Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Bringing to mind and resonating with benevolent occasions in one’s life to build up a solid resonant sign to sit within – with 39 min silent meditation.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Citta/heart is like a lake with waves rippling through it. The unawakened response is to create walls to resist the unpleasant, and fences to retain the pleasant - and ‘me’ to hold it all. Awakening responses to the waves are the skills of samadhi and brahmavihara. These make the lake vast and able to allow waves to arise and subside. They are doors to the Deathless - the unconstructed that the citta can enter through non-holding.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) The process of fruition through satipaṭṭhāna entails resources, obstacles, skills, release and integration. Nibbana can be momentary whenever the consciousness of subject and object deconstructs.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Practice in the addictive world; lay stream enterers; anapanasati; attention and awareness; cultivate a good perspective on blockages.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Q1 00:52 When you're walking around and brushing your teeth what's your experience of the sense world and nibbana? I'd like to experience more beauty and sacredness in the sense world and cultivate a relationship with the transcendent, but it feels so out of reach; Q2 17:43 Recently I listened to a talk by Ajahn Tanissaro and he said he didn't know any practitioner in the West who was a stream enterer. I was disheartened. Can you say something about this? Q3 28:09 can you give some advice on cell phones and technology please? They drain my energy quickly. Q4 35:34 (several questions) In mindfulness of breathing, does one proceed sequentially through the 16 phrases, or pick up the steps that seem to fit with whatever seems to be arising. Why is it presented as a graduated training? Also, can you speak about releasing the heart? Q5 44:18 What are the differences between attention and awareness? What are their Pali terms? Q6 49:42 "One reviews the extent to which one's mind is liberated..." In the Book of the 5s. If one's mind is non-liberated how do you go about it? Q7 52:59 How to relate when resistance arises in practice from feeling blocked, to discouraged or lost etc etc etc.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Turn away from the measuring mind to track how experience is, and the arising and passing of stress. In this way, we engage with the ‘noble pleasure’ that leads to samadhi.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Touch sense establishes relationship and presence within the shared field. When this is safe, citta can unfold, and we re-form.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)