This talk reviews the 4 foundations of mindfulness and breath meditation.

Strengthening Mindfulness Through Practicing With An Anchor

This talk overviews multiple ways of practicing from focused awareness to flexible awareness to natural awareness. Specifically we deal with cultivating concentration and how it can benefit our mindfulness practice.

This talk shares how reflecting on our death and our precious birth situates mindfulness in a transformative way.

Questions are précised. Q1 0:00 - Could you explain the meaning of mind? Q2 14:29 - When watching the breath, continuous attention is difficult due to the interference of thinking. How can we overcome this? Q3 28:14 - What are the basic techniques of meditation for a beginner Q4 39:12 - Before starting meditation should we practice yoga to train our mind? Q5 40:52 During breath awareness meditation, should we take the breath consciously, or see the natural process of breathing? Q6 42:00 Can you explain the process of metta meditation and how it helps to overcome anger, frustration and resentment. Q7: 46:00 What is mindfulness meditation? How is it practiced? Can we practice it while working in the office? Q8 52:36 I have acute pain in the knees and ankles when I sit. Are there any exercises that would help? Q9 56:12 When I meditate I usually feel sleepy. Why is this? Q10 1:00:19 When I meditate I see colours and lights, hear the sounds and feel fully aware of what is happening around me. What is this state? Q11 1:02:51 When I meditate my thought processes get very sharp, and more and more very good ideas seem to come into my mind. Hence, now I know I am fond of thinking rather than meditating. Please advise me. Q12 1:13:02 How can we shift from samatha to vipassana meditation? How long will it take a beginner to practice vipassana? Q13 1:20:50 How can we identify the improvements and development of mental states we've achieved as a result? Q14 1:26:50 During meditation I see a lot of incidents / situations mentally, which I have never experienced in day-to-day life. What is this? Q15 1:29:32 When I go to bed I usually try to pay attention to my breath. Is this good or will it negatively affect my sitting meditation? Q16 1:30:29 How long one should practice meditation to achieve samadhi? May I know a program or meditation schedule in order to achieve this state? Q 17 1:33:15 I joined a new company that meditates 15 minutes before work daily. Why I didn't get this opportunity before? Was it an effect of my kamma?

How are we using our minds? Where do our thought incline? The Buddha's teachings focus on the practical application of intention and the power of thought, rather than ritual, as the potent force behind action. Working with thought, we see how habits and tendencies develop and form patterns known as kamma (karma). We must be honest with ourselves and see any conceit, agitation, anger, greed, or restlessness that might be lurking as tendencies of mind. We can learn to use our thought skillfully, and guard the mind with diligent mindfulness. Wholesome and unwholesome thoughts are explored. There is nothing to fear from wholesome thoughts such as intentions toward renunciation, letting go, loving kindness, compassion, and generosity, and yet a concentrated mind will bring deeper rest. The path of liberation and awakening includes the development of morality and virtue, and also calmness, concentration, and wisdom.

With mindfulness we find our way through unfamiliar territory.

Learning how to deal with suffering with mindfulness and insight. This was Steve's first talk in 2 years of dealing with brain cancer.

A brief introduction to bringing mindfulness to mental activity, including thoughts, emotions, moods and mind-states

Guided meditation expanding mindfulness to include physical sensations, sound, mental activity then choiceless awareness

Describes the skillful use of pleasure in deepening the concentration that grows from mindfulness of breathing.

An exploration of the role that feeling-tone or vedana plays in creating unskilful reactivity, when mindfulness is absent

Mindfulness of the body as a support to develop ease and calm, through a body scan inviting physical tension to release wherever possible

Short guided meditation beginning with mindfulness of body and mindfulness of breathing, to help settle in to the workshop

Guided Meditation on Mindfulness of thought. It begins with listening.

Much of our suffering comes from reacting to stressful situations with fear or aggression, rather than responding with wisdom and care. This talk explores the pathway of shifting from reacting to responding: this includes learning to pause, awakening the wings of mindfulness and kindness, and reconnecting with our deepest intention.

A guided meditation on mindfulness of body.

After situating today’s theme in the context of the nature of the “ordinary habitual mind” and how it is transformed, we look at the fourth parameter of transformation: the nature and sense of self. We start by recognizing the often conceptually confusing nature of this area, and then proposing a primarily practical way to approach the area. We first identify the conditioned sense of self as permanent, independent, and separate, how this sense of self manifests in various ways and why this can be a problem, connected with suffering. , We then briefly suggest how the elements of such a conditioned sense of self are absent in an awakened being and how other positive qualities are present. Finally, while recognizing a number of complexities, including developmental issues, we look at two practical ways to explore and transform the conditioned sense of self: (1) by looking out for and being mindful of when there is a “thick” or “big” sense of self, and (2) finding various ways, in the flow of daily life as well as in formal meditation, to “thin” out the self, developing ways of experiencing with no or much less of a sense of self.

