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.
Why even bother with investigation or inquiry? Perhaps inquire, assess and question with intent to lead toward true knowledge, liberation and the (long-term) well-being of all. Know the truth of the way things actually are and then align with truth to bring great happiness. But how and why does aligning with truth bring happiness? Maybe it’s time to investigate for oneself?
This blog post collects various odds and ends to aid with inquiry and investigation.
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
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)
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”
For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything LIVE” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny and I chat with meditation teacher Beth Upton most significantly about the Dependent Origination link Nāmarūpa, or Materiality and Mentality, which, according to Wikipedia, is “used in Buddhism to refer to the constituents of aContinue reading “Materiality And Mentality | (7/27/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu And Guest Beth Upton)”
Due to a major interest in truth, I answered the call to read a Sutta at Beth Upton’s June 2021 full moon gathering. Each of these monthly online get-togethers explores a different topic and offers “a chance to deepen our connections with each other through group meditation and Dhamma discussion.”
Amongst other things, this blog post includes the text I read along with a passage from another text I considered reading; relevant quotes about truth; the main questions we explored and some we did not
This irregular “Dharma Questions” series deals with “dharma” meaning both the truth of the nature of reality and some Buddhist teachings. Amongst other things these questions can be:
• thought experiments
• borderline musings not meant to be answered
• from laziness of not contemplating or researching them yet
There’s 16 questions. Here’s two:
What is the root condition of annica — impermanence, inconstancy?
What are any and all similarities and differences between “Para Brahman” and “Nirvana”?
For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — (despite some technical snafus) Denny and I pick one topic each we’ve yet to discuss much publicly — the Eight “Touches”, and wholesome sexuality(/sexual energy), respectively.
Integrating Presence