Puja means honor or praise. It’s an important gesture to cultivate – the sense of rising up to something beautiful, something worthy. Making offerings, bowing, chanting and meditating are steadying and calming acts that massage the energies of body, heart and mind.

Determining to keep precepts is a way to cross the floods. They help check and restrain urges of gratification, malice and escapism. Coming from a place of ethics and mutuality naturally gives rise to pleasant states of being, giving us an orientation we want to remain with rather than following the immediate pull of inclination.

To stand against the tide of the floods we need firm ground. Established first in the body, mental/heart energies pick up the same theme of stability and core presence. This is the process of samatha – calming, stabilizing, giving one firm ground.

In standing, sitting and free movement postures, exercise an attitude of goodwill, sympathy and encouragement to invite body channels to open. Energies know what to do – body wants to wants to arrive at wholeness.

Can we chant just in the heart, without sound; Buddhism’s view on healing with energy; how to work with various energy blocks and imbalances; feeling disoriented when letting go of a topic and giving attention to body energies; what importance to give to thought; how does one cultivate absorption, to be with intense emotions; when only eating before noon does hunger become an object of meditation.

Deal with the compulsions of becoming by tackling energy in the body. Thoughtful breathing becomes comfortable and soothing. Its rhythm moderates the floods, diffusing stressful energies and psychologies. Heart and body draw close in the enjoyment. From this place of samādhi you can stand back from the most fundamental flood of becoming.

In meditation we’re resetting the dynamic movement of mental and physical energies with open energy. Using body as a guide, resonate the sense of balance and stability throughout. Let mindfulness deepen and maintain a wide-open energy that is receptive.

Once an open stability has been established, we can work from this basis, engaging decisively from the place of giving. Bringing the quality of a giving heart to mind, allow yourself to be touched and feel moved. Continue practicing with the resonances of the brahmaviharā.

In this practice we are gently peeling back the layers of time and identity to come into something much more sensitive. The act of puja is a sign for citta. Praising and recollecting in both meaning and enactment mark the path of the here and now.

With recollection, we drop meanings into the heart and listen. It’s how we come to know experience directly. Recollections of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha help frame up our meditation and cultivation – how to act, what to put aside, what to say no to, what to say yes to, and how to do that in a measured way.

Realization can’t be taught, but it can be induced. Stable in one’s presence – open, listening, attentive – one comes to know one’s own range, the place where your potentials can properly unfold without getting tangled and without overreaching. Absorb into this steady place to begin clearing the floods.

Body’s somatic intelligence is receptive to signals – suggest signals of safety, space, freedom. Settle more deeply into the core stability of the body, where it’s not mediating with internal or external phenomena – restful, like a tree.

What is practicing directly; differences between sāti sampajañña and sātipañña; meandering/curious attention when practicing; how important is jhāna; help working with our habits and blind spots; how to work with the inner critic; when to address things internally or externally with regards to other people.

We need to train and tame thought so we can use it carefully for inquiry and investigation. Steering away from the conceived, find out how citta is being affected. Supported by embodiment and qualities of goodwill and compassion, the tamed, trained thinking mind gives rise to insight – it’s a liberator.

The effect of feeling, agreeable or disagreeable, touches the citta. The practice is not to contract around the resonance, don’t grab the feeling. It’s the clinging reflex that creates the person. Maintain open stable presence – go bigger and wider than the activations – and the grasping lessens.

How do I know if I have stream entry; how is fasting a benefit for practice; is body contemplation needed, how often; how to live with someone who lacks integrity; sāti and samādhi; experience of rapture during meditation; difficult to see dukkha in sense pleasures; observing eight precepts; keeping ‘not eating after noon’ based on which time zone; issue of entitlement; receiving guidance from a teacher; understanding causes and conditions for clarity.

In puja we align ourselves to the sacred. It gives our hearts a sense of purpose. Recollection of values and virtues are uplifted and sustained, giving rise to sappurisa – a person of integrity whose actions are for the welfare of all.

The floods that wash over citta – floods of sensuality, kamma and unknowing – make it unstable, causing it to constantly search outside of itself for an anchor. The training is for citta to sit back in itself – remain embodied and use the tools within its range to gain strength and weaken the underlying programs.

Beginning at the abdomen – the center of the body, the energy center – use a combination of awareness and breathing to open, relax and release areas of the body.

Relationship between manas and citta; excessive sexual images; what is the subtle body; breath as prana/breath of life; heart qualities that shift perception to vitality; opening energy centers; does energy discharge in standing meditation; working with psychological and emotional pain; resentment and anger arise when practicing at home; unlearning addiction to the clock.

Practice with the gradual extension of the heart. Extend it in terms of goodwill. Include difficult places without withdrawal of warmth, regard or empathy. Without shutting down, allow things to be as they are. Remain open, extend from the center.

The practice of recollecting and extending goodwill establishes stability of heart. Bring to mind your allies, warming the heart in response to the inferred hostility it experiences. Repel the ill-will knowing there is something beautiful here to be protected.

Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.

Keeping the focus of eye consciousness still and soft, aware of the one who sees. This seer doesn’t speak, it just sees. Notice when mind consciousness begins chattering – nothing to talk about, there’s just the seer.

