Heart of Freedom Mindfulness Meditation Instruction

The Power of Wise Effort

With this podcast we continue a series of five classes focusing on practices that develop the qualities of heart and mind which are known as the “five spiritual powers.” This week we explore the power of wise effort in Dharma practice.  The effort to be mindful, and to bring the mind back when it wanders, so it knows what is happening right now is really a very delicate balancing act. On the one hand, hard work is needed, in the attempt to keep paying attention. On the other hand, there’s nothing to do, because awareness is already present. It’s just that we’ve been distracted. Wise effort is not striving. Striving leads to clinging. It reinforces the sense of self, and can be very painful. Wise effort isn’t trying to get anything, for there’s nothing to get. Rather, it’s the effort to listen with greater sensitivity. It’s a soft receptivity. Just total surrender, receiving and welcoming whatever is here. When effort is balanced, without any strain, there’s no sense of, “I should do this.” Rather, there’s just a willingness to be present. 
"What can truth or reality gain by all our practice? Nothing whatsoever, of course.   But it is in the nature of truth or love, cosmic consciousness, whatever you want to call it, to express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties.   Once you've understood that the world is love in action, consciousness or love in action, you will look at it quite differently.   But first your attitude to suffering must change.   Suffering is primarily a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love.   More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of awareness and consciousness and being.   Whatever prevents that becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain".   Nisargadatta Maharaj

The Power of Faith In Mindfulness Practice

This podcast includes silent and guided sitting meditation, a chance for sharing in the group, and a Dharma talk on faith as a spiritual power in Dharma practice. 
"It is a great turning point in our spiritual lives when we go from an intellectual appreciation of a path to the heartfelt confidence that says, “Yes, it is possible to awaken. I can, too.” A tremendous joy accompanies this confidence. When we place our hearts upon the practice, the teachings come alive. That turning point, which transforms an abstract concept of a spiritual path into our own personal path, is faith".  Sharon Salzberg
"Faith is not equivalent to mere belief.  Faith is the condition of ultimate confidence that we have the capacity to follow the path of doubt to its end.  Faith in the Buddhist understanding is not the opposite of doubt.  Faith is embracing doubt with mindfulness and wise reflection.  It is bringing doubt to wise counsel".   Stephen Batchelor,  
"Belief…is the insistence that the truth is what one would will or wish it to be…Faith is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith let’s go…faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception" Alan Watts

Radical Gratitude

This podcast focus on the powerful practice of gratitude through silent and guided meditation, a Dharma talk and a blessing circle.  I have found gratitude can be transformative.  As my practice has deepened there are more moments of gratitude which go beyond being thankful for receiving the bounties of life. It includes being grateful for challenges and difficulties, the things I often think of as dukkha.  With mindful wise reflection dukkha can be experienced as an opportunity for spiritual freedom and compassion to expand.  It is important to understand that this is an experiential insight, not an external expectation or judgement imposed by the mind. It is the experience of freedom from the minds resisting and grasping.  In the deep experience of gratitude, there is no me, or you.  There is just our field of interconnectedness.  
"Cultivating, practicing, and sustaining gratefulness as an approach to life is radical – because it flies in the face of internal and external forces which want us to believe the big lie that we need to have more and be more in order to be happy" Kristi Nelson
 Being grateful for not only life's blessing but also its suffering is a key component of living a spiritual life -- and more broadly, to a fulfilling and meaningful life.  

Relationships As Spiritual Practice

This podcast explores how the practices of loving intention and mindfulness can have a transformative effect on relationships.  Paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment can help us break out of the negative knee-jerk reactions we bring into our relationships. Mindfulness helps to better manage the body’s reactions, regulate emotions and calm fears and anxieties – all key ingredients for healthy relationships.  And loving intention can be cultivated as a powerful tool to free us from the illusion of separateness and the alienation that goes with it. 
“Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me." Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops. Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?”  -Hafiz
Listen to a guided and silent meditation, a Dharma talk, and a sharing circle.

