be still, to come back to our mindful… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Equanimity, Upekkha, Jill illuminates the qualities of equanimity, and the way wisdom is supported by equanimity. It’s another rich talk, so I’ll parse out some of the qualities today, and the wisdom aspects tomorrow. Then we’ll have another couple of days looking at the heart quality of equanimity. I could use a little extra shot… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Afternoon Instructions – Mindfulness of Mind, Jill looks at different mental processes and leads a reflective practice for the participants. Jill speaks again about the “wheel” model of how body and breath are related to getting lost in proliferation. It might look something like this: Here’s how Jill explains this: To continue exploring the model… Read More »
