In this tradition of practice, we often hear teachers warning us to not attach to calmness. Since many people begin the practice of meditation because they would like to experience some calmness in their busy, stress-filled lives, this admonition can be confusing, and maybe even off-putting. It may be useful to look deeper into what […]
Read More →Seeing Nature
on October 27, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 5 Comments
Many insight meditation teachers in the Thai Forest tradition, including those in Luangpor Teean’s lineage, often describe insight practice as observing nature. They say that to observe one’s own body and mind, is to observe nature. This may seem like a mundane and throwaway sort of statement, but it is actually challenging us to a […]
Read More →Movement of Body and Mind
on September 26, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 2 Comments
In the practice of Mahasati meditation, we are urged to be aware of movement – movement of the body and movement of the mind. We start with this hand movement, but Luangpor Teean said that we should know every movement of the body and mind – even the beating of the heart. This is a […]
Read More →Two Types of Knowing
on August 28, 2018in Uncategorizedwith No Comments
Our practice is all about developing mindfulness, or nonjudgmental awareness/knowing. People may not realize that, to free oneself from suffering, there are actually two types of knowing or awareness that should be cultivated. It is possible that Buddhist scholars may object, saying that awareness is just awareness. I concede that what I am sharing with […]
Read More →The Two Arrows of Suffering
on July 27, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 3 Comments
A very helpful teaching of the Buddha found in the Pali Canon (Sallatha Sutta) is the simile of the 2 arrows of suffering. The first arrow is the primary difficulty that we’ve encountered. The second arrow is the mental suffering that the mind places on top of it. The sutta couches this simile in the […]
Read More →The Three-Legged Stool of Suffering
on June 25, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 3 Comments
Buddhist insight meditation practice is the study of suffering. It is the study of exactly how suffering happens, in a very up-close and personal way, so we can come to see the conditions that support its arising and therefore discover how it ceases. The understanding and conquering of suffering is really the loftiest goal […]
Read More →Wandering Mind as Teacher
on May 22, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 4 Comments
With our Mahasati practice, we are training the mind to know itself in the present moment. We are training our awareness to be in the here and now, while letting go of any reactivity. Our awareness has been overly conditioned to always be somewhere else – immersed in thoughts, worries, regrets, longings, and anticipations about […]
Read More →True Freedom
on April 25, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 1 Comment
People generally come to the practice of meditation looking for freedom – freedom from suffering, from things like stress, anxiety, incessant thoughts, difficult emotions – maybe even ultimately freedom from birth and death. This Mahasati practice, which emphasizes observing the activity of the mind without suppressing it, can be a hard sell sometimes. When people […]
Read More →Don’t Scratch that Mental Itch
on March 20, 2018in Uncategorizedwith 5 Comments
The key point in gaining relief from afflictive emotional states like anger, depression, and anxiety, is learning to whittle away at, and gradually lessen, the habits of mind that normally define our response to the world. This is also the key point in realizing spiritual awakening. There are very old habits of mind that define […]
Read More →Working With Difficulties, by Michael Bresnan, Ph.D.
on March 27, 2014in Uncategorizedwith 2 Comments
We practice mindfulness, or insight meditation, to discover a more skillful way to be with our life. We learn to be less reactive. Normally, we are very reactive when it comes to our present moment experience. Our life is a series of moments of conscious awareness, and we find ourselves endlessly reacting to the contents […]
Read More →