- Part I, Orientation and Presence, 9-130
- Today’s retreat is an incredible opportunity! You are given a quiet space, with beautiful people, working towards freedom and love. We all need to love and to be loved. We all are on a quest to find the richness of our loveliness and to be a mirror to others their loveliness.
- This is the essence community, a Sangha. We are practicing as friends. All beings are our friends. Inspiring words about the Sangha. Words by Thich Nhat Hanh:
The sangha is your river. In our daily practice, we learn how to be a part of this river. We learn how to look with sangha eyes, how to walk with sangha feet, how to feel with a sangha heart. We have to train ourselves to see the happiness of our community as our own happiness and to see the difficulties of our community as our own difficulties. Once we are able to do this, we will suffer much less. Thich nhat hah
- People repeatedly talk about the power of meditation together.
- This is a silent retreat. The silence offered here as community support. In the midst of the silence, can we have an attitude of softness and harmony with self and others? The silence is a necessary element of the movement to mindfulness and deeper understanding.
- The silence may feel awkward, people are avoiding talking, and eye contact. You can be assured that everyone’s intention is consistently to love you!
- From the 20th century French Philosopher and mystic simone weil
“Attention is the purest form of love.” — Simone Weil
Love begins with presence. To truly love someone, we must first see them—fully, without distraction, without rushing to fix or change. This is just as true when it comes to loving ourselves. Self-love is not about indulgence or self-affirmations alone; it is about offering ourselves the same deep, undivided attention we would give to someone we cherish.
When we pay attention to ourselves—with kindness, curiosity, and patience—we cultivate self-compassion. We begin to notice our needs, our exhaustion, our longing for rest, our small joys. We stop pushing ourselves beyond our limits in the name of productivity. We listen.
-
- Posture? We need to find a balance of our sit bones on the chair or ground, a balance of forward backward side to side. So important that the posture reflects balance, dignity and receptivity. When you find this spot then you will know that.
- See if you can bring your attention to the center of your torso. If you wish, you can imagine a spot or a small sphere within the middle of the torso. Keep your attention there.
- With the attention on this spot, allowing awareness to engulf the entire body. Can you notice the body breathing in the whole body? Can you notice thoughts or emotions arise, the spot. If you lose attention, acknowledge the distraction and come back to attention on this spot and awareness of the entire body.
- Can you drop a word in this space? End of the reflection.
- There is a word in Buddhist psychology tathata (tath ata), translated as suchness. This means that the totality of our being is present resting in the body, is not fragmented, integrated and complete or homogeneous. We are not waiting for something better to happen. We are just accepting what is coming or going. The Buddha wished to be referred to as the master or suchness, Tathagata (tath agata)
- Living in presence in this body, this awareness becomes suffused with love, loving awareness.
- Yet we can encourage and establish our birthright of love through the practice of metta, or loving kindness. The word metta is translated as friend but also means gentle. Gentleness, friendliness.
- Today, We will be residing in the suchness of our body, using the organic energy of the body to assist the metta practice. We will persistently live with the intention to be kind or friendly.
- Why the Buddha taught lovingkindness, Story Gunarantana abbreviatge
- So it is with us on this retreat. Lovingkindness meditation is like any insight meditation. The practice of lovingkindness can help us understand suffering, and the nature of mind. Check in: name and what is important for you today
- Retreat guidelines
- 1. Feel free to do whatever meets your needs here
- Meditation Hall protocol/retreat protocol
2.. Whether we are formally meditating or on break, be present, be gentle and be relaxed in your thoughts and actions with self and with others. Practice Metta towards self and others all day.
- All of my notes and resources on the Lakeland Insight Mediation Group website.
4.Q&A. Write your question on paper, the place in the basket. I will answer as we go.
Or you can take notes for your self
5.The process at the end of the day of lovingkindness is beautiful. We will have more Q&A at the end of the day.
6.There will be some written exercises as you go. Not necessary, yet have the potential to make your experience more rich.
- We will be extending lovingkindness to various aspects of our experience: Please avoid situations where you have experienced severe trauma.
- Everything you need is right here. Story: The Golden Buddha. Abbrieviagte
- If you put forth effort today, you will probably be successful. Yet at the end of the day, it may not seem that way; Sharon Salzberg. Abbvreviate
- Yet, the right kind of effort. Most frustration with meditation comes from too much effort, too much striving, trying too hard to make something happen. Relax and be kind to yourself. A measured consistent effort is required.
- This morning, we first practice whole body meditation to raise awareness of the organic energy field in the body. Later in the morning and the rest of the day we will begin loving kindness meditation.the practice of metta is to love all beings.
