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.
The 5 indriya arise from the grounded citta – they lead the meditation process. Without these we unnecessarily re-activate samsaric processes: perfectionism, projection, self-criticism. Get on the right track!
Our awareness touches and responds. To set it in line with Dhamma, we use the occasion to bring forth, to offer heart – so that it can open. This is Dhamma practice, Sangha is the human individual quality of our subsequent endeavor.
Get the body grounded, set the spine, sense the balance. Trace the rhythm of breathing, apply some tuning, let its energy spread through the body. Enjoy.
Citta moves through Kamma, not through space-time. It is triggered by ‘old Kamma’ – perceptions, attitudes, personality programs. It keeps recreating these unless there is direct insight – the Kamma that ends Kamma.
From the “Wasteland” of samsara, (which is generated by ignorance and craving), a natural arising of spiritual strength can occur – if we ‘touch the ground’ of truth and empathy.
Standing can put us in touch with somatic intelligence as: balance, as cohesion. Gradually the felt sense of body re-forms as a mid-line central stillness and as peripheral sensitivities and openness.
Devotional practice works through including us in bodily, verbal, and heartful actions. Words and concepts are secondary to images and romances. Images of Buddha hands carry deep meaning.
Awareness is often beset with thoughts, emotions, and narratives that cause a ‘jump’ into conceptual proliferation. With unconditional acceptance we hold awareness as a non-reactive ‘pool’ that receives and resonates with mind-stuff but doesn’t react.
