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• Sitting Meditition - 20-30 minutes

 
• Welcome and Introductions

 
• There are three components of The Noble Eightfold Path: Virtue (Skillful Speech, Skillful Action & Skillful Livelihood), Concentration (Skillful Effort, Skillful Mindfulness & Skillful Concentration) & Wisdom (Skillful Understanding & Skillful Thinking).

 
• We began with Skillful Understanding - a conceptual understanding of The Law of Cause and Effect and The Four Noble Truths.

 
• Then we explored Skillful Thinking:

 
• Importance of Intention
• Each action (i.e., speech and deed) is preceded by a thought
• Each unskillful thought is rooted in greed, hatred and delusion
• Each skillful thought is rooted in non-greed (generosity), non-hatred (loving-friendliness and compassion) and wisdom
• We have experienced through Skillful Understanding and the Law of Cause and Effect,
• thoughts rooted in greed, hatred and delusion lead to disharmony and suffering
• thoughts rooted in generosity, loving-friendliness, compassion and wisdom lead to harmony and peace
• As the mind begins to understand suffering and its cause (craving), it begins to lose interest in its attachment to sensual stimuli, rests in each moment with equanimity, and responds appropriately to each moment as wisdom naturally arises.

 
• Skillful Thinking is Intentions of:
• Generosity - Letting Go (Renunciation): Material, People, Experiences and Beliefs
• Loving-Friendliness or Metta (Goodwill): wishing for the happiness and welfare of others
• Compassion (Harmlessness) - understanding the suffering of others and wishing them to be free from suffering

 
• Then we explored Virtue: Skillful Speech, Skillful Action and Skillful Livelihood and saw the application of Skillful Understanding and Skillful Thinking in our daily lives: seeing the causal connection between --

 
• skillful intentions and actions and resulting harmony and peacefulness in our minds and in our lives

 
• unskillful intentions and actions and resulting disharmony and disruption in our minds and in our lives

 
• Then we began to examine the third section of the Path, Concentration, as we experienced Skillful Effort last week, will explore Skillful Mindfulness today and next week, followed by Skillful Concentration.

 
• Sharing of Experiences (have class help me illustrate Skillful Effort in their own experiences).

 
• Keeping in mind Skillful Understanding (Law of Cause and Effect -- The Truth of Suffering and its Cause: Craving) and Skillful Thinking (Generosity or Letting Go, Loving-Friendliness, and Compassion or Harmlessness), and their application in Skillful Speech, Skillful Action and Skillful Livelihood, and appropriate amount of exertion in our practice through Skillful Effort (ease, receptivity, energy, presence, willing invitation, but not grasping), let us now explore the seventh factor, Skillful Mindfulness.

 
• Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment to WHAT IS.

 
• We unknowingly perceive ourselves and the world around us through thought patterns (perceptions) that are limited, habitual and conditioned by delusions.

 
• It results in a proliferation of concepts that distort the true nature of our experiences.

 
• A mindful mind is precise, penetrating, balanced and uncluttered -- like a mirror that reflects without distortion whatever stands before it.

 
• Mindfulness is attending to phenomena simply as they present themselves,

 
• without embellishing them,
• without commenting on them,
• without elaborating on them with thoughts and ideas,
• just simple observation of the phenomena of mind and matter.

 
• Our usual way of thinking (example)

 
• object awakens our attention
• we perceive it
• that triggers a series of thoughts that elaborate on it
• we build a network of thoughts and mental constructions
• if pleasant, an intention arises to act based on desire, greed, or attachment
• if unpleasant, an intention arises to act based on fear, aversion, or anxieties about it
• if neutral, an intention arises to act (or to refrain from acting) based on delusion (supporting "sloth & torpor", indecision, confusion, indifference).

 
• The first step is to cut away these mental elaborations (like a surgeon's scalpel).

 
• Our ordinary way of thinking about objects is like the shell of a pumpkin on water - it floats downstream. But if one places a heavy stone in the water, it sinks to the bottom - right where it is placed. Like the stone, Mindfulness sinks deeply into the nature of an object, seeing its true characteristics.

 
• The basic task of Mindfulness is to keep the object in view, until the mental embellishments lose their strength and fall away, allowing one to see the object's true nature.

 
• What are its true nature - its true characteristics?

 
• Impermanence

 
• Everything is in a constant state of becoming something other than what it was a moment before.
• Examples from the class (e.g., breath, feelings, mind states, thoughts)

 
• Unsatisfactoriness

 
• Four kinds of suffering that come from a desiring mind:
• Not getting what you want - the more you have the more you want
• Striving to achieve what you want - work harder, longer hours
• Afraid of losing what you've striven for
• The suffering from the inevitable loss - because everything is impermanent
• Examples from the class

 
• Selflessness

 
• Insight into impermanence and unsatisfactoriness helps us see that reality is not something "out there", separate from us. It is our ever changing experience of the ever changing world, with no core "self" and no "other".

 
• Examples from the class (e.g., building is a concept - walls, floor, ceiling)

 
• When we come to realize the truth of these characteristics in each moment of our experiences, we allow sensations, feelings, and thoughts to pass through the mind without holding on to anything -- no matter how pleasant or beautiful.

 
• We just notice things as they are -- without grasping or pushing away -- just relaxing into perfect peace of mind, perfect happiness.

