How precepts and understanding support environmental balance

A review of the Satipatthana as a holistic practice

Effort is the engagement of heart with a topic. In satipatthana, the engagement is with body as an intelligent entity. When heart meets the ‘spinal sense’ there is resolve and stability.

Through consciousness, boundaries form between subject and object; thus, me and the world. Through the stress of that, the me closes into a bag. Defense and acquisition strategies. Heart (citta) is not consciousness and can turn away from creating the same me bag. This is through regulating inner-outer sensitivities to a harmonious whole.

Touch sense establishes relationship and presence within the shared field. When this is safe, citta can unfold, and we re-form.

Turn away from the measuring mind to track how experience is, and the arising and passing of stress. In this way, we engage with the ‘noble pleasure’ that leads to samadhi.

Q1 00:52 When you're walking around and brushing your teeth what's your experience of the sense world and nibbana? I'd like to experience more beauty and sacredness in the sense world and cultivate a relationship with the transcendent, but it feels so out of reach; Q2 17:43 Recently I listened to a talk by Ajahn Tanissaro and he said he didn't know any practitioner in the West who was a stream enterer. I was disheartened. Can you say something about this? Q3 28:09 can you give some advice on cell phones and technology please? They drain my energy quickly. Q4 35:34 (several questions) In mindfulness of breathing, does one proceed sequentially through the 16 phrases, or pick up the steps that seem to fit with whatever seems to be arising. Why is it presented as a graduated training? Also, can you speak about releasing the heart? Q5 44:18 What are the differences between attention and awareness? What are their Pali terms? Q6 49:42 "One reviews the extent to which one's mind is liberated..." In the Book of the 5s. If one's mind is non-liberated how do you go about it? Q7 52:59 How to relate when resistance arises in practice from feeling blocked, to discouraged or lost etc etc etc.

The process of fruition through satipaṭṭhāna entails resources, obstacles, skills, release and integration. Nibbana can be momentary whenever the consciousness of subject and object deconstructs.

Citta/heart is like a lake with waves rippling through it. The unawakened response is to create walls to resist the unpleasant, and fences to retain the pleasant - and ‘me’ to hold it all. Awakening responses to the waves are the skills of samadhi and brahmavihara. These make the lake vast and able to allow waves to arise and subside. They are doors to the Deathless - the unconstructed that the citta can enter through non-holding.

Bringing to mind and resonating with benevolent occasions in one’s life to build up a solid resonant sign to sit within – with 39 min silent meditation.

Investigate the causal process of how dhammas arise and subside, and learn how to be with that.

Resonating with images and meanings of the Triple Gem generates positive waves that place one in the field of the True, the Good and the Beautiful – the best place for practice.

The renunciate quality of retreat removes our psychological cushions. Therefore soothing, not intensity, is needed. Gaining health and psychological flex, we can disband the fantasies that haunt the heart.

Based on a heart that integrates around goodwill, key features of letting go arise. These are a successive process of disengagement, dispassion, cessation and release (or relinquishment). For example bitterness and guilt can be felt as they are and move on.

Q1 - What would you suggest as priorities for lay practice, recollections to establish a steady orientation to Dhamma?; 13:08 Q2 - Mindfulness when talking and using computers etc.; 18:30 Q3 - Energy, qi, anapanasati and integration of energy; 26:24 Q4 – I feel lots of unpleasant skin sensations when sitting, What might these be? 28:46 Q5 You’ve referred to integrating energy as a new way to consider. What does this mean? 36:09 Q9 Why couldn’t it be that nibbana is like chasing the unicorn; 37:23 Q10 Can you speak about wisdom and samadhi; 40:33 Q11 Can you provide some guidance on mudita, rapture (piti) and stability/ staying grounded; 44:52 Q12 Contemplating the arising of the ‘me’ sense, dependent on phenomena.