With the background of the last weeks exploration of our individual practice to see self and open increasingly to not-self, we connect that practice with our responses to global crisis, particularly global climate disruption. We see its roots in part in individualist models of self, and point to the importance of dharma practice in our responses to crisis.
We explore in this integrative sessions, how a "thick" sense of self appears in various ways, and how we open to experience with progressively "thinner" senses of self. We also look at how anxiety and disorientation may arise at each stage, and how to understand what skillful uses of self are.
As we do the practice of samatha (tranquility) meditation, it is important not to strive towards any particular experience but rather to see the practice as a training of the mind that leads to well being and happiness here and now.