Clingless Development, Transmutation & Progression
After participating in several online meditation circles, and facilitating my first one in September resulting in beneficial feedback, I wish to continue.
We’ll each bring our meditation experiences to interacting with one another and can then apply beneficial circling takeaways to deepen and enrich our meditation practices.
When presented with “The Pāramitā Challenge” I accepted and here we are. In addition to the Pāramitās or Perfections, so far, the challenge also includes precepts and the 52 Stages of the Bodhisattva Path and Bodhisattva vows.
So far, instructions are to journal contemplations resulting from observed intentions, opportunities, and actions to be generous, moral and ethical while arousing faith in the Triple Gem then seeing where/when confident and where/when in doubt.
I’ve not taken Bodhisattva vows, and so with little instruction in Mahāyāna Buddhism, apart from maybe a smidgen of the zen stuff, there’s the benefit of beginner’s mind is a nice way to put it. I shoot from the hip with a lot in this recording and will often use a Theravada lens and a lot of inquiry as I ponder out loud. It may come off at times as criticism and sometimes it may actually be, but these are mostly solo efforts at summonings what is really meant by the material.
For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny and I hosted a open roundtable on “Practice-in-place” with fellow Insight Timer teacher Lydia Grace and Joanne Muir. The term “Practice-in-place” comes as a wise meditative response to “Shelter-in-place” induced by reactions to Co-V.
While we touch on many topics we mainly discuss ramifications in now using more technology in our practices and sessions.
Focusing primarily on the body in order to experience the full moon in potentially nuanced ways, I guided participants through various observations, inquiries, connections, remembrances, energies, considerations and perhaps even imaginations and visualizations while in states of meditation, contemplation and reflection.
Very brief instruction, technique and practice period to help discern when attention is on or off the meditation object. Practice this solo, without external guidance. Experiment — if need be — by altering, adjusting, and adding just enough so it works best for you. Stick with this training wheels technique at least for a fewContinue reading “Brief Guided Meditation: Discernment of Meditation Object”
Meditation:
Meditate continuously for three minutes on an object
Contemplation:
Able to keep attention on the object the entire time?
If not, why is that?
If yes, did the quality and degree of attention change?
Why can’t we lock a consistent, unchanging attention to something without it wavering, or changing, or without distraction?
Perhaps then consider that in life, and especially noticeable in meditation, we sometimes think we should able to keep a consistent, unchanging attention to something. Maybe we can now better see how this erroneous view of deceptively defaulting to expecting constancies in life can result in stress and unsatisfactoriness
This niche topic for empaths, or energetically sensitive beings, encapsulates years of note taking from experience, study and practice, provides nine categories of approach:
1) Gratitude for opportunities
2) Mindfulness (– especially of contact and vēdanā)
3) Hedonic Tone and the Three Characteristics of Existence
4) Self and identification
5) Equanimity and compassion
6) The Four Right Efforts and Five Hinderances
7) Energy
8) Non-attachment
9) Miscellaneous strategies
After joining several meditation circles I now wish to facilitate one. We’ll each bring our meditation experiences to interacting with one another and can then apply beneficial circling takeaways to deepen and enrich our meditation practices.
Join in at Fat Cat Longevity in St Charles on Wednesday, September 22th 2021 from 6:00pm – 6:45pm. (Details in the full blog post)
Join meditation 6:00-6:45pm tonight, Wednesday, August 25th at Fat Cat Longevity [https://facebook.com/freyflow] downstairs next to Peace Love Coffee at Mary’s House of Healing, on Main St in St Charles, MO. Similar to past meditations, we plan to start with brief instructions along with a discussion before and after. Our semi-formal meditation possibilities include — but are not limited to —Continue reading “An Integrating Presence Meditation at Fat Cat Longevity Wednesday August 25, 2021”
September 22, 2023 UPDATE: Retreat video now on YouTube: The recent online Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thaniya Reid retreat “Love as the Breath of Life” brought forth such a plethora of insight amidst (minor) domestic challenges such as establishing and maintaining one’s retreat space amidst everyday home life. I liken much of the notes belowContinue reading “Insights And Takeaways From “Love As The Breath Of Life” — Online Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thaniya Reid”
Integrating Presence