So this is the last week of this series on the Eightfold Path.
These early teachings now more than ever feel like valuable tools to navigate our lives and to stay steady and free.
Remember we practice this path to be free,
Free from the tension of wanting,
The stress of not wanting,
Free from living our life on autopilot.
And the path starts with the wisdom factors,
Wise view and wise intention,
And then we move into ethics,
How we behave in the world,
Wise speech,
Wise action,
Wise livelihood.
And now we're into,
We're moving into mind training.
The last three path factors are training the mind.
And traditionally we train the mind with the support of the other two,
With the wisdom factor,
With the ethics.
The support of wisdom and ethics helps to train the mind.
Jack Kornfield used to say that you can't really meditate or practice if you're spending your day like stealing and killing all day,
You know,
The mind doesn't settle.
But so it's so interesting though,
So in turn you know the effort and the mindfulness that we develop,
It supports concentration and supports living with wisdom.
So this is truly the path of giving and receiving,
You know,
The the eightfold path really supports each of the factors support one another for a free life.
So we covered right effort on Thursday,
And just to remind you,
The effort required is a light effort.
It's as simple as asking,
Am I aware?
What am I aware of?
What is known right now,
In this moment?
What is the attitude in the mind?
So light effort and mindfulness,
The factor that we're on today,
And I use mindfulness and awareness interchangeably.
Mindfulness at its essence is a methodology for freedom.
When we are aware,
Even when we're tight,
Even when we're not liking,
Just being aware can support a free and easeful life.
We're seeing,
That's why we practice.
And the freedom in Buddhism is not the freedom to do whatever you want,
It's freedom from the compulsion that we have,
The freedom from our inner restrictions that force us and drive us to pursue our next desire.
Freedom from our animosities,
Our hatred that we have,
That we get caught up in,
And the fear that we have that becomes a driver.
Awareness practice,
Mindfulness is simply knowing the state of your mind at this moment,
Without judging it,
Or evaluating it,
Or trying to change it.
Knowing your emotional state in this moment.
Is there joy?
Is there sorrow?
Is there loneliness?
This is mindfulness.
What are you aware of?
That's it.
Asking and knowing,
That's mindfulness.
It's important because how we perceive and frame each moment,
It generates our reality.
So the quality of your mind determines the quality of your life.
And if the quality of mind that knows that we're knowing,
You know,
Knows that we're knowing,
This leads us to freedom.
In neuroscience,
This quality of knowing that we're knowing,
It's called metacognition.
And in this,
We're kind of stepping back and being aware that we're aware.
So mental noting,
The tool that has you ask,
You know,
What are you aware of?
Sound,
Sensation,
Mind states,
Distraction,
Boredom.
That noting is mindfulness.
Noting the state of your mind moment by moment.
And as we practice mental noting,
It gets stronger.
Mindfulness becomes stronger.
The state of our mind to be aware becomes the habit of the mind.
And where we often get caught,
Where mindfulness gets a little murky,
Is when let's say we we note that we have boredom.
Then we add a whole storyline.
We add content and perceptions and feelings and views,
All to the state of boredom.
And if we're not aware of adding all this other content,
Then we're run by it.
We get quickly entangled in our perceptions and our beliefs and in our stories.
And as awareness gets stronger,
We can be observing our experience.
We're present,
We know what's happening.
But we're experiencing all of this through filters in the mind.
You know,
It might be the filter of wanting,
Or it might be the filter of aversion and resistance,
Or it might be the filter of kind of confusion or delusion.
So as the mindfulness gets stronger,
We begin to also see these filters.
We can feel the effects of these of these different mind states,
You know,
These different filters.
So part of our mindfulness practice is to become aware of them,
Of the filters.
And how we become aware of them is by asking the question,
What is the attitude in my mind that will focus us on whether there is a filter or not?
There may not be a filter.
Just asking the question,
What is the attitude in the mind?
Sometimes that allows us to relax back.
There's an important principle that I've shared often,
And I think that we need to hear it often.
I certainly do.
And it's that it really doesn't matter what the experience is,
Whatever experience we're having.
What matters is how we relate to the experience.
That's what we're practicing.
We're not practicing for a particular experience.
Whatever experience arises,
It's all just part of a passing show.
And the liberating practice of mindfulness is not about what experience is happening.
It's how we're relating to it.
So why is mindfulness?
The Buddha defined it not by talking about sort of a singular term,
Like a particular mental faculty,
But he defined it as a set of mental practices that work together in a coordinated way.
He presented awareness practice as within four places or ways of establishing mindfulness.
And these four areas are the body,
The second is feelings or feeling tones.
The third is mind states,
The attitudes in the mind.
And the fourth,
The fourth foundation pays very careful attention to the process of clinging and letting go of clinging.
So it covers most of the things in the mind,
Really all the things in the mind.
Any thought,
Any emotion,
Any intention.
And these are known as the dharmas.
Everything that's running around in your mind,
These are the dharmas.
And the filters we place over experience,
These are the dharmas too.
So I won't go into the details of the four foundations of mindfulness today,
As I want to leave some room for discussion.
But just to say that as we refine our understanding of mindfulness,
It's more than just paying attention.
It's more than living in the moment.
It's a special kind of observing power without getting hooked in wanting or without getting hooked in pushing away,
Without being hooked in delusion or confusion.
Where we're just open,
Receptive and aware of whatever's happening,
Regardless of if it's pleasant or unpleasant,
Whatever is arising,
There's a receptive awareness.
There's a very important teaching from the early teachings that what we frequently think about,
What we practice knowingly or unknowingly,
What we habitually repeat over and over again,
Becomes the inclination of the mind.
So every every time we do or act in a certain way,
It reinforces a neuropathway.
And when we really understand this,
It engenders a sense of care and what we're cultivating.
So every time we get caught in anger,
We're strengthening anger.
Every time we get caught in greed,
We're strengthening greed.
And when we get caught in love,
We strengthen love.
And when we get caught in compassion,
We strengthen compassion.
So when we practice paying attention with mindfulness,
It gives us more choice.
That's the liberating potential.
It's like we're artists and we're creating our life.
So there's a lot more I could say about wise mindfulness,
Wise awareness.
But I think I'd just like to open it up for comments and questions at this time.
So thank you for your attention and consideration.
