Joey led our meditation practice this week with guidance by Chris Cullen in how we can gather our attention and enjoy cultivating spacious awareness while still being grounded.
From Chris Cullen’s instructions for collecting and gathering the attention:
Insight comes from cultivation of collectedness. The six Jhana factors are tools in collecting the heart-mind.
- Viveka: Stepping back from busyness of the day, disentangling, withdrawing the investment in thoughts and re-investing in the body, grounding.
- Vitaka: Re-directing the attention into what is more steady: feet, seat, hands, the in-breath. Prioritizing, re-positioning the attention like saying to a puppy: Stay.
- Vichara: How to stay? With receptive sensitivity, receiving, sensing, listening in, tuning into the level of effort in doing this.
- Pitti: Appreciative fullness, fullness of enjoyment, hosting the pleasantness of the in-breath, fully receiving the quiet OK-ness of the hands, filled with expanding awareness, fully to host the body even if some areas feel unpleasant.
- Sukkha: Ease, relaxation, contentment, letting go. Smoothing the nervous system’s energies; tuning into contentment.
- Ekhagata: To become one, cohere, harmonize, allowing and integration of body, awareness, present moment.
The talk Joey played is on Reflections on Anatta/Non-Self https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/371/talk/51232/
Burlington Buddhist Sangha 