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.
We possess enough wisdom to review kamma and work through it. The process begins with noticing the effects on citta – that which makes up my subjective world – and meeting resulting feelings. Feelings that are felt, mindfully held, can be surmounted through wisdom and released.
Guided Sitting Meditation: (Brief instructions given in first two minutes.) Touch ground, and begin to sense the body subjectively. Avoid too much language, being suggestive rather than technically accurate. Tune into the quality of it all binding together, affecting itself.
Standing Meditation: Find balance, where least effort is needed. From the soles of the feet, begin to sweep awareness up into the legs, belly, chest, head until each piece merges into an undivided whole that is rhythmically breathing. This is the realm of subtle form.
In the world of systems, life is explained, and measured in terms of objectivity. This reality results in the experience of division and stress. In subjective reality there is direct feeling and experiencing of life through embodiment. Everything is met and integrated. This is the reality to be experienced, cultivated and cleared for ultimate liberation.
Intro & Guided Meditation: Embodiment is a touchstone for deep sanity where we come back to our fundamental senses. It is a domain we cannot be separated from, though we separate ourselves from it.
Walking Meditation Instructions: Customarily, walking is about 'getting somewhere', but in walking meditation there's nowhere to go. Widen the perceptual field like a bubble and tune into how the body walks.
Guided Meditation Body: When the held places in the body relax, energy shifts into a receptive state where many fine intelligences exist. Experiment with the power and gift of energies in the hands.
We can use the body as a means to pause from immediate reactions and perceptions. From this place we can extend, allowing a shift so that something more compassionate, spacious, and authentic can arise.
Guided Sitting Meditation: (Guidance begins at 10 min, and then again at 25 min) Ask the body to align and find balance, then allow it to happen through vitality versus will power. Look for wholeness with regards to physical pain: rather than splitting into a 'me' who has a stiff shoulder – can it be included?
Standing Meditation: The body has an intelligence that can't be figured out by the mind. It can find the place of least stress and effort, and establish balance. In this way, embodiment moderates the mind.