Basic Mindfulness Instructions and a Guided Meditation on Exploring the Nature of the Self

Mindfulness of Body and Breath

This guided meditation includes a mindful body scan, and awakening all our senses to our moment to moment experience. We relax open to the presence that is unobscured by thoughts, letting life be just as it is.

We encounter many obstacles, habitual tendencies & patterns. These can be transformed through mindfulness, compassion & intention.

The I/me sense arises within a field of kamma. This requires consistent relational practice as we respond to both phenomena (object-experience) and activations (subject-experience) in the field. Mindfulness and a good somatic sense are the keys to relate to experience without clinging or proliferation.

Patience in the Buddhist tradition is seen as a quality that becomes polished as we awaken our minds and hearts. The cultivation of patience becomes an art form; fluidly brought into the moment, imbued with flexibility, mindfulness, and Metta (loving-kindness). We need this quality to help us meet our selves, our neighbors, and the world with openness. Patience can help us be more grounded and present when we face that which makes us angry, fearful, or confused.

There are 3 kinds of wisdom: discernment, skillful means and realization. Walking meditation and appropriate mindfulness are skillful means for cultivation. Together they bring around a stewarding akin to that of the sheepdog that moves within the flock, not outside it. This results in the deep harmony of samādhi.

A guided meditation through the Ānāpānasati sutta. Establishing a comfortable, upright posture, incline awareness toward direct experience of the body. Sustain appropriate mindfulness and citta will sensitize to the qualities we call 'body’. This exercise resets the mind, which is then gladdened, steadied and cleared so that insight can develop.

Mindfulness is an empowered awareness that exerts authority over dukkha. Mindfulness doesn’t contract or become agitated by it. Holding steady and curtailing proliferation, it provides the proper laboratory within which wisdom can arise.

Exploring Maranasati: Mindfulness of Death/Awakening to Life. This talk highlights the normalcy of Death. We survey how death is related to in various Buddhist traditions as well as discussing personal experience of death as part of contemplative practice.

Sati – mindfulness – is only mentioned once in the Ānāpānasati sutta. ‘Directly feeling and knowing’ – pajānati – is the mode of practice. When we’ve attuned to this, we move to ‘training’. This phase of ānāpānasati begins with training in deeper sensitivity of the entire body.

James welcome Stephen Fulder who explores themes from his new book What’s Beyond Mindfulness? and shares about the Israeli sangha.

What are the qualities of skillful effort, and how does it cooperate with mindfulness and concentration.

Dhamma practice is the channel for direct experience: that which is entered through the door of feeling. This is not the ‘mental’ knowing: the somatic sense responds to feeling. Your place of practice is this direct ‘feeling-knowing’ – pājānati – through mindfulness of the body.

We contextualize our conditioning in relationship to the different “parts” of our experience—related to our thinking, emotions, and body—by examining some the social and cultural history of the last few hundred years, in which thinking has been increasingly differentiated from emotions and the body. We then examine further the nature of our ordinary, habitual experience of the body. The main focus is on a number of “body practices,” including mindfulness of the body in both formal meditation and daily life, ways to self-regulate when there is high activation, using the body in investigation of experience, and the body as a key to presence in speech and interaction.

After spending a recent retreat with Ven. Analayo Bhikkhu at Spirit Rock on this subject, James offers his understanding of Ven. Analayo's explanation of the discourse and how it can be applied in our meditation practice. You can also go to (paste it in your browser) this link to hear Ven. Analayo's Anapanasati guided meditation. https://www.windhorsepublications.com/mindfulness-of-breathing-audio/

Through the lens of Truth, mindful and attentive, we pierce anger, sorrow, fear and complacency. We are on the cusp of realizing who we are. Clear present awareness leads us inwards. We are on track to let go, relinquish and abandon all that is harmful. Discarding ancient beliefs one after another with microscopic insight, we empty out the rubbish from the mind. Radical awareness directly knows the impersonal, imperfect and empty nature of all that we experience. Now we see the face of holiness. Giving our hearts to truth, we are set free.

Insight Meditation, also known as Vipassana Meditation, is the 2,600-year-old practice of cultivating wise presence by bringing a caring, curious, and discerning attention to what is happening moment-to-moment. Conditioned to go after what we want and avoid what we don’t want, we often act from habit and reactivity instead of our deeper held values and beliefs. With mindful presence, we can learn to cut through habitual reactivity and access innate states of well-being, creativity, courage, and liberating personal and collective insight.