Life is generally measured in terms of clock-and-calendar time. However, to attempt to live accordingly is stressful, binding us to impatience, regret, and expectation. The familiarity of these patterns makes them ‘myself’. In Dhamma practice, we attune to an embodied stability that yet moves us into fresh presence. Our practice then is free from seeking certainty.
On the occasion of Chithurst’s annual Kathina festivities, reflections are offered on the beauty of generosity, a safe and non-manipulative gift to others, and on the value of renunciation. When we can relinquish our own personal preferences, a sense that ‘this is bigger than me’ can arise, and a heart that is larger than the personality can be cultivated. The monastic sangha reminds others to uphold virtuous behaviour, and is a sign of stability, a bright, shining lantern in an otherwise darkened world.
Can you take 10-15 minutes to refresh your heart and mind?
What’s offered here may help you with …
• Calming and steadying the mind.
• Restoring emotional balance.
• Understanding where compulsive habits begin and supporting a reset.
• Discovering inner depths.
In so far as mindfulness is to be established and sustained, there is a doing, but samādhi is not a concentration that you do, it is a unified state that you enter. It’s a place from where you can review and reset your attitudes and deepen your understanding. And its determining factor is that the heart is happy in itself.
The normal ways of the world are to be excited and interested in sensual experiences external to oneself, being drawn to pleasant ones and repelled by those that are unpleasant. This can create a lot of stress, and a constant searching for “What’s next?”. By orienting oneself by a commitment to moral precepts, and a determination to remain present with all that arises, the heart can learn to trust in awareness and find a strength which can allow a lasting happiness to emerge.
It is very important to balance the traditional Buddhist practice of silent formal meditation, with the more external factors of the practice, namely Right Speech and a healthy engagement with one’s fellow practitioners. Assisting with this are vitakka and vicara, directing the mind on to an object and examining the result, as a way to be deeply informed and directly know that one is on a path towards liberation.
Spiritual practice is not just ‘mystical’. There are benefits in everyday applicable states such as kindness, compassion and careful attention. It is dangerous to claim possession of states, and claiming them can even result in using others for one’s own gratification and needs.
Considering the fact of uncertainty, it is unwise to attempt to control. Explore the advantages of being fully open and present with all types of insecurity. Based on a solid foundation of integrity, responsibility and honesty, cultivation can make the heart open and malleable for the purpose of attaining insight.
The compulsive shaping and drives of the citta are held by grasping – an involuntary reflex that can be mastered through careful cultivation. As the end of this grasping and shaping is the sense of self, that sense of ‘me’, ‘I am this’ is the ongoing focus of our Dhamma practice.