Opening to our experience moment-to-moment brightens our awareness, illuminating the difference between our direct experience and the virtual version of ourselves that plays through our minds.
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.
