Homework

1. Try sitting for a minimum of 5-10 minutes per day. (more if you are able) It is helpful to find a quiet space or room, a consistent time, and a chair or cushion that best supports your sitting practice.  It is helpful to use a timer (if using your phone place it a distance away from where you are sitting) Please practice your meditation in silence.
2. Experiment with different sitting postures and meditation supports — a cushion, a chair, or a bench. Find what works best for your body to help develop an alert and easeful posture. One that supports your attention to the present moment experience of the body/breath.
3. Bring an attitude of kindness, curiosity, and interest into your sitting practice. As you meditate, begin by settling into the body. Aware of sitting and the sensations of sitting such as the body making contact with the mat or the floor, or your sitting bones on the cushion or chair. Then gently bring the attention to rest on the breathing either at the nostrils, the chest area or the abdomen. Using the breath as an anchor.
4. This practice is a practice of remembering, so when your mind wanders and you notice it wandering or you wake up from the story/trance you are in. Delight that you are awake, ground in the body and simply escort the attention back to the breath, the anchor. Every time you bring your attention back to the present moment, you are developing mindfulness.
5. 5) Gratitude Practice. Write down, say to partner or friend, or text a person in the class 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.

Continue to cultivate the foundation:

1. Practice sitting meditation for a minimum of 5-15 minutes per day (more if you are able). When you are sitting, rest your attention on the felt sensations of breathing. When you notice the mind has wandered gently bring the attention back to the experience of breathing. If a strong physical sensation makes it difficult for you to stay with the breath, bring your awareness to this new predominant experience and sense or feel the physical experience. Simply allow it to be there. Drop whatever comments or evaluations you may have about the experience and get to know the experience directly. Once a sensation is no longer calling your attention or has disappeared, return to or open to the breathing.
2. Practice standing meditation at least once in your day
3. Practice walking meditation at least once during the day as you move through the world.
4. Gratitude Practice. Write down, say to a partner or friend, or text a person in the class 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
5. Ask yourself: What keeps you, from paying attention in your life? What keeps you from living more fully? What keeps you from living here in the present moment?
6. In the midst of your regular daily activities, dedicate two 5-minute periods during the week to being mindful of your body. Notice your shoulders, stomach, face, and hands. If you find tension in any of these places open, soften and bring in some ease if possible.
7. Dedicate one snack or meal a day to eating slowly and mindfully. Pay attention to the tastes, textures, temperature, and other qualities of your food and to the experience of your body eating. You might want to put down the spoon or fork between bites. Whenever your mind wanders, or whenever you get caught up in reactions to what is happening, pause and come back to the simplicity of eating mindfully.

1. Practice sitting meditation for 10-20 minutes a day.
2. Practice standing and walking meditation at least once during each day as you move through the world.
3. Gratitude Practice. Write down, say to partner or friend, or text a person in the class 3 things you are grateful for each day.
4. Choose one activity you engage in daily—a simple, routine activity and commit to integrating mindfulness into that activity every day. Such as: brushing one’s teeth, taking a shower, driving. This practice is in addition to your daily formal sitting-standing-walking-gratitude practices. It is designed to help bring mindfulness more fully into your daily life.
5. Gently notice-when you can, if experiences are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. (Be mindful of the habit to hold on to the pleasant, push away the unpleasant & space out the neutral)
6. Remember the hindrances of desire, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness, doubt.  Do your best to get to know those energies.
7. During meditation, stay mindful of the breath. When the mind wanders and you notice it. Delight that you are present. Gently, drop the story and open to the breath. You can always start again. When emotions arise in the background. Let them be in the background. However when an emotion becomes compelling enough to make it difficult to be mindful of the breath or you are experiencing a struggle- then bring the emotion into the focus of meditative awareness.

Practice the RAIN:

R=Recognizing what emotion is arising.

A=Accepting, Allowing, opening to, making room for the emotion just as it is. Not adding, Not subtracting.

I=Investigating. Dropping any fixed ideas you have about the emotion. Seeing it in a fresh way. Seeing what makes up the emotion- where is it in the body? What are the sensations, Is it pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, got any attitudes? –Not analyzing more a sensory understanding. Let the body be the container for the emotion.

N=Non identification. Not claiming the emotion to be who you are or how things are. Instead resting in awareness.

Keep Practicing!

1) Sitting for a minimum of 20-30 minutes per day. Do your best!

