As a monk, I bring a strong commitment, along with the renunciate flavor, to the classic Buddhist teachings. I play with ideas, with humor and a current way of expressing the teachings, but I don't dilute them.
Sitting in a field of fifty to eighty people really starts my mind sparking. Since I don't prepare my talks ahead of time, I find myself listening to what I'm saying along with everyone else. This leaves a lot of room for the Dhamma to come up. Just having eighty people listening to me is enough to engage me, stimulate me, and create a nice flow of energy. The actual process of teaching evokes ideas that even I did not realize were being held somewhere in my mind.
Different teaching situations offer their own unique value. In retreat, you are able to build a cohesive and comprehensive body of the teachings. When people are not on retreat and come for one session, it opens a different window. They are more spontaneous and I'm given the chance to contact them in ways that are closer to their "daily-life mind." This brings up surprises and interesting opportunities for me to learn even more.
I'm continually struck by how important it is to establish a foundation of morality, commitment, and a sense of personal values for the Vipassana teachings to rest upon. Personal values have to be more than ideas. They have to actually work for us, to be genuinely felt in our lives. We can't bluff our way into insight. The investigative path is an intimate experience that empowers our individuality in a way that is not egocentric. Vipassana encourages transpersonal individuality rather than ego enhancement. It allow for a spacious authenticity to replace a defended personality.
Learning to meet experiences we like and don't like. What meets? Cultivating space for the meetings provides understanding of our cravings and the arising of faith in our dhamma potential.
We need tools to travel in the internal body- mind domain. Developing mindfulness allows us to witness the settling and the arising of samadhi, noticing the non-events in between the events.
The ever-changing nature of experience is fundamental to Buddhist understanding. Learning how to directly apprehend these dynamic energies reveals the deathless.
01:25 Can you clarify what you said about agitation over sound and shifting it to get to the displeasure. How do you dissolve the person who is angry?; 18:54 I experience a lot of pain and have a hard time relaxing in daily life; 23:16 I have a hard time softening my eyes in daily busy life; 26:28 What is the difference between citta, mind and consciousness? What moves between life and life?; 38:37 What is pure awareness?; 40:22 Regarding energy, can you say more about how to handle physical blockages and constrictions in the body? What is the place of energy management? Is that on the path to wisdom?; 50:26 I feel trapped in my head. I can’t feel the breathing; 51:34 Restraint of the senses; 54:03 How can I handle deliberate aggression towards me?; 56:37 What’s the difference between citta and dhamma?; 57:50 What is jhana?;
We are vulnerable to the feelings of the memories of our experience. Developing an awareness of the pitfalls of self view, liking and disliking, provides an alternative container for experience.
The citta is that which is distorted, confused hurting. Identifying it as a location of the center of experience, helps us to steady and purify the citta.
The mind’s energies and activations may contradict each other but what unifies them is the body's energy, its life force and understanding them is key to meditation and the development of mindfulness.
