An end of retreat talk: Practice and principles to bring our insights and practice into our lives. Includes wise intention, renunciation, loving kindness and balanced effort and mindfulness.
Once you learn to find a calm abiding of the mind there are many kinds of joy and bliss that may arise. Yet, you are asked to turn your calm mind to the practice of insight in order to experience the dukkha the Buddha describes in the First Noble Truth. Why give bliss (sukkha) for dukkha.
Though the teachings on dukkha (suffering) are an important part of the Buddhist path, a skillful relationship to sukha (pleasure) actually played a significant part in the Buddha's awakening. This talk explores the wise use of pleasure and the cultivation of beautiful qualities of mind, especially in concentration practice.
The tranquility and concentration factors of enlightenment are the natural outcome of mindfulness and wise attention. With a concentrated mind, one can see things as they really are. This is the path of awakening.
Cutting through strong habit energy and cultivating energy and rapture on the cushion and in your daily life, as well as seeing the roots of courageous collective energy and rapture as a movement for great acts of change in these times.