For at least the first 10 minutes, keep your meditation simple — focus on the breath. To the best of your ability, when some other experience gets in the way of being with the breath, simply let it go and come back to the breath. After 10-minutes, continue with the breath until something else becomes more compelling. If physical sensations, emotions or thinking predominate, let go of the breath. Open to what is happening. Recognize, Allow, Observe. When it is no longer compelling or if nothing else is compelling, Open/return to to the body/breath experience.

2) Practice standing and walking meditation during the day as you move through the world.

3) Gratitude Practice. Write down, say to partner or friend, or text a person in the class 3 things you are grateful for each day.

4) Choose one activity you engage in daily—a simple, routine activity—and commit to integrating mindfulness and awareness into that activity every day.  Such as: brushing one’s teeth, taking a shower, driving. This practice is in addition to your daily formal sitting-standing-walking-gratitude practices. It is designed to help bring mindfulness more fully into your daily life.

5) Thoughts:

• Remember that the point of meditation is not to stop thinking! With mindfulness, we are not stopping thoughts or pushing away the thoughts that do arise as much as not dwelling in them or being preoccupied with them.
• Do your best to pay attention to thoughts without getting lost in their content. Instead, simply notice that thinking is happening in your mind. Often we get lost in thoughts about the past or future.
• Bring an affectionate curiosity, interest, investigation into thinking/thoughts. Notice how thoughts are connected with feelings, body sensations, emotions.
• Once during the week, for 10 minutes, find some way to remind yourself every few minutes to notice what you are thinking. Are the thoughts mainly self-referential or mainly about others? Do they tend to be critical or judgmental? What is the frequency of thoughts of “I should”? Are the thoughts mostly directed to the future or the past? Do you tend more toward optimistic or pessimistic thoughts? Contented or dissatisfied thoughts? This is not an exercise in judging what you notice, but in simply noticing. This is an exercise in stepping outside of the thought-stream into an awareness that is bigger than the thinking mind.

 

 

Habitual thinking and mindfulness do not co-exist. What does it mean to not abide in habit?

If we were to reduce each habituated thought to its essence, each one could fit, or be reduced to, one of three different categories;  thoughts about clinging, thoughts about aversion, or thoughts about identification. Or put even more simply, habitual thought is either based on greed, hatred, or delusion.

Our homework this week is to pick just one of these three categories and to carefully notice our thought patterns in this arena as they occur.  Our homework is to bring mindfulness to that particular category of thought throughout the week, in our formal practice and in our daily lives.  Seeing what happens when we bring an affectionate curiosity to this aspect of our lives.

Be prepared to report in class about how this work has proceeded during the week.

The homework this week is a continuation of last week.

If we were to reduce each habituated thought to its essence, each one could fit, or be reduced to, one of three different categories;  thoughts about clinging, thoughts about aversion, or thoughts about identification. Or put even more simply, habitual thought is either based on greed, hatred, or delusion.

Our homework this week is to pick just one of these three categories and to carefully notice our thought patterns in this arena as they occur.  Our homework is to bring mindfulness to that particular category of thought throughout the week, in our formal practice and in our daily lives.  Seeing what happens when we bring an affectionate curiosity to this aspect of our lives.

Be prepared to report in class about how this work has proceeded during the week.

The homework this week is a continuation of last week.

If we were to reduce each habituated thought to its essence, each one could fit, or be reduced to, one of three different categories;  thoughts about clinging, thoughts about aversion, or thoughts about identification. Or put even more simply, habitual thought is either based on greed, hatred, or delusion.

Our homework this week is to pick just one of these three categories and to carefully notice our thought patterns in this arena as they occur.  Our homework is to bring mindfulness to that particular category of thought throughout the week, in our formal practice and in our daily lives.  Seeing what happens when we bring an affectionate curiosity to this aspect of our lives.

Be prepared to report in class about how this work has proceeded during the week.

Week 1 Practice Suggestions Mindfulness of Mind-Heart (Citta) 

Read the section on “Mindfulness of Mind” from Mindfulness a Practical Guide to Awakening by Joseph Goldstein. If you find yourself lost in a mind state you might find the section “Mindfulness of Dhammas The Five Hindrances” helpful.  Another good source on the hindrances is at https://app.box.com/s/j15w0dflvep1w7vrdrlfifw7t70awptn  All of the material for the course including my Kindle notes on Joseph’s book can you at https://app.box.com/s/1mdwv2wkbh0zbib125mcgb2qi9ih7c3u

In formal practice when you have enough steadiness, observe whether the mind is:

With Anger or Without Anger

With Lust or Without Without Lust

With Delusion or Without Delusion

Contracted or not Contracted

Distracted or not Distracted

Notice how these mind states “feel” and see if you can continue to keep them as your frame of reference until they cease. Give equal weight to times when unskillful states are not present.  Do you identify with these states as who you are?

