This guided meditation reviews the ways to identify the characteristics of Dukkha while practicing mindfulness of breathing meditation, with the intention to increase an understanding of how craving and clinging create the distress and confusion of Dukkha. It is meant to accompany the talk titled “Reviewing The Three Characteristics of Dukkha” presented on the same day.
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This talk is the first of three talks regarding the fundamental nature of personal experience: anicca, dukkha and anatta. The focus her is on three sub-categories of dukkha: Dukkha Dukkha (The distress associated with inhabiting a body), Sankhara Dukkha (The distress and confusion that comes from how the mind interprets experience) and Viparinama Dukkha (The distress and confusion that occurs as the result of circumstances changing beyond one’s control). The review also addresses the causes of dukkha–craving and clinging–as well as ways to use mindfulness of breathing to decrease reactivity to the craving associated with dukkha and detachment regarding the internal “selfing story” of clinging, There is an accompanying “Guided Dukkha Contemplation” posted the same day in the archives.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Buddhist Three Characteristics Part 1
The next topic for review will be the characteristics of anicca, the transient nature of subjective experience.
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This training meditation focuses on the hindrance of Restlessness and Worry, with suggestions regarding how to discern the difference between restlessness as a feeling and worry as a narrative. Being able to disregard the narrative and use mindfulness of breathing practices to reduce the restlessness in order to set aside the hindrance is an important goal in the practice of liberating the mind from dukkha. it is also suggested to investigate the role restlessness as a feeling has in the experience of the other hindrances. This guided meditation is intended to accompany the Dharma talk of the same meeting: “Setting Aside Restlessness and Worry”, which is also posted on this site.
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This talk continues a review of the Five Hindrances, focusing on the way the instinctual nature of restlessness and agitation can be associated with an internal narrative that reinforces and amplifies this restlessness to the state clinically described as anxiety, which is often experienced during these trying times of pandemic and extreme global weather events. The characteristic of restlessness can also be investigated mindfully as a component of the other four hindrances. Various antidotes for restlessness and anxiety are described, with an emphasis on the benefits of simply dedicating attention persistently to investigating the neutral feeling tones while practicing mindfulness of breathing meditation, both formally and, during the day, informally. There is a guided meditation posted in the archives of this site entitled “Guided Restlessness and Worry Contemplation” that is intended to supplement the information heard during this talk.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Setting Aside Restlessness and Worry
The topic for next week’s talk is a review of the fifth hindrance, Skeptical Doubt.
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Continuing a review of the 52 cetasikas, conditioning factors in the mind, the focus for this talk are each of the 7 Universal Mind Conditioners: Feeling, Perception, Contact, Volition, Concentration, Vitality and Attention. These factors participate in every moment of consciousness, whether the mind manifests wholesome or unwholesome self-organizations. Understanding the function of these mind conditioners conceptually creates the conditions that support direct identification of them as impersonal while practicing mindfulness of breathing meditation, and this insight reveals the non-self characteristic of human personality.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Reviewing The Universal Mind Conditioners
Here is the document that shows all 52 of the cetasikas: CETASIKAS POSTER
The focus for the next talk will be what are called the Particular or Occasional Cetasikas.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:42 — 83.7MB)