How to relate to afflictive states; thoughts of unwholesome acts arise in meditation; how can I feel safety in my brown body when there is external racism; is the movement of citta saṇkhāra the same as cetana; feels like body grows bigger while meditating; body cells are asking for more oxygen; how to direct energy to peripheral parts of body; remaining with awareness mind while noticing absence of ‘I’; self-consciousness, fear making a mistake and being judged; affected by family’s trauma like citta is haunted.

The power of lovingkindness is it can nourish and fortify the heart so doesn’t get crushed by the floods. This gives us a platform for life where all phenomena, even the most painful and difficult, can be witnessed and held. It’s just kammic forces playing themselves out – don’t get stuck in that.

Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.

Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.

Mindstates, feelings, perceptions are moving, shifting – there’s no single coherent entity in that, yet there’s awareness of that. Maintaining simple open presence, bring your body into harmony, bring your heart into harmony, and the view becomes clear: this is dependent arising.

Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.

It’s very important to share the heart, share the blessings with all that arises. One should do this regularly. Let go of the image, let go of the person – don’t dismiss it, relate to it, witnessing with sympathy, extending the heart. Lingering in the steady open presence, get familiar with it, feeling it, resting in it.

Bright pure light which comes up in meditation; dealing with trauma from a kammic standpoint; how to practice with back pain and lack of sleep; if there’s no self who puts forth effort into the 4 right efforts; offering of invitation was not received leaving sourness; when feeling arises from words do I just stay with the feeling or inquire about it; a lot of pain in body and sudden urge to cry; mind first allows phenomena to subside and investigates later; transitioning back into kammic realm from a place of presence is challenging too easily losing mindfulness; difference between citta and manas; compulsive tendency around cleanliness; struggle with breath meditation feeling like I’m controlling it.

The signs in daily life can be sterile, abrasive, rapid – designed for effective organization, not for organic life. Puja is an occasion to shift gears and cultivate signs of simple beauty, warmth, inclusivity. It’s helpful to have an atmospheric dip every day into signs that cause citta to feel like home.

We can become flooded by signs that carry meaning according to our kammic histories. To move out of the floods of thought, self, other people, let the sign be a reminder. Go to the body, the felt sense, to the place where the personal qualities are subdued and there’s just the qualities of goodwill and patience. Energies shift and release. This is how we clean out embedded kamma.

Working at our levels but there’s nothing to attain/is citta is inherently pure; how to think about kamma after death; how does being enveloped in compassion feel; after moving energy down into belly deciding to move from samatha to vipassanā; the knower merges with the known and there’s no object left; when beginning to become concentrated I get hijacked into numbness/feeling lost in brahmaviharā; relationship between awareness, citta, mindfulness and the mind.

As you review what’s arising and passing for you, establish balance and continue with non-engagement. It’s just the human citta doing what it does. Awareness, firm and focused, lingering – in that you’ll find a quiet happiness.

Is citta able to verbalize/understand words; citta’s role in nightmares; differences between hindrances and fetters; is cultivating bhavana or khanti better for burning off defilements; a lot of pain in the body caused movement in meditation disrupting energy; cultivating mētta; alternative healing methods; startled out of the body when bell rings; locating ancestral exclusions in the body; understanding workings of mind from Abhidhamma perspective vs. contemplation of 4 foundations of mindfulness for realizing non-self; accessing solar plexus during meditation; finding firmness when touching into open spaciousness; musician is torn between music and meditation.

We throw ourselves away into identities, sources of stress, comparison, separation. Puja is an occasion for returning to citta’s true home – the sacred that includes it all. Make note of what takes you out and what brings you back home – faith, values – and keep them close by.

An encouragement to continue finding the time and occasion to establish presence to be with all that arises. It’s not about getting through the maze of dukkha but gaining the skills and balance that lift you out. It’s the path of the sappurisa, the person of integrity who attunes to practice with all it requires – faith, open center, with the first movement being goodwill.

On this last day of retreat, mind might be occupied with comings and goings and what’s next. Remember the stabilizing practices that give citta the strength and encouragement to open despite the bewildering nature of things. Don’t be moved by the change of circumstance, every moment is precious.

Trying to find triggers and safe space in the midst of health issues that affect nervous system, heart rate and breathing; stiff neck and shoulder muscles keep re-contracting; how to respond to getting so tired; what is the wise and caring response to body; navigating touch and contact skillfully; how can we be heirs to our kamma if there is no self to inherit it; through investigation of qualities of citta clarity and falling away has occurred – how to sustain; the more I see things clearly the more I feel the weight of delusion causing sadness and disgust and feeling of pointlessness for practice; how to approach in and out breath to calm mental activity (citta)/please speak to mindfulness of feeling from the Ānāpānasati Sutta.

A reflection on how this online retreat came together: good people combining their skills towards a wholesome intention. Whatever we embark on has an element of uncertainty and possibility of failure, but the heart doesn’t fail. Stay open, do your practice, and meet the challenges that arise. Best to form a group – it becomes difficult when you feel you’ve got to do it on your own.