Take this practice in your daily life.  It might be easier to focus on less charged states at first. If you find it more helpful, you might want to focus on one of these aspects of mind.  Also, if you are inclined you explore making a light mental note of the state.  For example you might note irritation, peace…(See the section on Mental Noting (about page 14 of https://app.box.com/s/mtwi7yhop36kfpofyulfd9f8lg9nc5s5 )

Notes:

1. Anger is a translation of the Pali word Dosa but think of the term more broadly to include anger, hatred, ill will, aversion, irritation. Also without anger can be interpreted as loving, kind, good will.
2. Lust is a translation of the Pali raga but think of the term more broadly to include –lust, desire, greed, craving
3. Contracted/Without Contracted here refers to the inner withdrawal of the mind due to sloth and torpor. There’s little or no energy to meet the object; we experience dullness and heaviness, collapsing inward. This state is contrasted with the mind distracted by externals and pursuing different sense objects due to restlessness.

Week 2 Practice Suggestions Mindfulness of Mind-Heart (Citta)

Read the section The Refrain On Feelings and Mind from Practical Guide to Awakening. An alternative source for the reading is at https://app.box.com/s/mtwi7yhop36kfpofyulfd9f8lg9nc5s5

1. Continue the practices from last week that are
2. Explore observing the arising and cessation of mind Often you might not notice the change at the time it occurs but perhaps upon reflection, you might see what activated or changed the mind state. If mind states are constantly changing can they be what you are?
3. When in relationship with someone, explore being aware of your and the other person’s mind state. It is helpful to connect with the body, perhaps lightly being aware of the breathing, or the pressure of the buttocks, whether your facial muscles, hands etc. are
4. In daily life deliberately bring a quality of kindness and compassion to the way you respond to yourself and other. Be aware of the felt sense of the intention, the action, and the result. When there are difficult mind states, pause, come to the body and explore what underlies these mind states.

Below are links to some articles and one talk to explore if you are interested in the subject. It is a lot of material but I am providing them because these topics came up in the discussion this week.

There is no expectation that you read them unless there is a particular topic that resonates with you. There are many articles and talks on these topics. If you want to explore them further, I encourage you to search or bring up the topic next week.

New to Practice?

It is difficult to walk the line in the class between the very experienced meditators and those who are new. If you are new, please don’t hesitate to ask questions. Everyone will benefit and this is a very kind and wise group. There is a file on meditation techniques at https://app.box.com/s/b2xyx8sh8lrtx17ymlndwftfgfsfmild and all the material form the last beginner’s course I taught is at https://app.box.com/s/c2nb5gmqnzptgw9q2smm7307kmigpibs Also, at https://cambridgeinsight.org/homework/ there is “Homework” for the current Way of Awareness Class.

Judgment and the Inner Critic

https://buddhismnow.com/2018/03/30/judging-mind-versus-discerning-mind-by-corrado-pensa/

https://ajahnsucitto.org/articles/unseating-the-inner-tyrant/

Guided Meditation and Diaphragmatic Breathing

In the guided meditation I suggested exploring three strands of breathing: muscles, air flow, energy. The guided meditation below is similar to part of what we did in class. Also, I spoke about diaphragmatic breathing. It is our natural way of breathing when we are embodied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaphragmatic_breathing

Awareness of others Mind States and Communication

At lunch, someone asked whether it was okay to ask the other person about their mind state. There is an excellent book Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg. I have put four of his talks at https://app.box.com/s/8e6xojdxw6awm98pivz73eodcr26z108 There is an article that touches on the subject at https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-satya-nadella-nonviolent- communication-2018-10 A quote from the article points to what we are doing in the practice Rosenberg said he once heard that “observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence”

Pushing the Edge

There was some discussion on pushing the edge. There is an article on the subject by Joan Halifax, I don’t know how helpful will be but if you want to explore it go to https://www.lionsroar.com/life-on- the-edge/