Through reflection on just having taught a month-long retreat and several poems, we explore a number of ways to deepen our formal meditation practice through simplicity, focus, building a strong "container", developing mindfulness and lovingkindness in relation to what happens, and increased invocation of the "wise parent" (or grandparent...aka "discipline").
The Buddha stressed the importance of "being a lamp unto ourself" and to know the truth of suffering - as a vehicle for understanding & liberating ourselves from inevitable challenges of life.
To integrate our practice, we need to keep applying the wisdom of our insights we gain from our sitting practice, retreats, and life experience. In this way, we come to terms with the different aspects of our personality, the aaspects we like and don't like.
Heart practices and wisdom practices can appear to speak different languages and have different aims; for example, lovingkindness wishes well whereas equanimity says, "no matter what I wish for, things are as they are." We explore how the heart and wisdom connect through exploring (1) lovingkindness, (2) equanimity, and (3) how the two inform each other and are integrated.
