Foundations of Meditation: Lovingkindness, Class I
- We are a community! Community Guidelines:
- to the best of your ability, consistently think well of the other members of class
- please feel free to break as needed
- please feel free to stop me and ask a question
- The most important part of the class! Small group check-ins.
Lakeland Insight Meditation Group Overview
- Upcoming activities: please sign up for the newsletter
- About donation (generosity) there is a box in the back of the room and one can can to our website and make a donation
Class assignments, Week I
- Practice Mindfulness of Whole Body Breathing (see resources below)
- Listen to “What is Mindfulness” by Joseph Goldstein (see resources)
- Consider the contemplation of a person, animal, situation that makes you feel safe; we will use this for later meditations.
- This weeks assignment is to read The Introduction p1-10 in “Boundless Heart”
Class overview
- attendance commitment
- purchase “Boundless Heart” by Christina Feldman
- Every week: check in; teach, mediate; processing
- We will cover the first 51 pages of “Boundless Heart” :Lovingkindness
- beings, all events and all experiences with unshakable kindness.” Christina Feldman””There is No greater love than the immeasurable friendliness that can embrace all
- Meditation practice: many different ways, each person will find there own way
- Story By Love Alone: Go to the bottom of this article!
About mindfulness and mindfulness meditation
- Mindfulness training relational training that supports the relational training is of lovingkindness practice .
- When practicing mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, it is helpful to have certain attitudes: gentleness and receptivity. Reflection
- Mindfulness is awareness, cultivated by sustained attention, in the present moment and non judgementally. We are training in mindfulness to be consistently connected to life experiences, no matter what the experience.
- Meditation is mental training to befriend experience
- Mindfulness practice takes interest, or curiosity, to understand what is happening in our experience, in our minds. When distracted, we notice being distracted, and practice effort to return to the practice of mindfulness and interest.
- Research shows that mindfulness contributes to better energy regulation, stress reduction: better emotional regulation, increased self awareness, improved sleep, enhanced focus and concentration and increased self-awareness
- In what is practiced here, our most important teacher is understanding suffering. As we learn to understand suffering, and let go of suffering, what is left is qualities of the heart like generosity and lovingkindness. Sometimes it can be a challenge to discern if the mind is suffering or not.
- Mindfulness monitors: we need this skill to be able discern if the mind is suffering or not, and often mindfulness itself is enough to let go of suffering. Can be a challenge to discern if the mind is in suffering or not.
- Example: Suppose my friend comes to me and states “Andy, I can not believe you stood me up!” or “Andy, I really appreciate you, you are the best listener!” Both situations are easy for the mind to reject or hold onto. The inclination to reject/hold into experience is called suffering.
- Suffering is constantly about judging experience. The mind loses awareness and launches into thoughts and emotions. There is a tendency to judge and disconnect from ourselves or others. J. When we wake up into awareness, our mindfulness is training us to receive this experience without judgement. We can reflect on our pattern of suffering, and learn how we get triggered into suffering.
Mindfulness Meditation
- Mindfulness is wholesome.
- Attention and awareness on an object for a sustained period
- Begin with attention and awareness of the breath
- Developing (investigation) the ability to be curios about what is happening in the mind; recognize the unwholesome or wholesome in the mind
- Energy (effort) the ability to let go of the unwholesome in the mind or cultivate the wholesome in the mind
- Huge in meditative practice: the intention to consistently align with the
- wholesome. Lovingkindness is also wholesome.
- Overview of mindfulness mediation instructions; finding a position of relaxed alertness and discipline to stay there; relax any tension in the body; bringing attention to the breathing in whatever area is the most compelling; mindfulness, attention and awareness on the sensations activated by breathing
- “What is happening in the mind now?” The mind wanders, typically to unwholesome. Discern this and let it go. Again and again and again.
- Process
- Q&A
Resources
Brach, T. (Host) Breath Awareness Guided Meditation 15 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUKw-XCcRI Mindful Soul. August 2021.
Fronsdal, G. Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Breathing.https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12692 Dharma Seed Audio Dharma. January 2021.
Goldstein, J. What is Mindfulness? https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/51251.html Dharma Seed Dharma Seed. July 2018
Nhat Hanh, T. Mindful Breathing with Thich Nhat Hanh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J62F0Y6PKesSounds True. August 2020.
Beloved Cambodian Buddhist teacher Maha Ghosananda [1929–2007], Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia, passed away on March 12 in Northampton, Massachusetts. In the late 1970s, he ministered to refugees fleeing the genocidal Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. He became a prominent peace activist on the world stage, and was a revered meditation teacher.
Jack Kornfield, a gentle, loving teacher of Buddhism, tells a story of going with Maha Ghosananda, a respected Cambodian monk, into the refugee camps where thousands of Cambodians had fled the terrible holocaust conducted by Pol Pot. Every family had lost children, spouses, and parents to the ravages of genocide, and their homes and temples had been destroyed. Maha Ghosananda announced to the refugees that there would be a Buddhist ceremony the next day, and all who wished to come would be welcome.
Since Buddhism had been desecrated by Pol Pot, people were curious if anyone would go. The next day, over ten thousand refugees converged at the meeting place to share in the ceremony. It was an enormous gathering. Maha Ghosananda sat for some time in silence on a platform in front of the crowd. Then he began chanting the invocations that begin the Buddhist ceremony, and people started weeping. They had been through so much sorrow, so much difficulty, that just to hear the sound of those familiar words again was precious.
Some wondered what Maha Ghosananda would say. What could one possibly say to this group of people? What he did next, in the company of thousands of refugees, was to begin to repeat this verse from the Dhammapada, a sacred Buddhist scripture:
Hatred never ceases by hatred;
But by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.
Over and over Maha Ghosananda chanted this verse. These were people who had as much cause to hate as anyone on earth. Yet as he sat there, repeating this verse over and over, one by one, thousands of voices joined together in unison: “Hatred never ceases by hatred; but by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law.” Out of the mouths of people who had been wounded, oppressed, made homeless, aggrieved, and crushed by the pain of war, came a prayer proclaiming the ancient truth about love, a truth that was greater than all the sorrows they had seen and felt.
Wayne Muller
with much kindness
Andy
