| |
|
Dharma Talks
|
2014-10-21
Kamma and Intention: A Fresh Start
24:54
|
|
Shaila Catherine
|
|
|
This talk by Shaila Catherine was given as a part of the series "Enhancing Mindfulness Skills: A Seven-Week Series Dedicated to Cultivating Transformative Insight." Action influenced by intention is called kamma in the Pali language or karma in Sanskrit. We condition patterns, habits, and create pleasant or painful results through repeated intentional actions. The key to working with our patterns is not in the past, it is how we relate to present events. We are not condemned to dwell in any mental state. We have the potential to disentangle ourselves from suffering and cease creating causes for suffering. When we are mindful, we can notice the process that occurs between a stimulus and our response. Then, supported by calmness, wisdom, and clear intention, we stop reacting to life through the conditioned force of habit and may experience a truly spontaneous, free response to life.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
|
2014-10-14
Many Kinds of Thoughts
41:01
|
|
Shaila Catherine
|
|
|
This talk was given by Shaila Catherine as a part of the series "Enhancing Mindfulness Skills: A Seven-Week Series Dedicated to Cultivating Transformative Insight."
Mindful of the thinking process, we explore how thoughts function in our lives. Unwholesome mental patterns can reinforce obsessive desires, identification, rigid opinions, and attachment to belief systems. What patterns are most common for you—planning, rumination, fantasy, rehearsing, daydreaming, judging, comparing, fixing, instructing? We observe the types of thoughts that arise, and reflect on whether those thoughts support our values and purpose. We learn to let go of unskillful thoughts and then focus our attention so that we use the mind skillfully. Buddhist tradition identifies three sources for proliferating thought: craving, conceit, and views. By examining the sources of conceptual proliferation, we can curb the wandering tendencies of mind.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
|
|
