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.
Kamma is both inherited & new. We meet the familiar kammic patterns and programs in the heart, get to their essence in the body, release them in awareness. Guidance on new, fresh kamma then arises with heedfulness and spiritual potency.
Citta takes a personal form in this lifetime. Rather than let it be formed through social forces of craving and slinging, ongoing practice is about bringing Dhamma into our lives-pausing, releasing pressure, acting with integrity.
Rather than fight anxiety, frustration/rage & sadness, we can transmute them through the embodied mind into alertness, strength and tender-hearted concern.
The process of release transfers ideas into emotional senses and into somatic senses through the ground of acceptance and awareness. This unravels the 'I am'-'me' trap.
Recognizing that our lives and practice depend on conditions-not self- how do such conditions arise? Placing citta within the Refuge allows for intuitive commitments.
Use pointing (vitakka) and “tasting/feeling” (vicara). Energy comes with enthusiasm. Use the imaginative faculty to generate useful perceptions and images. Firm up mindfulness to supervise and protect the heart.
Key points- ground, safety; resonate with body as textures until breathing becomes apparent. Sample the feelings of breathing and enjoy it. Absorb the ‘sigh’, the felt impression