 
• The Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana)

 
• Mindfulness of the Body

 
• Mindfulness of the Breath, noticing:
• In and Out Breath
• Long and Short Breath
• Breath Body - beginning, middle and end of each in-breath and out-breath; its impermanency
• Mind strays to another object, noticing its impermanency; returning to the breath
• Two processes: physical process of breathing and the mental process of knowing it --
• separate phenomena,
• each of them arising simultaneously and dependent on the other,
• each being impermanent,
• but not an entity, a "self", who is breathing.
• Mindfulness provides the light of awareness that penetrates through the illusion of solidity to show the interdependent nature of the flux of phenomena that is in continual motion -- always in transition, never static.

 
• Mindfulness of Posture
• Applying the same light of awareness to the postures of the body - standing, walking, sitting or lying down.
• Example - walking meditation
• constant change of bodily sensations as various muscles contract and relax;
• the intention that precedes each movement;
• the impermanency of each;
• the selflessness of each (Ask: "Who is walking?);
• the impermanency of other objects as the mind strays and returns to the body

 
• Mindfulness of the Parts of the Body
• Contemplating the 32 parts of the body, beginning with head hair, body hair, nails, skin and teeth.  (See Satipatthana Sutta)
• Everything is changing: hair color, texture; skin color, texture; teeth color, strength; eyes -- anybody wearing glasses? It leads to the conclusion that there is nothing stable about the body and its parts.
• It helps to overcome the fetter of greed or clinging to the body.

 
• Mindfulness of Feelings

 
• We often assume that persons or situations outside ourselves are responsible for the way we feel.
• Mindfully watching our feelings teaches us that both pleasant and unpleasant feelings come not from outside objects, but from our own mental states.
• Shining the light of mindfulness on our feelings shows us that in each moment there an effective tone of that experience which is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. It is our reaction to this feeling from a sense of separateness rooted in greed, hatred or delusion that causes our suffering. Mindfulness provides that pause that allows us to see that feeling as a mere phenomena, and then respond to it appropriately, if at all, from a place of generosity, loving-friendliness or compassion.
• Examples from the class about how skillful means can be employed in responding to both all three types of feelings

 
• Mindfulness of the Mind

 
• Watching various mental states arise and pass away, such as:
• greedy or nongreedy mind
• hateful or nonhateful mind
• ignorant or discerning mind
• contracted or expanded mind
• distracted or focused mind

 
• Notice the impermanency of these mind states, their unsatisfactoriness, their selflessness.

 
• The more you focus on the mind itself, the less solid it seems. Like everything else that exists, it is always changing.

 
• Since you cannot control this process, you have no choice but to let go. And when you do, you experience joy and taste for an instant the freedom and happiness that is the goal of the Buddha's path.

 
• Mindfulness of Mental Objects (all conscious mental activities)

 
• Categories: Five Hindrances, Five Aggregates, Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and The Four Noble Truths

 
• You can regard the Factors of Enlightenment as the fruits of mindfulness practice:
• Mindfulness
• Investigation
• Energy
• Joy
• Tranquility
• Concentration
• Equanimity

 
• When all of the Factors of Enlightenment have been perfected, one achieves Nibanna, perfect happiness, perfect peace.

 
• From "Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness" by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana at p.220:
 

"We can achieve this goal within this life.


                    When we do, all suffering ceases.

                    All questions come to an end.

                    All anxiety, worry, fear and tension disappear, never to return.

                    There is no craving, no clinging to anything.

                    We live in perfect harmony, perfect balance.

                    All of our senses are sharpened.

                    We still eat, drink, talk, walk and use our body and mind,
                    but with full awareness, total mindfulness.

                    Our morality does not make us think we are superior to others.

                    Our concentration does not make us praise ourselves
                    and disparage others.

                    Our wisdom gives us perfect loving-friendliness, perfect compassion,
                    and perfect appreciative joy.

                    Enjoying perfect equanimity, we are never again troubled
                    by life's ups and downs."
 

• Assignment for next week:
• Homework Schedule (Review Exercises)
• Review Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness - Step 7: Skillful Mindfulness
• Read Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness - Step 8: Skillful Concentration

 
• Closing Meditation (Mindfulness of Breathing)

Recommended reading online concerning the practice of Mindfulness:

• The Power of Mindfulness - An Inquiry into the Scope of Bare Attention and the Principal Sources of its Strength by Nyanaponika Thera (The Wheel Publication No. 121/122).

 
• Right Mindfulness - from Chapter VI of The Noble Eightfold Path - The Way to the End of Suffering by Bhikkhu Bodhi (The Wheel Publication No. 308/311).

 
• The Benefits of Walking Meditation - by Sayadaw U Silananda.  This is an illuminating essay on the benefits of walking

meditation with detailed instructions concerning how to apply the Modes of Deportment, as described in the Satipatthana Sutta.
 
• The Real Facts of Life - Practical Reflections on the Three Marks of Existence by Sumano Tong (The Wheel Publication No. 435). "The Buddha taught that all conditioned things - ourselves included - have three characteristics: impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and selflessness or nonsubstantiality (anatta). When we fail to recognize these three

characteristics of existence, we regard that which is impermanent as permanent, that which is unsatisfactory as pleasure, and the selfless as possessing an unchanging self." (Tong)  Written with clarity and in non-technical terms, this essay systematically explores these characteristics through many examples that can easily be found in everyday life.