Alright,
So some of you have been,
Most of you I guess,
Have been with us in the last three or four weeks as we've been making our way to the Anapanasati Sutra.
And something we've touched on is the similarity,
You know,
Mostly we've been talking about these first two groups of instructions,
Bodily contemplations,
Feeling contemplations,
And something we touched on last week I think was the similarity and the structure between those two groups.
You know,
In the first one we've got specific awareness of the breath,
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
And then we move to this more broad experience of experiencing the body as a whole,
And then even more broadly to calming the whole body.
And then in that second group,
Contemplations of feelings,
You know,
We start with this very specific thing,
This experience of joy,
And then we move out a little bit more broadly to the experience of happiness,
And a little more broadly to the awareness of mental activities,
And then finally,
Which we haven't really talked about yet,
To the calming of mental activities,
And that process of sort of letting go,
This idea of attaining deeper levels of concentration not by gaining something but by relinquishing something,
Sort of stepping back from a place of active mental concentration or activity to a less active mental condition,
From specific to sort of a looser,
More broad thing.
So you know,
The second group of four,
You remember this word tetrad,
This group of four instructions,
The second one having to do with the awareness of feeling tones,
But remember this doesn't really start with this second group.
It really starts with that feeling of simple contentment when you're in the bodily contemplations,
Where you're breathing in the moment,
You're calming your body,
And you can find that contentment there.
And you know,
Not only is that beneficial just for our own well-being,
But it's that deep foundation for what's to come as we move into the contemplation of feelings.
So as you're moving through bodily contemplations,
Be open to that,
Just contentment in the body.
So in the second set of four instructions,
Contemplation of the feelings,
You know,
We experience joy,
We experience happiness,
We experience mental activities,
And we calm mental activities.
And moving from step to step,
Like I said,
Is this practice of non-attachment.
And I've been thinking about how to,
What I wanted to say about this and make this a little more clear.
We have to let each one of these steps recede into that background awareness,
That peripheral awareness as we move from one to the other.
We have to let each in turn move into the background.
You know,
But as we move into new contemplations,
We've got to have somewhere to stand still,
We have to base ourself in something,
And what that is is exactly what we place into peripheral awareness as we go along.
So for instance,
Our main awareness is on the breath.
But as we move into the contemplation of the whole body,
Our awareness of the breath moves into the background,
And now we move our full awareness to the body.
As we move our full awareness to calming the body,
Our awareness of the whole body moves into the background.
And all of this,
You know,
While keeping grounded,
Just in the simple,
Quiet breathing and feeling of the body as home.
These serve as that observational vantage point of stillness.
If you remember that phrase that Biko Naulio gives us,
Just being in the breath,
Being in the body,
Even as we're talking about feelings,
Even as we go on to talk about mind and objects of mind,
Really keeping ourselves based,
Even if in peripheral awareness,
In simple,
Quiet breathing,
Feeling the body as home.
As we go on today with the mental activities,
You know,
Experiencing mental activities,
Mental activity arises,
Rather than involving ourselves in its content,
We practice that non-attachment to its allure,
And we perceive the feeling tones of these things that come around.
Remember,
We're trying to not get involved in the sort of sensuous or sensual aspect of what the whole thing is about,
Be it anger or grasping attachment,
Aversion,
Whatever it is.
We observe the feeling tone of mental activities as from a distance,
Based in that present calm sense of contentment.
Just note the feeling tone of each new mental activity,
And this is our most recent step.
Just as it is,
Pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Without becoming enmeshed in its content.
That's really what I want to say.
That's about all I want to say today.
We'll do a guided meditation first,
As we usually do.
We'll do five minutes of walking meditation in between,
And then we'll do 25 minutes or so of quiet meditation.
Here are the words of the Buddha,
Friends,
The full awareness of breathing,
If developed in practice continuously,
Will be rewarding and bring great advantage.
What is the way to develop and practice continuously the method of full awareness of breathing?
It is like this.
The practitioner goes into the forest or to the foot of a tree or to any quiet place,
Sits stably holding his or her body straight and practices like this.
Breathing in,
I know I'm breathing in.
Breathing out,
I know I'm breathing out.
Breathing in,
I know I'm breathing out.
Bring your body into its meditation posture,
Let your mind rest on your body as your body rests on the cushion.
Consider a sense of physical seclusion.
Think about the room where you are,
The safety it has to offer you,
Honor that space as a practice place.
And as we have for the body,
Establish a seclusion for the mind,
Resting from the demands of life.
We don't need to bring them here today.
And formulate an intention,
A motivation to practice here and now for your own growth,
And for how your growth can be for the benefit of others.
Bring attention through your spine,
Feel your spine align itself vertebrae by vertebrae,
Aligning.
Be here in the present moment,
Not in the past,
That's gone,
Not in the future,
It's not yet here.
Be here now.
This moment is your life.
Come into the present moment,
Bring mindfulness to the foreground.
Invite the presence of mindfulness.
Read it as a friend.
And for a moment,
Be aware of the condition of your mind when mindfulness is present.
Allow your mind to be open and spacious.
Make it alert.
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