- Foundations of Meditation: Lovingkindness, Class II
- Check ins: in small groups: report on your experience this week: Comments?
- Review: Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation
- Mindfulness: is a quality of the heart, is non biased, moment to moment observing of what is sensed, emotions, thoughts, or moods; awareness with stable attention
- Our meditative practice is to include all experience and people in loving awareness. Define Buddha.
- Mindfulness Meditation: persistently attending with awareness to a benign or benevolent object: the breath or lovingkindness objects.
- Lovingkindness in our life
- Brahma Viharas: the dwelling place of the boundless qualities of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. This is Dharma.
- Brahma Viharas are infinite, suffering is finite.
- The community is critical in spiritual life and for our happiness. Research supports belonging and happiness. This is Sangha.
- Loving kindness, or Metta is friendliness and kindness. We are all connected and need one another. To love and be loved.
- Reflection: a time when you loved or were loved by a friend or a mentor
- Metta is an intention to befriend, self, others, or aspects of our inner landscape.
- Metta is not an emotion, but a concentration and insight practice.
- And what is insight? Technique to help us come out of suffering.
- Suffering is when the mind is lost in greed, hatred or delusion. This was described by the Thai abbot Ajahn Buddhadasa as running towards, running away or running in circles, patterns of energy.
- We repeatedly get lost in our habits of the mind. Suffering is often about not getting what we want. The mind becomes dissatisfied with the experience in the moment. When this happens the mind vacates the present moment, and attempts a strategy to deal with its own dissatisfaction. One strategy is to launch into thinking and emotion, This is called delusion. We will often feel separated from others, feel self centered.
- So we eventually “remember” to practice with mindfulness. We recognize we were lost in thoughts and emotions. This is called delusion. Then we have choices, especially practicing the intention of kindness to self or the other.
- Honeyball discourse: whatever we dwell upon becomes the shape of the mind. This is a teaching on papañca (mental proiferation) and perception
- This person of the Buddha: “to change our mind of the moment was to change the world of the moment.”
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- Aversion,or hatred, ill will is hot and isolating. Aversion is rooted in a fear narrative.
- Loving kindness is the antidote to aversion. Lovingkindness is cool, calm and connective. There is little to no narrative in loving kindness meditation
- Often aversion is a projection. The illusion that if others or myself improve then I will be happy.
- We just need to develop this and when we are forgetful, wrt anger anxiety, these are the times where we can really develop
- When we notice that we are becoming disconnected this can be an antidote to the disconnection
- Exercise: where is your longing to be free of isolation fear and pain and and move to love acceptance, happiness, and respect
- STORY of Kate: on how we can we non reactive in the midst of challenging pain or loss
4. Guided meditation: Gladdening experience or benefactor: overview
- Start with the body, then with the breath in the background, recollection of a About gladdening practice or your benefactor, and with this image, wishing the person well.
- The use of mantra or phrases. These will be in your notes or in the book. Feel free to make up your own.
- Define attention, awareness, and peripheral awareness. Attention is focused, likened to analytical, investigative; awareness more holistic, includes more; peripheral awareness; peripheral to the field of awareness. Example: Driving: attention to cars in front of me, awareness of cars coming from side streets, pressure of foot on the accelerator.
- About words or phrases as a way to hold our intention to befriend
- Homework
- Practice: guided mediation and notes will be sent via links
- Come up with an aversive experience in your life, we want to work with the the rest of the course
- Read p 11-27 “Boundless Heart,” by Christina Feldman
- Love zaps: Kindness to others as you move through you
with kindness
Andy
