Tag Archives: Andrea Fella

January 26 – Sustaining wholesome states with mindfulness and equanimity

Dear Friends, As we continue exploring the fourth wise effort of sustaining wholesome states, Andrea Fella offers a beautiful perspective on how mindfulness and equanimity can help us nurture these states skillfully without clinging, in her talk “Fourth Right Effort and Equanimity.”https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/9603?code=YLNL (1 hour) Andrea reminds us that wholesome states like calm, joy, or equanimity can sometimes be… Read More »

January 12 – Compassion as the Key to Abandoning the Unwholesome

Dear Friends, As we explore the second wise effort of abandoning unwholesome states, there is an essential element that can transform how we approach this effort: compassion. Compassion invites us to meet unwholesome states not with aversion, but with kindness and understanding. When we notice the mind caught in negativity, frustration, or distraction, we can ask questions like… Read More »

January 25 – Meditation: Supports for Establishing Mindfulness

Dear Friends, This guided meditation from Andrea Fella brings in a phrase from the Satipatthana Sutta: “Mindfulness that ‘there is a body’ is established in one to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.” (MN 10) Guided Meditation: Supports for Establishing Mindfulness, by Andrea Fella (19 minutes – no ending bell):https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11650 With good wishes,Andrea

January 23 – What’s happening and how we relate to that

Dear Friends, The second aspect of the faculty of paññā, wisdom, that Gil reflects on is what he calls distinguishing wisdom.https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11182 As we start to see our experience with more clarity, we can begin to tease it apart into its component parts. Gil gives the example of getting more clarity on something like “I feel terrible.” To look… Read More »

January 8 – Working with the hindrances

Dear Friends, DaRa’s talk on The Five Hindrances looks at what the hindrances are, and then she shares a technique to work with them. So we’ll unpack that today and tomorrow. As we sit to meditate, we will certainly come across any number of challenges that get in the way of mindfulness and concentration. There’s a typical list… Read More »

January 31 – Practicing gratitude

Dear Friends, In insight meditation, we often practice cultivating four specific qualities of the heart: kindness (a.k.a. metta, loving kindness, goodwill, friendliness), compassion, joy (particularly joy in the joy of others, a.k.a. mudita), and equanimity (having a balanced perspective). In some circles, my fellow practitioners and I have discussed that this list could include a fifth quality: gratitude.… Read More »

January 28 – Short moments, many times

Dear Friends, As we near the end of January (already!), I thought I would share a few ideas how I keep my practice alive day to day… and invite some of your ideas too! One thing many of us may relate to is feeling like there isn’t enough time to sit and practice. That’s where I love this… Read More »

January 27 – Ch-ch-ch-changes

Dear Friends I’m on retreat this weekend, but I’ve queued up this message to keep you company until I’m back on line on Monday. There’s a poem I appreciate from Kay Ryan: The Niagara River As though the river were a floor, we position our table and chairs upon it, eat, and have conversation. As it moves along,… Read More »

January 8 – Generosity

Dear Friends, Generosity is a favorite topic of mine. In studying and practicing generosity, I’ve learned much about qualities of the heart. Generosity is so much more than just a monetary exchange or giving a gift. There are many ways to give that we may already be doing – through our presence, and the way we are in… Read More »

January 24 – Noticing the about-to moment

Dear Friends, The next aspect of phenomena we are invited to investigate are what are called the “aggregates” – a way of describing the kinds of “stuff” that make up our experience. The list of aggregates is: material form – like your body and the things your body senses (sights, sounds, etc.) feeling tone – as we already… Read More »

January 21 – Why practice?

Dear Friends, The ninth talk in Andrea Fella’s Daily Life Practice Retreat from April 2016 looks at what we do in this practice, and why we’re doing it. What we’re doing is exploring wise mindfulness – knowing what is happening in the present moment while it is happening. We know that we know; we are aware that we… Read More »

January 19 – Simplicity

Dear Friends, In the spirit of Andrea Fella’s seventh talk from the Daily Life Practice Retreat, I’m going to keep this simple. Her advice to the participants was to simplify things as part of their retreat week. The question she suggested they consider was: “is this necessary?” In our daily lives, we have to think. But sometimes we do stuff that’s… Read More »

January 17 – When the cure begins

Dear Friends, The Q&A section of Andrea Fella’s sixth talk included some comments that certainly reflect many of my experiences. Do you relate to any of these? Take heart, you’re not alone! One meditator commented: In the moments that I have that awareness that I actually am aware, it’s immediately ruined by my judgment around the fact that… Read More »

January 16 – Recognizing mindfulness

Dear Friends, In the sixth talk of Andrea Fella’s Daily Life Practice Retreat, she encourages a practice of recognizing mindfulness, of knowing that we are aware. (Andrea F provided a handout to summarize the key points from this talk too.) In sitting meditation or in the daily activities, when we recognize that we’ve been lost in thought, Andrea F says that… Read More »

January 14 – Just relax

Dear Friends, I’m going to share a bit of advice from Sayadaw U Tejaniya, a Burmese monk. Before becoming a monk, he was a householder and merchant, so he can relate well to the challenges that people like us deal with. Here’s a paragraph from the first chapter of his recent book When Awareness Becomes Natural: A Guide to Cultivating… Read More »