Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Continuing with Bhante Gunaratana’s discussion in Chapter 13, now on the eightfold path. The eightfold path lists steps we can follow to realize the release from suffering caused by craving. In brief, they are: Skillful understanding –… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Today and tomorrow will be brief… I think there is plenty of material, especially from Friday and Saturday, to keep you engaged! Chapter 13 in The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English visit the Four Noble Truths… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. The seventh factor of awakening and the fourth quality of the heart are both called “equanimity”. I’m not sure if the two are the same thing. I get the sense that they are, but that we are… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Yesterday, we looked at the first three of the seven factors: mindfulness, investigation, and energy. Today, we’ll look at the next three: joy, tranquility, and concentration. Joy As our mindfulness deepens, we investigate, and then that rouses… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Bhante Gunaratana starts chapter 12 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English with the Gilana Discourse. One of the Buddha’s senior pupils was very ill, so the Buddha went to visit him and asked how he was… Read More »
Dear Friends, Body, feelings, thoughts, hindrances, aggregates… That’s a lot of things to think about. But it all starts simply. Bhante Gunaratana has this simple reminder about perception of breathing: When you breathe mindfully, you see the arising, existing, and passing away of the form of the breath, or breath-body, immediately as it happens. In the same way,… Read More »
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 »
Dear Friends, Gil Fronsdal wrote: Because we tend not to see clearly when the hindrances are present, the Buddhist teachings strongly encourage people not to make decisions while under their influence. If possible, wait to make a decision when the mind is more settled or clear. So if you have something big on your to do list today,… Read More »
Dear Friends, As we enter into the fourth week of our daily emails, our focus now moves to the fourth way of establishing mindfulness, mindfulness of dhammas, which can be translated as mindfulness of phenomena or “stuff”. As Mark Coleman explains in a lecture from Essential Buddhist Teachings, The other three [ways of establishing mindfulness] – we were… Read More »
