Our reality is assembled from selected material that comes through the sense bases. As a result of craving and clinging, consciousness lands on particularly poignant material and continues the cycle of becoming and rebirth. Citta can be trained to handle material with dispassion rather than craving, awareness rather than clinging. The release of consciousness can be known.
There are 3 kinds of wisdom: discernment, skillful means and realization. Walking meditation and appropriate mindfulness are skillful means for cultivation. Together they bring around a stewarding akin to that of the sheepdog that moves within the flock, not outside it. This results in the deep harmony of samādhi.
A guided meditation through the Ānāpānasati sutta. Establishing a comfortable, upright posture, incline awareness toward direct experience of the body. Sustain appropriate mindfulness and citta will sensitize to the qualities we call 'body’. This exercise resets the mind, which is then gladdened, steadied and cleared so that insight can develop.
Samādhi is entered into dependent on the ripening of other factors. It gives us a place to stand outside of the personal perspective. The process of stepping out requires meeting the painful and unresolved in the body, then calming and soothing the heart.
Mindfulness is an empowered awareness that exerts authority over dukkha. Mindfulness doesn’t contract or become agitated by it. Holding steady and curtailing proliferation, it provides the proper laboratory within which wisdom can arise.
Puja provides an occasion to step out of our personal lives. The gesture of offering and dedicating trains citta to open rather than grasp. The unfolding of citta reveals awareness.
An important theme in mind cultivation is to relieve pressure – mental, emotional, physical. This is done through moderating the quality of ground and space. When these are sensed through the body, citta picks up their signs and relaxes its own pressure.
Energy has to be cultivated as a resource for practice. This process has three stages: gathering, specific application, and the strength that can release obstacles. The thinking mind uses energy but cannot generate it; energy is generated in the heart (citta) and in the body. Apply energy to empty out the negative and unskillful – the good and bright will arise on its own.
Sati – mindfulness – is only mentioned once in the Ānāpānasati sutta. ‘Directly feeling and knowing’ – pajānati – is the mode of practice. When we’ve attuned to this, we move to ‘training’. This phase of ānāpānasati begins with training in deeper sensitivity of the entire body.
Sensing the space beyond the skin boundary, and the space felt ‘within’ the body. The two can blend. In this way, they facilitate our experience of breathing.
