With a heartful attitude, set aside what is not necessary and make a continued deliberate practice around your Dhamma aspirations. Tuning into embodiment with interest and sensitivity, we can locate the missing piece, where harmonization of the mental and somatic domains occurs.

Dukkha is a natural part of our experience. When internalized it manifests as constricting and disjointed somatic states. When met from a clear and settled center, our responses can be guided by harmony and wisdom.

Meditation is about penetrating the roots of mental behavior. The primary doing is to settle and clear distracting influences so the mind becomes unified in purpose. A happy, firm mind leaves less traction for hindrances to take hold.

Hindrances take us away from ground. Groundedness is an absolute requirement for skillful cultivation. Standing posture gives access to feet touching the ground to create a firm and steady foundation.

After establishing a firm and comfortable posture, expand awareness across each dimension of the body. The details become less, the whole body becomes a unity in harmony. In this state hindrances and discomforts have much less possibility to occur.

The energy we use to think about things and get things done is conditioned – it can put us in conflict when we want to be comfortable and kind but keep getting caught up in irritation and defeat. This energy can be purified. Change the mental approach and repel distractions. Beautiful qualities arise on their own.

Guidance for establishing a suitable posture and attitude for meditation. Sustain attention on breathing – a moving sign is easier to stay with than a static sign. Use it along with supportive heart energy to help blocked places to unfreeze and dissolve.

Working with past traumas; relationship between meditation and right livelihood; clarification around embodied presence; please elaborate on contracted and anxious modes; sequence of the 4 elements – earth, air, fire, water; recollecting teachers and use of Buddho in meditation; clarify the meaning of purification or cleaning of citta.

One transformative insight that arises from practice is the way you develop and store up goodness is by sharing it. The untrained mind thinks it’s by storing it up. Guidance is provided generate qualities of heart and extend them across a wide span.

Where things fall apart is where the connections break, when we spin off into our distracted thinking and proliferating thoughts. Spend time lingering in the heart sense, staying connected and present with that. Stay with the body in daily activities, taking regular pause moments.