To what extent do we create our own reality with our perceptions and ruminations? This week Margaret guided our reflections, using excerpts from talks by Christina Feldman to explore the ways in which mindfulness of moods can help us discern when our experience is clouded and when it is sharpened by our mental processes and our conditioning.
The talks that were played were from a retreat, so they are not publicly available.
We began the sitting by reflecting on our underlying mood at that moment, and on how such moods affect how we view and interact with what is around us. In addition, based on the talk by Christina Feldman, we considered two models that give some insight into how we construct our reality. The first of these goes as follows:
Where there is contact, there is feeling tone; What we feel we perceive; What we perceive, we think about; What we think about, we proliferate about; What we proliferate about, we dwell upon; What we dwell upon, becomes the shape of our mind; And the shape of our mind becomes the shape of our world.
The second model goes as follows:
Where there is contact, there is feeling tone; Feeling tone is the condition for craving; Craving is the condition for clinging; [identification] Clinging is the condition for becoming.
Burlington Buddhist Sangha 