Progressive cultivation of mindfulness to maintain presence through the range of states, so that one allows then to pass. Attention is less snagged on different qualities. It opens to simple awareness. Familiar reactions, and with them, identification,subside. Undifferentiated awareness remains. (refers to S.47:42)
Practice is about fostering growth based on wisdom, effort and view. Wisdom is conditioned by a faith that leads on to motivation/desire, energy, heart and discriminative attention (iddhipada). Effort should be wisely moderated – to sustain, restrain, persevere, uplift, calm. Application of citta is fundamental to the Path; but make it relevant to uplifting the heart.
Basis of healthy human life is goodwill. Our practice is to welcome, to allow and encompass differences. Speech and action based on Dhamma values establishes skilful common ground. We contemplate the effects of deluded reactions and release them – and the citta dwells in a beautiful place and grows beyond self towards measurelessness.
Messages arise from the citta/heart: world-weariness and a sense of resolve. One begins to withdraw from the input of sense-consciousness and attune to what the citta values: ethics, goodwill and skilful states. So there is a recognition of citta/heart, an intelligence that can reflect upon and moderate consciousness, and moves towards devotion and self-abandonment.(refers to A.10:58)
To begin the three months’ monastic retreat the community is encouraged to cultivate restraint so that energy can be drawn away from sense- contact and into the heart.
A self-critical mindset can be a big obstacle to experience all the happiness and ease samadhi has to offer. But how to overcome that? Just breath it out…
Ajahn Sucitto
With integrity as a basis for mindfulness, we can go beyond calming down in sports, the office, or even the army. Through meditation we see there is something deeper in the heart that needs to be unpacked.
Ajahn Sucitto
By holding to the frame of the body, we allow its somatic presence to unfold. This also serves to undo the heart’s contractions – such as ill-will and craving.