Foundations of meditation, Class II, August 11, 2026
Check in: did everyone get the group email? Name; how did your meditation practice go this week?
Note about the book: Larry Rosenberg is is following the sutta: Mindfulness of breathing; Story: BagPiper for the homeless
I. Review mindfulness: A wholesome quality of mind we are developing
- Mindfulness meditation, stable attention with mindfulness
- Mindfulness, in this moment, purposeful non judgemental attention with awareness. The way in which we are attending is pure, and we are aware.
- Attention is specific, awareness is holistic
- And we have the ability to be aware of being aware. (Next week)
- We are training the mind to see things as they are without judging,bias, conceptualization, thinking or philosophizing. This is called bare attention. Ex: The sound of a bird outside the window. Noting practice here.
- We are attending to aspects of the breath, and aware of the breath. Breath is our life force
- What helps with stable attention is aiming and sustaining; counting helps us to steady our attention (next week)
- Exercise The Bell (impermanent)
- Informal practice: when reaching for the glass on the shelf, can we be aware of being this activity and what the body feels like by reaching
- Review 4 NT: Suffering, Cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, the path out of suffering
- Knowledge and experience leading to sound decision making.
- The path: virtue, concentration and wisdom
- Wisdom: wise understanding and wise intention
- Already practicing some of wise and wise understanding: the intention of continually living in Mindfulness: wise understanding of the four noble truths
- So what is the truth of the cause of suffering? Getting what we do not want, not getting what we want, birth, aging, sickness and death. (next week)
- The cause of suffering is craving and clinging. Craving is a tenacious desire for experience to be other than it is. Greed. Pull it to me. Hatred is a strong dislike of experience. Get rid of. Clinging is taking this personally. Clinging is some attachment to what I want experience to be. Getting what we do not want!
- Ex: Change in room assignment for this class
II Investigation/curiosity, Energy/Effort, Distractions and Wisdom (next week)
- Dogen “and what is enlightenment?’” the mind that is intimate with all things”In this moment and awareness.
- Whatever you are experiencing, train the mind to give closer attention. Example: Breath long or short, shallow or deep; sensations, hot cold, hard soft moving still etc. then just watch.
- Why is this important? After we sense something, everything that happens in our senses is the mind’s recognition of the experience. This is called perception and perception is based on our history of similar experiences. Hence, our perception of experience is often inaccurate.
- If we are unable to recognize the experience, we make sense of this also through memory.
- Investigation leads to depth of awareness, hence we are seeing each experience as unique. Life becomes fresh. Intimacy
- This helps to understand the subtleties and nuances of the mind.
- The ability to implement mindfulness and investigation, helps us identify and understand unhealthy distractions formations in the mind.
III. Guided Meditation on the Breath, attention around the nostrils
IV. Distractions
- Distractions are energy that is tied up in unwholesome activities.
- We become distracted because our minds are conditioned to view other items more important, like thought
- When we become distracted, we lose the awareness of this moment, the moment of mindfulness. Just being distracted is being unwholesome; returning to mindfulness is is the intention to live in the wholesome. Ex: driving or listening to our loved one.
- If we understand our distractions, we can put the brakes on them before they reach consciousness, or catch them easier when we are involved in them.
- Hindrances: desire, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt
- Desire: wanting mind, aversion, not wanting mind, restless mind, can’t sit still mind, sloth and torpor, fatigued mind or body, and doubt lack of confidence mind
V.. Assignments
- Practice meditation: so far we have practiced “Dry Vipassana” Belly breathing, and Mindfulness of Breathing, attention around the nostrils; be relaxed and be kind, notice how your mind becomes distracted, typically thoughts and hindrances.
- Mindfulness of daily activity; pick an activity during the day to be mindful, a time period to be mindful, or periodically during the day check in with the breath.
- Read p29-60 “ Breath by Breath” by Larry Rosenberg
- Here are some other guided meditations:
Whole Body Breathing Meditation: Yanai Postelnik
Guided Mindfulness of Breathing Meditation: Peter Carlson
Mindfulness of the Breathing Body Catherine McGee
The Energy Body and Whole Body Breath Rob Burbea
With kindness