Payton led our explorations this morning, as for a second time we looked into the Second Factor of Awakening. Usually translated as Investigation, Vicaya was translated as Interest in the talk by James Baraz which anchored the discussion
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/86/talk/12188/
Baraz spoke of several ways of cultivating increased interest in what can be observed in Mindfulness, including strategies for making a ‘game’ of the process.
Joey led our reflections this morning, anchoring them in excerpts from a dharma talk by Tara Brach, which experientially explores different approaches to the deep truths that meditation can reveal. For the compete talk, click on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbaMKK863nI&feature=youtu.be&list=UUE3E-d8dUieqIbKYIO5-pFg
Michael guided our explorations today, which were centered around the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, the contemporary Burmese meditation master who in the lineage of teaching Vipassana to lay people, begun by Mahasi Sayadaw in the mid 20th century. Instead of focusing on mindfulness of body (kayanupassana – breath, posture, sensations such as hearing, etc.), the focus here is on mindfulness of mind states (cittanupassana), the third foundation of Mindfulness.
A talk by Ashin Tejaniya, translated entirely into English by MaThet, which covers most of the basics of this reorientation can be found at
And the ‘punctuated meditation’ we used, in which Sayadaw dropped reminders into a recent morning meditation at IMS, can be found here – an interesting way to bring the mind back to this new style of Mindfulness.
Free downloadable teachings and books by Ashin Tejaniya can be found at
http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/
A good place to begin might be with the reminder sheet on Right Attitude and the book of conversations with students titled Awareness Alone is Not Enough.
This Sunday we began our series of reflections on the Seven Factors of Awakening, with two sessions to be devoted to each. Margaret initiated the series with a focus on the first factor – Mindfulness – anchoring it in an excerpt of a talk by Joseph Goldstein.
http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/1965/
Joseph’s talk explored four aspects of mindfulness
Zen Master Dogen reminds us that “To carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.”
If we can simply be mindful, our engagement with the world will have the startling clarity embodied in the famous haiku by Basho, fresh clear, nothing added:
The old pond
A frog jumps in
Plop.
Today, Wendy hosted our Extended Guided Meditation, beginning with Tara Brach’s guided meditation: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
This was followed by guided walking meditation by Elisabeth Blaikie:
This morning’s extended meditation session, and discussion, was hosted by Philip and anchored in a guided meditation on gratitude by Larry Yang, dharma teacher and psychotherapist, to be found here:
This morning, Joey guided our reflections on Dharma and Relationships. The approach was grounded in the practice of Insight Dialogue, as examined in the talk by Matthew Brensilver: Mindfulness in Close Relationships. http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/496/talk/24457/
The approach is based in the Insight Dialogue work of Gregory Kramer, and the words that are most often recalled from encounter with his work are pause, relax, open, trust emergence, listen deeply, speak the truth.
This morning, Wendy guided our work with our shared tendency to turn to doing rather than reflecting or simply being – the ways in which we compulsively turn t activity rather than investigating our states of mind. As a prompt for discussion, we listened to excerpts to this talk by Tara Brach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e23nUp3a9R8&feature=youtu.be&list=UUE3E-d8dUieqIbKYIO5-pFg
This Sunday, Jessica guided our reflections, with a focus on Compassion. There are many ways of relating to the suffering of others, some skillful, many not so skillful. Compassion, the second of the Brahma Viharas, is the fullest, most intimate and open-hearted way. Excerpts from Mark Coleman’s Dharma talk and guided meditation on Compassion anchored the presentation and discussion, and can be found at
http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/115/talk/20876/
Today, Michael brought our series on the 12 links of dependent arising to its conclusion, examining the ways in which Craving and Clinging lead almost inevitably to Becoming (taking on a personality style, which we then defend), Birth (inhabiting that style of being so completely that we can’t imagine seeing beyond it), and finally Old Age & Death (the rigidity and shutting down that results from such identification). If your belief system accommodates rebirth and multiple lifetimes, these psychologically nuanced descriptions for our current secular age can be set supplemented by the literal meaning of the names of these links in the chain.