- energy body or whole body awareness meditation
- Purpose: using the breath and breath awareness to energize the mind body.
- Foundational to lovingkindness is mindfulness practice.
- At any point in meditation practice, it is critical to be aware of what is happening in the mind, distracted or not distracted.Gently bring yourself back to the body breathing.
- Mindfulness, or presence. The attention offered accepts all experience as it is in this moment. We are aware of experience, and the attention is pure and clean like a sharp knife. The attention is free of wanting any experience to be different than what it is.
- If you are used to body scan or MOB, you are welcome to practice this and use your meditation of choice for when we practice lovingkindness
- Short break here, Breaks: helpful to get out of the building, and practice while walking and sitting. Seeing the good. State vs trait research.
- Lovingkindness overview, those easy to love, benefactor and self and myself 1030-1145
- Out of the soil of lovingkindness (metta) grows the beautiful bloom of compassion (karuna), watered with tears of joy (mudita), under the cool shade of the tree of equanimity (upekkha).” Longchenpa
- Lovingkindness practices are interpersonal: addresses our essential need to belong and to help others feel like they belong. Researchers that lovingkindness practices engage the social engagement system.
- In the practice of Metta, we wish to develop the ability to love all equality: we spread our circle from gladden to friend to self, to neutral person, to difficult person, to the whole world.
- These different categories, we can liken to three poisons of suffering. Greed, hatred and delusion. The Thai abbot Buddhadasa says that the three poisons: Greed is like running towards the pleasant phenomena, hatred is like running away the unpleasant phenomena and the deluded mind, confusion, is like running in circles when the phenomena is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We usually don’t feel greedy towards thosePeople that are easy to love, beware, attachment can occur. This is why the use of spouses is not a great idea to activate metta, there is attachment there. We start with people that are easy to love, because it is usually easier to get the metta energy going.
-
- All mental phenomena manifest in the body. For our need to love, to be loved, manifests in this body. Thoughts, emotions, manifests in the body. At any point in meditation practice, it is critical to be aware of what is happening in the mind. Is suffering in the mind or suffering not in the mind. If suffering is happening
- Lovingkindness meditation: Avoid discouragement: It is common for meditators to become distracted during practice. Could be the spaciousness of presence, the safe metta energy, or the habitual practice of a mantra. We need to drop in the body, allow the image and the words of the mantra to have an effect on the heart.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj. Love says you are everything, wisdom says that you are nothing. We find this through the arsing and falling of phenomena, that this self is a fabrication. This is not our focus today, this insight comes with practice. Love means you are everything, that nothing exists on its own, That we exist because we are all !connected.
- Be curious about what happens in the mind as you practice.how this mind works. We have an intention to practice love, the mind may have a different idea. The mind may think that there are other items more interesting than practicing meditation.
- If you are training a dog, a child, a certain behavior, like saying in once place, we world all agree, that to chastise the dog or beat the dog, would make things worse. Same here. w e wish to be gentle with this dog. No problem. We get distracted.
- So we participate in metta, kindness when we get distracted.
- When you become distracted, accept this as a habit of mind. Usually distractions and the accompanying thinking are control strategies.
- When we become distracted, and wake up: Gently and lovingly come back to the breath.
- As we replace and let go of our defilements we have more space to love ourselves and love others.
- The practice of metta. We use our recollections of love to activate lovingkindness energy. We then extend this metta to all beings.
- Process: stabilizing with whole body breathing, imagery of a person that is easy to love, whole body breathing in background, dropping metta phrases and imagery in foreground. When metta begins to arise, always this metta energy to linger. Wish person well, then yourself well, and the relationship well
- Process
III. 1130-Noon Q&A, Lunch Break, mindful lunch, Lunch practice some awareness of contact: seeing, chewing, smelling and talking. Try to take one aspect of contact at a time. (later)
What is a friend? Contemplate a neuter, I mean a neutral person. And a difficult person.
- 1:00-200 Loving kindness and insight, meditation towards friendship and towards humans we are indifferent to
- What is it about one person that makes it easier to love? What is it about another person that makes it harder to love? Perception and stored karmic energy. No sense in judging this. Just use your mindfulness practice to change this. Through presence we change this. The training of metta is to love all beings regardless of how we see them. This is the Buddha.
-
- Suffering can be defined as resistance to our experience. The mind experiences this as unpleasant. The old habit of the mind is to find some way to run away from this unpleasantness. The mind will lose presence and launch into some controlling strategy, such as thinking or pleasant fantasy to relieve itself of the suffering.
