55 Settling the Body, Speech and Mind

Spring 2012 Shamatha Retreat

Settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural state is fundamental to shamatha practice and though it so familiarly begins each session we mustn't relax our regard for it. So this evening we refine our skill for the technique, culminating with an awareness that is relaxed, still, and clear.

Then we discuss our habit for seeking serenity and stimulation outside of ourselves, when in fact these qualities exist nowhere other than their source in our own awareness.

Meditation Begins 13.46 - 38.10

Q&A 47.05
* How thoughts and images relate.
* Considering we may constitute an intergalactic super-organism.
* Practicing vipasyana before attaining samadhi.
* Degrees of grasping in awareness of awareness.
* Techniques of counting the breath.
* Bringing interest to boring subjects.
* Eyes as a portal to the substrate.