by Peter Carlson | Feb 21, 2019 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Every moment that the mind is afflicted with dukkha some combination of Unwholesome Mind Conditioners is cooperating to produce distress (emotional upheaval–from desire to hatred) and confusion (not understanding impermanence and the absence of an enduring and autonomous self as a result of craving and clinging). This discussion describes the elements of the Unwholesome Mind Conditioners in more detail. Mindfulness of breathing meditation cultivates the Wholesome Mind Conditioners that manifest through vipassana practice and counter the frequency, severity and endurance of dukkha. This was followed by discussion to clarify how mindfulness of breathing practice actually contradicts the activation of dukkha.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: THE-UNWHOLESOME-MIND-CONDITIONERS
There will not be a posting of next week’s meeting on February 27th, as Peter and the recording equipment will be at a one week retreat with Shaila Catherine in Tampa with many of the local Sangha. A senior member of the Orlando Zen Center, Robert Lockridge, will give a talk entitled “Dae ja, Dae bi (Great Love, Great Compassion)-Zen and the Bodhisattva Ideal”.
The week following that, on March 6, those who attended the Shaila Catherine retreat will have an opportunity to “think out loud” about the benefits of the retreat, the topic of which is overcoming distraction.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:53 — 111.5MB)
by Peter Carlson | Dec 8, 2014 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this second evening of the weekend retreat at the Franciscan Center, Peter summarized the previous talks and instructions during the retreat, fostering increasing skill in the practice of anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing. He read an excerpt from the Anapanasati Sutta, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, downloaded from the site “Access To Insight”, that illustrated what he had described previously. A progressive degree of the more subtle details of the sensation of breathing was used to explain how the process of awakening develops: first, complete identification with internal narrative as definitive of lived experience (that is, ignorance, from the Buddhist perspective), through a “half-and-half” awareness of narrative and breath awareness, to full breath awareness with no intrusive narrative. This is the cultivation of Samadhi, concentration. The practice of vipassana was described as a revisiting of the narratives, with enough “dispassion” (viraga in Pali) to see the narratives as mental fabrications, impermanent and non-self. These insights constitute the process of awakening.
This practice was related to the cultivation of the Seven Awakening Factors: Mindfulness, Investigation of Mental Phenomena, Energy/Right Effort, Joy, Tranquility, Concentration and Equanimity.
Hopefully, the next posting will include the recording of the Wednesday night dhamma dialogue, a review of the retreat experience by those present who participated in the weekend retreat.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()
by Peter Carlson | Jan 6, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Peter has committed to two-week self-retreats for the last 15 years. This talk reviews that experience during the retreat last December, using excerpts from Analayo’s “Mindfulness of Breathing–a practice guide and translations” to complement what occurred during the retreat, as that book was the primary reference source during the retreat. The intention of this review is to provide ways to understand how a meditative progression through the Four Tetrads of the Anapanasati Sutta, the Mindfulness of Breathing Discourse, was useful for deepening his practice and insights regarding the process of Awakening during the retreat. This presentation also includes questions posed by those participating in the meeting regarding the information in the Sutta.
Here are the extensive excerpts from the book provided by Peter for reference during the talk and for further inquiry by those interested in the approach used by Analayo to improve understanding and practice issues regarding this important discourse: 2021 Year end retreat review Analayo can be considered as one of the preeminent authorities of our era regarding the doctrines and practices found in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
The topic for next week’s discussion will be a review of Lovingkindness, the first of what are called the Four Divine Abidings.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:32 — 66.4MB)
by Peter Carlson | Apr 23, 2020 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This meditation focuses attention on the Third Foundation of Mindfulness, Cittanupassana (chee-tah-noo-pah-suh-nah), Mindfulness of the Mind. The guided meditation builds attention through mindfulness of the body/breathing and mindfulness of feelings, the first two of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Peter then invited meditators to engage the contemplations mentioned in the Satipatthana Sutta for the Third Foundation, that is, whether or not the mind is afflicted with desire, aversion or delusion, whether the scope of mindful awareness is expanded or contracted, alert or dull.
Following this guided meditation is a posted Dharma talk recording entitled “Cultivating A Wise Mind” that relates the Third Foundation of Mindfulness to what the teacher/author Culadasa calls “Introspective Metacognitive Awareness”, the ability to maintain a primary focus of attention on the sensation of breathing with a more expansive peripheral awareness of the transient and impersonal elements of the mind’s function. This meditation supports the practice of vipassana and has applications for coping with the stresses of the pandemic.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:10 — 82.7MB)
by Peter Carlson | May 10, 2018 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This talk focuses on the Second of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Vedanupassana, Mindfulness of Feelings. The Buddhist view of feelings isn’t just about emotions; more emphasis is placed on affect, the potency or impulsive urgency associated with any moment of experience. When unskillfully managed and conditioned by clinging, affect manifests as craving, that is, for pleasant experience to arise and continue or for unpleasant feeling to be avoided or gotten rid of. Peter described some of the important neural brain structures associated with affect and cognition, emphasizing that affect is the “driver” of cognition, as suggested by traditional Buddhist doctrine and current neuroscientific research. This makes mindfulness of feelings a crucial skill to develop, that is, to perceive feelings as just mental phenomena, not a self, not “my feelings”. Modern research demonstrates that mindfulness of breathing meditation develops areas of the brain that function to regulate the degree of reactivity to affect, thereby interrupting craving and clinging.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Understanding Feelings
Next week’s talk will focus on a review of paticca samuppada, dependent origination, a key concept of Buddhism describing how the selfing process operates and demonstrating the crucial role mindfulness of feelings plays in the process of Awakening. Peter will explain a different view of this concept that he calls contingent provisional emergence, which combines traditional Buddhist views with a contemporary complexity theory of personality organization.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:24 — 114.3MB)