When starting meditation, begin with balancing and calming the body and breathing, but just getting it good enough. This is something that is gained through direct practice over time. Bring certain signs (nimita) to mind to aid in calming. The mind’s tendency is to focus on negative things. Practice bringing the beautiful to mind and make much of it.
How to reach jhana; how to know if I’m meditating; feeling warm during meditation; elaborate on channeling breath out of solar plexus; meditation on death; emotions and feeling that arise in meditation – why and what to do with them; doubt; meditation practice vs. study of suttas
Liberation requires clearing citta of its contracted state. We can learn to care for our citta, to know what lifts and steadies it to bring it out of contraction. In meditation we try to concentrate and feel even more constricted. Opening up the body and accessing the vitality that comes from mindfulness of breathing can have a calming effect.
Meditation is not a set of techniques; it is authentic, direct access to your inner heart/felt subjective experiences. Many times what’s found there is dukkha. Much of it can be resolved just by developing the inner body and clearing the hindrances.
This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others.
In this guided offering, we explore Metta as a technology — a software upgrade we put into the hardwiring of our conditioning that requires a learning curve AKA practice.