Let Impermanence Nurture Love

We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. Loving kindness and compassion can deepen when we deeply understand that everything we hold dear is subject to change.
"Impermanence should also be understood in the light of inter-being. Because all things inter-are, they are constantly influencing each other. It is said a butterfly's wings flapping on one side of the planet can affect the weather on the other side. Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself". Thich Nhat Hanh
All of us can understand impermanence with our intellect, but this is not yet true understanding. Our intellect alone will not lead us to freedom. According to the Buddha's teaching It is only through direct mindful experience that we can see the nature of impermanence that leads to freedom. This is how the insight of impermanence becomes part of our being. It becomes our daily experience. If we can use impermanence as an object of our meditation, we will nourish the understanding of impermanence in such a way that it will live in us every day. With this practice impermanence becomes a key that opens the door to wholeness of heart where there is room for everything.
"Nirvana is where you are, provided you don't object to it. In other words, change--and everything is change; nothing can be held on to--to the degree that you go with a stream, you see, you are still, you are flowing with it. But to the degree you resist the stream, then you notice that the current is rushing past you and fighting you. So swim with it, go with it, and you're there. You're at rest. You are free"  Alan Watts  
 Yare invited to listen in as we explore the practice of awakening to impermanence and finding wholeness of heart in change.  

Fear and Awakening

You are invited to join as we explore ways of being mindful and compassionate with fear. It is difficult living in a time of turmoil, violence, and of fear.  The challenge becomes finding a way not to be consumed by it. As we deepen spiritual practice, we inevitably encounter all our fears. Being alert and curious about fear allows it to become our teacher as well as to serve our spiritual growth. 
"Fear, the primordial emotion of samsara, is the active expression of ignorance. Ignorance is usually too subtle to see, but fear is something we can all relate to. This ignorance is basically unfamiliarity, not knowing who we really are. By becoming familiar with (the very definition of meditation) who we are, we transform ignorance into wisdom, darkness into light, and replace fear with fearlessness."  Andrew Holecek Tibetan Buddhist Teacher
"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it" Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not"  Charlotte Joko Beck,  Everyday Zen
Please join us for guided and silent meditation, a Dharma talk exploring ways we can bring mindful compassion to fear, and a blessing circle.

Being Peace

At its core, the Dhamma is about peace, and being peace. An early Buddhist collection of verses on practice in everyday life, the Dhammapada, makes this abundantly clear. Verse five of the text (of 423 verses) states:
"Hatred is never appeased by hatred.Hatred is only appeased by Love (or, non-enmity).This is an eternal law."
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the time of the Buddha to our modern times, the above Poem of Peace and its variations has been evoked in times of conflict and war. All too many conflicts arise out of hatred and then reinforce hatred. For conflicts to come to a true end, love and friendship are needed, otherwise the continued divisions fester. With hatred, others are viewed as obstacles or foes, as wrong or evil. Those who hate are always blind in not seeing the full humanity of those who are hated. Hatred perpetuates itself. To end hatred, one must learn to love wisely and strongly.
Those who love wisely see clearly because they know the full humanity of others, including both the good and the bad. Love heals division as it views others as kin, as fellow companions on our human journey. Many conflicts dissolve in the presence of love; those that don’t are transformed into problems to be resolved, not battles to be won.
“When you try to conceive metta as love, loving something in terms of liking it, it makes it impossible to sustain metta when you get to things you can’t stand, people you hate and things like that. Metta is very hard to come to terms with on a conceptual level. To love your enemies, to love people you hate, who you can’t stand is, on the conceptual level, an impossible dilemma. But in terms of sati-sampajanna, it’s accepting, because it includes everything you like and dislike. Metta is not analytical; it’s not dwelling on why you hate somebody. It’s not trying to figure out why I hate this person, but it includes the whole thing – the feeling, the person, myself – all in the same moment. So it’s embracing, a point that includes and is non-critical” (Ajahn Sumedho, ‘Intuitive Awareness’, p.25)
You are invited to listen to this podcast for guided and silent mediation, group sharing, and a Dharma talk on being the peace we seek.  

