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On Sunday, Adam guided a discussion on Sickness as practice. Here are his notes from the presentation.

Using illness constructively in our practice can be a challenge. I didn’t realize how easy it was to simply try and “get rid of” my own sickness until only a few days ago. I had been struggling (and I do mean “struggling”) with a cold and it occurred to me (for the first time while actually being sick) that being in a state of illness need not entail the suffering that seemed to come along with it. For our Sangha Sunday, I’d like to present some dharma talks for contemplation and discussion as a way to enrich our lives as we move headlong into cold- and flu-season.

Sally Clough Armstrong talk (http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/153/talk/25145/)

2:20-4:01       buddha afraid of old age sickness and death 
25:41 -33:23    on sickness 

Skye Dawson talk (http://dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/199/19411.html)

1:36-3:51   what the Buddha wanted for us....skillfulness
16:17-29:25 aging and loss of health 

Talking points:

*using the vedanas (feeling tones) to observe sickness and pain as sensation that comes and goes
* observing the body’s automatic responses and our conditioning to illness (sniffling, throat-clearing, coughing)
* sickness as practice for death

This past Sunday, Zac led the dharma reflection on the practice of noting (also called mental noting or labeling) as it’s taught in the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition.

Here are some resources from the discussion:

The Insight Revolution By Erik Braun | Lion’s Roar | November 12, 2013 http://www.lionsroar.com/the-insight-revolution/

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram, p. 39 – 40
https://burlingtonbuddhist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/73e54-1347785055665.pdf

Definition of Momentary Concentration:
the meditator does not deliberately attempt to exclude the multiplicity of phenomena from his field of attention. Instead, he simply directs mindfulness to the changing states of mind and body, noting any phenomenon that presents itself; the task is to maintain a continuous awareness of whatever enters the range of perception, clinging to nothing. As he goes on with his noting, concentration becomes stronger moment after moment until it becomes established one-pointedly on the constantly changing stream of events. Despite the change in the object, the mental unification remains steady, and in time acquires a force capable of suppressing the hindrances to a degree equal to that of access concentration. This fluid, mobile concentration is developed by the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, taken up along the path of insight; when sufficiently strong it issues in the breakthrough to the last stage of the path, the arising of wisdom. (http://www.vipassana.com/resources/8fp7.php)

Morning Reflection – The Technique of Labeling | Brian Lesage 2016-10-17
Insight Meditation Society – Retreat Center: Three-Month Part 1
http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/484/talk/37645/

This Sunday Joey led a discussion on the process of recognizing and accepting what’s going on in our minds and hearts. A central theme was the practice of RAIN, described by Tara Brach here. There are different interpretations for the acronym, but the one we commonly see is this:

• R – Recognize what is happening
• A – Allow life to be just as it is
• I – Investigate inner experience with kindness
• N – Non-Identification.

The sangha’s discussion was based around a talk by Tara Brach, available here:

Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 1 of 3)

This Sunday Payton led a sitting and discussion around the topic of clinging as outlined by Gil Fronsdal in this talk:

http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/6973.html

In the talk Gil quoted the usual translation of the Platform Sutra in which the Buddha is recorded as having said. “Wisdom and Meditation are the same”. However, Gil notes, the character used for “wisdom” is actually “kindness”, so it says “kindness and meditation are the same”. This is likely a clerical error at some point in the long history of Buddhism, but which was the original? Perhaps we should draw our own conclusions.

Gil listed the four forms of clinging:

• Clinging to sensual pleasure
• Clinging to views and opinions
• Clinging to the idea of self
• Clinging to religious practices

He then goes on to say that the secret of Buddhism is really that, “it actually feels better to let go of clinging than to get what you want”.

The talk ends with an admonition to look for clinging, or for one of the Five Hinderances, whenever we notice a lack of kindness toward ourselves or others.

This Sunday Joey played a talk by Guy Armstrong entitled “Patterns of Becoming: The end of Karma”.

From the talk description: “The fifth and last in a series of talks discusses the troublesome patterns of mind and volitional action that we identify as self, and how we can step out of them with the tools of dharma practice. The Buddha said that one who is fully awake has found an end to karma, and end to compulsive formations.”

The talk is here:

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/15559/

This Sunday Mike guided the group through a comparison and contrast of Mindfulness and Concentration. Underlying this topic was a talk given by Gil Fronsdal.

The talk is here: http://audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/910.html

Gil says:

• Mindfulness is a clear knowing of what’s going on
• Concentration is a deep focus on what’s going on

…but that’s it’s not quite that simple.

The Buddha used two different verbs when describing these concepts in his talks. When he mentioned Mindfulness, he used the verb “to see” and when describing Concentration he used the verb “to touch”. This could point to different modes of seeing the world. Mindfulness may have more to do with the mind and Concentration might have more to do with the body.

There are many such contrasts from the ancient teachings and Gil goes through several in his talk.

This Sunday Rebecca led the discussion reading from Joseph Goldstein’s book, Mindfulness, focusing on Right Effort and Right Concentration as steps of the Eightfold Path.

There was quite an exploration of the four classic pieces of Right Effort:

1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states;
2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen;
3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen;
4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

Today Payton led a discussion on the rather complicated topic of “Why do we meditate?” after playing a talk given by Ren Bunce, which is available here:

http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/3093.html

Ren spoke about her personal experience coming to practice, starting with Alcoholics Anonymous. She heard the teaching to love everyone, but was confused about “How?”. It was only through a lot of meditation that she was able to directly experience what Jane Hirshfield once wrote:

“Everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”

The discussion touched on many peoples’ personal experiences and challenges coming to formal meditation practice, particularly the paradoxical nature of doing something – and something that’s really hard – without a goal. Meditation seems to work like little drops of water hitting a stone; nothing appears to happen for a long time, but eventually there is a hole and through it we can see our experiences in a new way. As Ren said,

when we sit, we are training the mind, we are not indulging the mind

This past Sunday, Zac guided our reflection using the Progress of Insight framework. This “map of the journey” comes to us from various traditional Theravada Buddhist commentary texts, most notably Buddhagosa’s Visuddhimagga (430 CE). This framework outlines insights, stages, and particular challenges that a practitioner of vipassanā (“insight”, “clear-seeing”) meditation is said to pass through on the way to liberation.

Here are some resources on the Progress of Insight.