We may be choosing to begin the meditation with an awareness that is open to the sounds of others arriving and inviting a friendly attitude of mind to these sounds arising and passing and being known.
Some of us are greatly supported.
Supported by this moment of setting an intention for practice.
Swirling Many of us take these moments at the beginning of a meditation to particularly attend,
Again in the spirit of kindness,
To the structural posture of this body sitting here.
So this balance of uprightness and ease in the body,
Whatever supports that for you.
A personal and 말을 experience,
A And whether you are in your sixth week of this retreat journey or your tenth day of this retreat journey,
This is a point in the journey where we begin to grip less tightly to the techniques.
There are moments when the tools and techniques very much feel like lifelines,
And they are,
But there are other moments where we begin to relax ever more deeply into trusting the unfolding of this practice.
And in trusting in the unfolding of this practice,
There is the opportunity to listen more and more deeply in direct experience.
And so the tools and techniques are always available.
And the art of meditation starts to become simply meeting this moment.
We very much cycle in all things,
Including the cycles of the meditation itself.
And so there are times when we actually go back to the initial instructions,
And we are really just working with support of the posture of the body sitting.
There is a body and it is sitting.
Or there is a body and it is standing or lying down in this hall.
And we are using the primary object in the foreground.
Just that simple.
Because there is an intuition that the attention needs to be grounded.
It needs to be focused on just one thing,
Such as the breath or such as sounds coming and going.
Too much complexity in the mind and the body.
Sometimes we need that simplicity.
And then multitudes of secondary objects at times will force themselves in the foreground of attention.
These other body sensations or loud sound.
Some sort of mood.
Some story.
Something.
We can work with these things.
And we are.
We remember our tools,
Like the acronym RAIN.
Remembering to drop into the body,
Feeling the resonance of the thoughts and emotions,
Or the startle from a loud sound.
All these tools.
And then there are still other times where the awareness is quite open and choiceless.
It is non-preferential.
So there is the sound of my voice and it is being known without preference.
And then you might notice a mind state come in with it,
Of liking or disliking.
Just relax back into the sound.
Being known.
And then there is a sensation.
The thought is known.
Everything is just arising and passing and being known.
The great dance of humanness being known in this choiceless awareness.
And then things might get a little bit fragmented or vague or discursive.
We come back to the simplicity of a primary object.
This is the art.
Only we can know what is appropriate.
There are also moments within the choiceless awareness in which the objects being known are close to the point that what begins to come into the foreground is the quality of knowing itself.
And it is less about what is being known and it is more about the knowing.
Just in moments.
So we hold this whole process of the comings and the goings,
The holding on and the release.
In the spirit of tremendous kindness,
Compassion,
Gratitude and deep equanimity.
May we trust in the unfolding of our own practice.
