Energy is affected by intention. If we approach meditation with an intense need to calm and find a focus, we probably won’t be able to. This very aim affects our breathing and sense of ease. Make the aim about purification, letting things be how they are without getting intense about it.

The body can self-reference. It knows when it’s in balance, what upright is, and can relax what’s not needed. When the physical form becomes comfortable, bring attention to the bodily mood. Mind can pick up tones of firm, open, confident from the body.

Formal meditation is helpful, but we need to cultivate careful attention throughout the day. Use mind skilfully to bond attention in the body. Notice the body’s own intelligence. Attention becomes less like a scientist, more like a healer – the good friend.

A talk between meditations given on day 2 of an 8-day meditation retreat by Ven. Pannavati (after a teaching on the 10 impediments by Ven. Pannadipa), followed by a song by Dr. Hall "It's in Stillness that Truth Abides"

Experience the body as a unity rather than parts.. Find balance and release tension into that steady space.

Learn to tune into these 3 languages that are happening all the time, but we don’t hear them. Mind language (thought) overwhelms and corrupts; learn the language of the heart and body.

This guided practice awakens a relaxed and friendly attention that rests in the breath and opens to whatever is arising. We deepen that presence with the intention to truly say “Yes” to experience, allowing life to be just as it is.

Expanding metta practice from the usual other beings to phenomena itself. Based on Rob Burbea's work.

Shaila Catherine discusses the importance of developing mindfulness of emotions and mental states. Human beings have the capacity to experience a wide range of emotions—they may be subtle or intense, unwholesome or wholesome. Working with emotions requires energy and courage to be willing to face the raw fact that this mental state is present. We can become aware of, and work skillfully with, any emotional state including anger, hate, gratitude, fear, sadness, calmness, insecurity, contentment, grief, tranquility, lust, compassion, loneliness, jealousy, envy, restlessness, peacefulness, faith, love. Emotions are changing mental states that arise in conjunction with every perception. When we are mindful of emotions we drop the conceptual narrative of the story line and investigate how the mind operates. What conditions nourish each mental state, and what conditions cause them to end? How do these mental states affect the clarity of our perception? We can observe the dynamic interaction of emotions and the body, and learn to work with emotions in conjunction with their somatic manifestations. We might gather ideas for investigation by reviewing the detailed Abhidhamma categories of mental states and the factors that constitute each state, or we might simply observe the arising and ceasing of mental states in activity and our meditation.

Morning Instructions on the four elements and Q&A

Qualities of the awakened heart - topic of love

A few words on the qualities of the heart and a guided meditation.

Learning how to recognize and rest in spaciousness, allows us to discover the love and wakefulness that is our source. This meditation guides us to discover interior space, exterior space, and then the continuous space that is suffused with awareness. We then explore how that awareness is experienced as heartspace—vast, illuminated and tender.

Including our body, our selves, each other and all beings.

For chant, See Common Ground Meditation Center Chants Book page 28

Softening and Opening the Heart Mind

Forgiveness Meditation in the Four Directions

Using attention to identify an unmet need, and to shift to recognizing what matters at the core independent of any situation, time, person, place, or thing.