Mind (citta) as the Buddha’s focus of investigation. As both the cause of suffering and the means to its cessation The Buddha points to two states or tendencies of mind Akusala - unwholesome, unskillful Kusala - wholesome, skillful, beneficial Suffering follows the unwholesome mind, Happiness follows the wholesome mind like a shadow that never departs. Our task, step by step, is to train the mind and supplant the unwholesome state with the wholesome states. Greed, hatred and Delusion are the root causes for the unwholesome mind. We must cultivate the factors that are the cause for the wholesome mind at three levels. Coarse - Actions, bodily or verbal. We use the five precepts to prevent unwholesome tendencies at this level. Obsessive, compulsive patterns - Thoughts, emotions. We use meditation, deep samadhi directed to an object, to see the arising of these tendencies and still the mind. Underlying tendencies, attachments - the remaining defilements We use wisdom, insight, to investigate the body and mind and see their impermanence and stop the clinging to a false self to uproot these final tendencies. This is liberation.

The Buddha’s last words were: ‘All sankhārā are impermanent; make an effort with diligence.’ Is there a place where self, other, past, future don’t happen? That’s what we meditate for. It takes us under the froth to the root of where the turbulence is coming from. These formative patterns have energy, but through bearing presence, they gradually lose their intensity and dissolve.

How seeing the Five Aggregates as unsatisfactory, impermanence and not self leads to liberation.

The Buddha said that the perception of impermanence, when developed and cultivated, can lead to liberation. This talk explores some of the ways we can begin and continue to perceive this truth more accurately.

Using the breath to steady the mind, to reflect on impermanence and to see ‘non ownership’ The boulder is not heavy if you don’t pick it up This is ‘how it is’ – methods to access the third noble truth Replacing reactivity with mindfulness – the flood stopper

The 4 truths that en-noble as we grow through them The 8 kinds of Dukkha – Anando, ex marine & monk, bowing through anger Death is also impermanent, seeing through impermanence, one touches peace. When the causes of dukkha break up, it ceases - revealing the timeless dharma.