Reflections about the dimensions of mindfulness of breathing that are explored in this guided meditation are offered in the dharma talk entitled, Discovering the Home of the Breath.

Ways mindfulness can help lessen afflictive emotions.

After settling our attention through concentration and/or mindfulness, there are further instructions in noticing any reactivity (involving grasping or pushing away in a more automatic way at the levels of mind, body, or emotions), then in attending to the feeling-tone (especially a moderate or a little greater sense of pleasant or unpleasant), and lastly in recalling an experience of reactivity in the last few days and exploring it with mindfulness.

This talk is structured around the acronym H.O.M.E. which stands for: Honoring our true nature, Opening to embodied awareness, Mindfully letting go, and Engaging with wholesome habits, all of which guide us to come home to ourselves in a way that benefits both our own lives and those of others.

How remarkable it is that mindfulness helps us investigate reality and how we relate to it starting from the Building Blocks of our experience

This is a fairly lightly guided meditation on ways to practice with a sense of mystery, linked with the talk on this theme. After grounding in posture and intentions, basic instructions in developing stability and concentration, and then in mindfulness, are given, with later periodic suggestions on ways to practice with a sense of mystery.

Instructions on mental noting, a guided meditation and a 20 minute talk on learning to take care of what's happening now, and now, and now.

Questions are précised: 01:17 Q1 You mentioned during meditation to start with breathing out. I noticed in my own practice that I don't fully breathe out. In fact breathing out intentionally is more exhausting. How can I be more balanced? 12:27 Q2 I have a mental pattern with deep roots, obsessing over details like the entomology of words that arises when I get panicked or upset. This seems to give me some respite from the panic. Can you offer any advice? 19:02 Q3 I feel both sense of fatigue and desire for connection. I'm confused about how to be with this desire because my mind tells me I should go out and connect with other people. But this isn't the point of meditation is it? How can I understand this tension between internal and external needs in this case? 25:03 Q4 In the last retreat I would wake up not knowing who I am and dream about somebody stabbing my heart. These feelings returned when I went back to domestic duties. In my dreams I am lost. How can I move past this black hole? 30:02 Q5 For me it's very difficult to be mindful every minute every second of my daily life. I do my best. It's easier on retreat or in a monastery. Can you comment? 36:17 Q6 The state of becoming entails grasping and craving then suffering. How can one abide in non becoming?

A few words on mindfulness, a guided meditation, and a few words on walking meditation

The Buddha taught that mindfulness is the most direct way to overcome suffering and realize the highest happiness. This talk explains power of mindfulness and why it is so liberating.

Bringing mindfulness to thoughts and emotions (Note: the first five minutes of the meditation with instructions for settling into the body sitting and breathing, were not recorded)

Teaching in a guided meditation on using thoughts as a meditation object

Instructions for bringing the second foundation of mindfulness to secondary objects of attention. Day three of Retreat.

Introduction to Satipatthana practice and a guided meditation on using body, breath, and sound as primary anchors

Based on some teaching by Gil Fronsdal, looking at the role of feeling-tone in driving reactivity, when there's no mindfulness

Bringing mindfulness to pleasant, neutral then unpleasant feeling-tones in relation to seeing, hearing, and physical sensations

An introduction to practising with the Second Establishment of Mindfulness, mindfulness of feeling-tone or vedanā

Related to the talk given after the guided meditation on the foundational practices and how we can talk very simply about them, we begin remembering our grounding in ethics, and then develop concentration, then mindfulness and wisdom, and later the kind and compassionate heart.

Beginning with mindfulness of breathing and bodily sensations, then opening to the experience of hearing

We can't think our way to awakening. How then can we ennoble the heart? Practising right resort will purify the mind with present moment awareness. We give truth a voice, a prevailing knowing reinforced by mindfulness and wisdom. Instead of allowing delusion to rob us of our chance to awaken, we burn it away in its many guises of selfishness, hatred, despair and a host of dark states of mind. Patiently, faithfully, and gently, we navigate the way to true peace, unconditional love, and compassion.