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.
Resolving dukkha comes through revealing its pain, while having the means to do so. These means are samadhi and primary empathy-these take us beyond the trap of conceiving ourselves.
Recollecting that these are the planes we get hit by and stuck in. We see the need to resolve old mamma. Meet it with metta-karuna, welcome the dissonances 'home'.
'Boxes' are our compartmentalized lives& their drives. Drives activated by tanha(craving). In meeting the edges of our boxes as they arise, meeting with metta-karuna etc. these edges can dissolve.
The ‘measureless’ domains of goodwill are based on disengagement from ill will, fear and desire. Defense against harm changes to protecting the beautiful heart from confused reactions.
Becoming a ‘true individual’ occurs when goodwill and sharing take the lead over ‘personal obsession’ and programs based on fear and desire. ‘Sharing blessings’ is a skillful meditation.
Right View presents experience in terms of conditions that create a person, rather than a person who creates/owns/is other than conditions. In the resultant dispassion of Right View beautiful resonances can come forth.
Mindfulness of breathing can be developed through somatic sensitivity (rather than tracking sensations). This requires and supports a reset of time and space – from felt pressures to natural energy.
Mindfulness as a practice begins with bare attention to sense – contact, establishing safety, ground and balance. Breathing trains us in terms of proper attunement. This non-grasping awareness gives fruition in the Four Noble Truths.