Letting Go and Letting Be

Please listen to this podcast for silent and guided meditation, group sharing, and a Dharma talk exploring the compassionate and wise practice of letting go and letting be.  This practice leads to the joy of spiritual freedom. 
One of the best ways to benefit spiritually from seasonal change as we move into autumn is to explore how we can live more mindfully in the present moment.  This can include letting go of (letting be) the past. The unobserved mind tends toward grasping.  Often this is grasping or clinging to things that bring momentary pleasure or security, but don't last.  The result is dissatisfaction, disappointment, despair, and grief.  With mindfulness practice we are invited to look at this process.  To really investigate and observe the process of change and let go of what is not ours to grasp or cling to. 
The Buddha said, “whatever is not yours: let go of it. And what is not yours? Form is not yours . . .” (that’s the body and stuff) “Feeling is not yours . . .” (feelings come and go; they’re not who you are) “Perception is not yours . . . Fabrications” (or “mental formations”) are not yours . . .” (your thoughts) “Consciousness is not yours: let go of [all of] it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness and benefit” (Majhima Nikaya 22).
"Renunciation is not giving up the things of the world, but accepting that they go away." — Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
"For minds obsessed with compulsive thinking and grasping you simplify your meditation practices to just two words--- "let go”, rather than try to develop this practice, and then develop that, achieve this, and go into that. The grasping mind wants to read all the suttas, to study the Abhidhamma, and to learn Pali and Sanskrit, then the Madhyamika and Prajna Parimita, get ordinations in the Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, write books and become a renowned authority on Buddhism. Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international conferences, why not just "let go, let go, let go"?  Ajahn Sumedho
 

Mindfulness Of Speech

This podcast explores mindful speech as  a rich domain of practice. The invitation is not only to practice awareness of what we say and how we say it; but at a deeper level we can begin to notice the impulse, the driving force that propels us into speech and how our state of mind and our energy are affected before, during, and after speaking. This practice shifts the precepts from being a standard used to modify our behavior to a way of working with our state of mind, the source of all speech.
"At first, precepts [ethics] are a practice.  Then they become a necessity, and finally they become a joy.  When our heart is awakened they spontaneously illuminate our way in the world.  This is called Shining Virtue.  The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them". Jack Kornfield
 In his commentary on kind speech, Dogen (Zen Buddhist tradition) wrote, "‘Kind speech’ means that when you see sentient beings you arouse the mind of compassion and offer words of loving care. It is contrary to cruel or violent speech.... You should be willing to practice it for this entire present life; do not give up, world after world, life after life. Kind speech is the basis for reconciling rulers and subduing enemies. ...You should know that kind speech arises from a kind mind, and kind mind from the seed of a compassionate mind.... kind speech is not just praising the merit of others; it has the power to turn the destiny of the nation."
The podcast includes guided meditation, group sharing and a Dharma talk on skillful speech.

Spiritual Love and Wise Effort

On this podcast we will explore how wise effort in dharma practice is an expression of spiritual love.  
"What can truth or reality gain by all our practice? Nothing whatsoever, of course.   But it is in the nature of truth or love, cosmic consciousness, whatever you want to call it, to express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties.   Once you've understood that the world is love in action, consciousness or love in action, you will look at it quite differently.   But first your attitude to suffering must change.   Suffering is primarily a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love.   More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of awareness and consciousness and being.   Whatever prevents that becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain".   Nisargadatta Maharaj,
That's an amazing thing to say, that love doesn't shirk from pain, that what love wants is not pleasure. There is something deeper or higher, that's richer, that is our capacity, or our birthright, or our deepest need.   Please join us in a supportive community as we deepen our understanding of loving and wise effort.  We belong to each other and all are welcome to belong.