Explore every episode of the podcast Listen to Dharma Talks – Orlando Insight Meditation Group

This talk, provided by Lezlie Laws, continues reviewing elements of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, focusing in the Third Foundation, Mindfulness of the Mind.  Lezlie uses a Zen question to foster internal understanding of how the mind creates a self:  “What Is This?”  The question is not intended to be abstract and intellectual, but rather to invite direct subjective knowledge of how the mind is created in and ongoing way.

During the talk, Lezlie refers to a YouTube interview involving Ezra Klein and Stephen Batchelor, a well-respected Buddhist teacher and author who suggests the value of this question.  Here is a URL recording that conversation:  https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/ezra-klein-interviews-stephen-batchelor-on-what-is-this/

During this meditation, Lezlie Laws provides suggestions that involve a useful question for exploring the nature of the mind–“What is this?”.  The question curiosity regarding how the mind creates the experience of selfing and is intended to diminish the demands of craving and clinging.  This contemplation is intended to support her comments during the Dharma talk that followed this contemplation reviewing the Third Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of the Mind.  She also suggests ways to apply this question directly to one’s subjective experience while meditating and participating in daily life experiences.

During this talk, Allie Vaknin provides a review of the second of the four foundations of mindfulness, vedanupassana, traditionally translated as mindfulness of feelings.  Her comments include references to how feelings can be understood not only as emotions, but also as craving pleasant experiences orexperiencing unpleasant feelings with aversion.  The goal of practice is to directly know a feeling as just a feeling, not a person, without impulsive reactivity.

Here is the Emotion Wheel illustration she refers to in the talk:  Feeling Wheel

This talk, presented by Susan Baxter, focuses on the first of the four foundations of mindfulness, which contemplates how the mind makes meaning and responses to physical stimuli.  She describes how she learned how to skillfully use various mindfulness practices to cope with chronic pain.

During this talk, Peter describes how his recently completed 6 full days of self-retreat involved integrating Analayo’s excellent “Mindfulness of Breathing” book with the meditative training protocol called vedanupassana as taught by S. N. Goenka.  Part of his preparation for this retreat involved using ChatGPT to support the integrative process, and these documents are also posted here to provide additional information for research.  Peter doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with the descriptions provided by ChatGPT, but the documents below provide a useful reference resource.  As the Buddha said, we must work out our own salvation diligently:

This supports integrating the two practices:  Integrating Anapanasati with Body Scan on Retreat and at Home

This describes the whole-body experience developed by body scanning as body scanning practice matures:  Bhanga

This describes what happens physiologically as body scanning practice matures:  Physiology of Tingling with Body Scan

This describes the subjective experience of anicca, the transitory and impermanent characteristics that can be investigated during body scanning:  Goenka subjective evidence of anicca

April Koester discusses the hindrance of Sloth and Torpor, how to recognize it, and some remedies.

This presentation by Lezlie Laws continues a series of talks reviewing the elements of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse.  Restlessness and Worry, commonly known as one of the Five Hindrances, has two characteristics: restlessness, a felt sense of scattered, agitated attention, and worry, the story that accompanies the agitation, seeming to justify and make the hindrance stronger and more controlling of attention.  Lezlie offers suggestions for setting this hindrance aside, cultivating a more serene and open-minded flow of consciousness.

This talk continues an ongoing review of the Mindfulness of Breathing Discourse, focusing on the hindrance of Aversion and Ill-Will.  Allie Vaknin describes the characteristics of aversion in a way that is not only effective for spiritual development, but can be beneficial for not being hooked by anger or fear, mindfully noticing and disregarding aversive self-talk, focusing instead on identifying and letting go of the physical tensions associated with aversion and ill-will.  She also emphasizes the value of cultivating lovingkindness to counter the negativity of the hindrance.

During this talk, Susan Baxter continues the review by our teachers of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse.  After reviewing the overall structure of the Sutta, she focuses on the first of the Five Hindrances, Sense Desire, which investigates the distress and confusion associated with craving pleasant feelings.  She then describes how skillful attention and letting go can effectively set aside the untrained mind’s strong desire for pleasant experience to be controlled.  Part of the discussion focuses on how the over-activation of parts of the brain associated with feelings can lead to addiction, along with how mindfulness of breathing meditation and other wholesome mental conditions can effectively set aside sense desire.

During this talk, Peter responds to questions about lojong training, (A Tibetan discipline for developing compassion), and the “near and far enemy” of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.