After teaching the first Buddhist meditation retreat to the five ascetics, the Buddha introduces the topic of not-self (anattā) with Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta. Tonight we look at the Buddha’s perspective on how we create a self by clinging to five categories or “bundles” (khandha) of experience. The key moves are: “This is mine;” “I am this;” and “This is my self.”

We explore the role of the body in our meditation practice, using the Buddha’s practice of kāyagatā sati (mindfulness immersed in body) as our guide. We forget we are bodies, fooled by our mind’s ability to create realities that are separate from the bodies we are. We explore the practice of mindfulness immersed in body using the Buddha’s instructions to Mahā Kassapa as our guide: “You should train yourself in this way: “I will not abandon mindfulness immersed in body associated with joy.”

Equanimity allows us to remain present and awake with the fact of things—equally close to the things we like and the things we dislike. Shaila Catherine describes the importance of developing equanimity in two arenas: 1) in response to pleasant and painful feelings, and 2) regarding the future results of our actions. Equanimity develops in meditation and in life. We can use unexpected events that we cannot control to develop equanimity. Our job is not to judge our experiences, but to be present and respond wisely. Equanimity is a beautiful mental factor that can feel like freedom, but if "I" and "mine" still operate, there is still work to be done. This talk includes many practical suggestions for cultivating equanimity.

The teaching of anattā (“not-self”) points to one of the three fundamental areas of liberating insight taught by the Buddha (along with the teachings on impermanence and on suffering or dukkha). Yet anattā can very challenging and confusing for contemporary practitioners. Is there “no self” (as anattā is sometimes translated)? How do we make sense of our feelings of individuality, identity, ancestry, and vocation? How do we address our own personal experiences of woundedness, trauma, and oppression? Are these all simply to be “transcended”? How is a sense of self actually in many ways important for contemporary spiritual development, and how is working with our own individual conditioning, whether psychological or social in origin, central to our liberation? How do we integrate attending to such conditioning with opening as well to the power and energy of experiences beyond the habitual sense of self? In this daylong, we will explore these vital questions primarily in a practical way. Using the metaphors of “thinning the self” and working with a “thick” sense of self, we will cover three aspects of practice: (1) cultivating, in several ways, the “thinning” of the self, both in meditation and in everyday life, including working with the Five Skandhas or “aggregates” of experience; (2) tracking and working with different manifestations of a “thick” sense of self, both as appearing in experience and as hidden to awareness; and (3) opening to experiencing beyond a fixed sense of self, as awareness, compassion, and responsiveness deepen.

One way to understand how the process of mindfulness meditation leads to awakening is seeing how these five qualities of mind work together.

A fundamental principle of satipaṭṭhāna practice is to take what distracts us, what prevents us from practising, and make it our meditation object. Here we look at using the thought-stream as meditation object. We learn how to attend to the process of thinking rather than get caught up in the contents of our thoughts.

Lama Surya Das speaks about his most recent book, “Make Me One with Everything, Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation.” Becoming one with everything, by seeing through separateness, is the heart of what Lama Surya Das calls “co-meditation.” “Co” means with. So, co-meditating is not just meditating with other people, but with everything that arises. This opens the door to what Buddhists call “everyday Dharma,” which integrates mindful Dharma into daily life. Everything is the object of our meditation; there are no distractions. When we co-meditate, we are being one with everything, not against it nor apart from it. This is the meaning of “inter-being.” This is also the answer to our great loneliness and the alienation that we feel today.

This morning we look at what the Buddha means by vedanā, or “feeling.” We begin with a meditation experiment and go on to explore what the role of affect in the Buddha’s teaching, and in our practice.

This morning we experiment in using breathing as a meditation object. How do we know we are breathing? We find movement in the body, air element (vayo dhātu). We practise precision in our mindfulness of breathing by tracking its location, its length, its shape or form, its clarity, its beginnings and ends. This opens up issues regarding both the nature of breathing and our relationship to breathing.

We introduce satipaṭṭhāna, the way of mindfulness. More than just a meditation technique, satipaṭṭhāna represents a way of practice that is a “one-way street” (ekāyana magga) leading direct to nibbāna. We examine the meaning of nibbāna, looking at it both cognitively and affectively. And we discuss the relationship between the practice of tracking experience over time, and nibbāna itself.

This morning we examine the nature of meditation itself, seeing it in terms of awareness, attention and method. We explore the nature of awareness, and how attention structures the field of awareness. From there, we look at issues in developing a meditation method.

This talk by Jason Murphy is the sixth in the speaker series Ethics, Action and the Five Precepts.The five training precepts are not commandments nor are they a list of “don’t dos.” Instead, they have an over-arching principle of ahimsa, or do no harm. In other words, following the precepts can be seen as a way to stop us from spilling our suffering onto the rest of the world. In addition, the aim of observing the precepts is to allow practitioners to be blameless and at ease, thereby preparing their minds for meditation. The fifth precept deals with not taking alcohol, drugs or other intoxicants that will lead to heedlessness. This precept is really about seeing clearly: we cannot see clearly and develop our wisdom when we intoxicate our mind.