- Be curious about the distraction and the process of distraction. This is a healthy effort. You can practice metta on yourself here.
- Sometimes the experience is that the mind will become totally disconnected, contracted. The mind has relieved itself of the beauty of presence.
- What happened to become distracted? Be curious about what your mind does when it meets resistance. Then gently come back to the object of mediation.Take some notes at the end of this meditation.
- These distractions are the gold Buddha. The mind’s assessment is a process. These can be opportunities to learn about how we, yourself suffer.
- The mind’s assessment is a process, constantly changing. .
- Resistance affects how we see things. With distraction, the negative mind states such as aversion, fear and lust are consistently rooted in fear and insecurity. The more aversion, the more perception is skewed and the stronger the thinking. The stronger the sense of me. We take these negative mind states personally. You may be able to notice this.
- When the resistance is strong, it will manifest as physical sensations. See if you can have presence for those sensations in the body and extend metta to those sensations.
- Learning how to befriend distractions, resistance, moods, thoughts and emotions is wisdom: The practice of interdependence, interconnection.
- There are people that we are indifferent. We are indifferent, curiosity is not on board. Easy to not pay much attention, get delusional here.
- Be mindful here. Can I sense a lack of interest? Can you notice that sometimes your curiosity, the willingness to understand is on board, sometimes curiosity is not on board. Step up your understanding and curiosity.
- Reflect on a time when we were not too interested, only to step it up and find the person interesting?
- Today, notice the folks in this room. Is there someone here that is not quite as interesting to you? Can you notice what it is about them that stunts your curiosity?
- Guided Meditation on the neutral person. Sart with mettat towards the easy to lve, towards self, then towards the neutral person. Often the neutral person wil bring up thoughts nad emotions. Then do meeta on yourself.
200 short break
- The difficult person
- They may actually cause you trouble, or when you witness this person aversion arises
- The first situation may need to add some forgiveness. The second one, after metta towards them, then metta on yourself.
- Sometimes when the aversion is stong, o
-
- One could visualize them in a diaper with a rattle or the image of the delight of the person’s parents, or that this person also has suffering, or that there are people that love this person.
- Realize that you are someone’s difficult person, and how would you like to be treated here
- As your difficult person, choose someone where there may be mind annoyance. if you do quick world you can move to another difficult person, or someone that is slightly tougher
- Guided mediation: The whole body, easy to love,self friends, the neutral person, the difficult person. Consider doing metta on yourself when you are difflcult.
300-330 Metta on the whole world
330 takeaways and commitments ways to practice and ways to see
Lovingkiness: Bibliography
Bhikkhu, T. (2004). Karaniya Metta Sutta: Good Will. Access to Insight. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.than.html
Burbea, Rob. The Energy body and Whole-body Breath and Guided Meditation The Energy Body and the Whole-body breath (Instructions and Guided Meditation)
-
Bhikkhu, T. (2004). Karaniya Metta Sutta: Good Will. Access to Insight. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.than.html
Brach. T. (2004). Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Heart with a Life of a Buddha. Bantam.
Brach T. (2016). True Refuge. Bantam.
Brach, T. (2018 October 24). The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion Part 1. Dharma Seed. https://dharmaseed.org/ .
Brach, T. (2018, November 7).The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion Part 2. Dharma Seed. https://dharmaseed.org/ .
Brach, T. (2012 December 31) Guided Meditation: Awakening Compassion-Tonglen. Dharma Seed. https://dharmaseed.org/ .
Chodron, P. (2016 July 16). Guided Tonglen Meditation. YouTube. 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAV1RCnuAaE
Feldman, C. (2003). Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World. Rodmell Press.
Feldman, Christina. (2017). Boundless Heart: The Buddha’s Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. Shambhala
Fronsdal, Gil. (2005 July 25). Paramis: Loving Kindness. Audio Dharma. https://www.audiodharma.org
Gunaratana, B. Lovingkindness in Plain English: the Practice of Metta. Wisdom. Somerville, MA 2017
Hanh,Thich Nhat. (2006). True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart. Shambhala.
Neff, K. (2015). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. HarperCollins.
Peacock, J. (2011 September 5). Metta as a Path to Awakening (Part 1). Audio Dharma. https://www.audiodharma.org
Peacock, John. (2011 September 5). Metta as a Path to Awakening (Part 2). Audio Dharma. https://www.audiodharma.org/
Salzberg, S. (1995) Lovingkindness:The Revolutionary Art of Happiness.Salzberg, S. (1989 November 23). Guided Lovingkindness Meditation. Dharma
Seed. https://dharmaseed.org/