Loving Kindness is seen as central in the Buddha's path of practice and increasingly in mindfulness-based applications. This talk considers the reasons for this.
Opening Talk for a retreat that offers the opportunity for those teaching or training in the field of mindfulness-based interventions to deepen their own experience and understanding of mindfulness practice.
The flag of trance is identifying as a separate, deficient self. This talk explores how developmentally we can get fixated on fears and unmet needs and cut off from the wholeness of Being that is our true nature. We explore the power of mindfulness --seeking not to change but to understand--and the expression of that understanding as love. The talk includes guided reflections that can help us recognize and awaken from the confines of trance.
Mindfulness of the body gave us stability of focus and mindfulness of feelings gave us the mechanism for how we project ourselves onto the world. Now we are sufficiently prepared to look at the mind itself.
The "Introduction to Metta" talk positions metta as the particular form of mindfulness that reflects the third foundation of mindfulness, attention to the contents of mind. It also is presented as the practice that follows the Buddha's instructions for Wise Effort, the purposeful cultivation in the mind of wholesome states.
How do we bring a loving presence to all of our experience- especially to our humanness, failed intentions. Cultivating mindfulness & kindness with our own experience becomes the template for living a wise life.
