CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES PROGRAM

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SESSION 1

IF WE OPENED PEOPLE UP, WE’D FIND LANDSCAPES

- Agnes Varda


REVIEW:

  • PILLARS: 1. STILLNESS, 2. AWARENESS, 3. ACCEPTANCE, 4. INQUIRY, 5. COMPASSION, 6. INTEGRATION

  • OUR MULTIPLE PARTS: Based on the idea that we have a Self that is very present and carries qualities like courage, curiosity, compassion etc.. and we are also made of different parts. Parts that have been developing and growing internally that have their own perspective, emotions, goals, roles. The process lays in finding or returning that Self and meeting these parts, how we relate to them? how we can unburden them? how we get curious about them? How we listen to them?

  • 4 NOBLE TRUTHS

    Part of the first discourse of the Buddha and the core teaching around Buddhist Psychology

    1. 1 Noble Truth Suffering: The human condition involves suffering (Dukkha)

    2. 2 Noble Truth Origin /Causes: The conflict between how things are and how we desire them to be causes suffering

    3. 3 Noble Truth Cessation: Suffering can be reduced or even eliminated by changing our attitude toward experience

    4. 4 Noble Truth The Path : There are eight general strategies to bring suffering to an end

  • UNDERSTANDING SUFFERING AS A CONCEPT

    • The suffering of suffering: physical and emotional discomfort and pain all humans experience in their lives, death, illness.

    • The suffering of change: the anxiety and stress of trying to hold on to things that are constantly changing

    • The suffering of existence/ pervasive suffering: a basic dissatisfaction

  • MINDFULNESS

    “Sati” = to remember”

    Awareness of present moment with acceptance*

    Mindfulness as a skill allows us to be less reactive to what is happening in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience - positive, negative, neutral- such that our overall level of suffering is reduced and our sense of well being increases. (*Acceptance as being an extension of non-judgment, a willingness to just let things be as they are the moment we become aware of them.
    A PROCESS THAT BROAD THE PERSPECTIVE: INCLUDE & INTEGRATE

  • FIRST FOUNDATION OF MINDFULNESS : BODY/BREATH

    • OUR STARTING POINT, OUR HOME BASE, OUR RETURNING POINT

    • THE BEGINNING OF THE PRACTICE TO HELP US RESTRICT THE FOCUS OF ATTENTION

    • CULTIVATING BOTH CONCENTRATION AND A SENSE OF RELAXATION TO CONTINUE OUR INNER EXPLORATION

ADDITIONAL READING MATERIAL / RESOURCES

  • The 4 foundations of mindfulness / Bhante Gunaratana

  • The wise heart / Jack Kornfield

  • The Places that Scary you/ Pema Chödrön

  • Mindfulness: A practical guide to awakening/ Joseph Goldstein

  • Article about Dukkhas

TO REFLECT/JOURNAL

Make some space to explore these inquiries during this week:

  • How does it feel/what does it mean to connect with your body?

  • What do you notice when you get quiet? 

  • On your internal landscape, can you identify a part of you that needs more attention today?

  • What do you hear when you ask yourself “how are you”?

TO PRACTICE

Mindfulness of breath/body

TO CONTEMPLATE

“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

 

SESSION 2

REVIEW:

2ND NOBLE TRUTH: ORIGIN/ CAUSES

“ The cause of suffering is craving or thirst”

  • For sense pleasures:

    What’s the nature of our craving?

    What motivates us and what’s the gratification we are seeking?

    Learning about the draw backs of gratification: unreliable, it's impermanent

  • ASPIRATION (where we act, we hold inspiration) IS DIFFERENT THAN EXPECTATION (where we hold hope)

  • INVESTIGATE
    The next time we feel frustrated: let’s look to see if there is any expectation. Do I have some idea of what I want to be happening as opposed to what is happening right now? And look more in depth, what is the craving behind?

    For becoming:

  • It’s our basic urge and desire to be, for our continue existence

    The projection to our future self: I will be doing, I will be there etc…

    We see this everyday, in our practice as well, how we are always leaning into the next moment, as if we don’t trust what is here

    For non existence

  • A desire to scape, skip, disassociate what is present here and what we don’t like.

  • FIVE HINDRANCES: Mental states that are in the way for us to be/feel more whole, integrated. The idea is to learn about them, their nature, their presence, what stories they bring along with, what patterns they carry with and notice when they are activated to start including them in a way that feels possible, nurturing and healing.

    CRAVING/DESIRE, ANGER/AVERSION, SLOTH/BOREDOM, WORRY, DOUBT/DELUSION

SECOND FOUNDATION OF MINDFULNESS : Mindfulness of sensation/feelings

The field where we experience our relationship with 3 kinds/groups of sensations: PLEASANT, UNPLEASANT, NEUTRAL. We are attuning to our feeling tone, specifically noting if the experience is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Using inquisitiveness, patience and acceptance with the mindful observing capacity of whatever is encountered, one learns to override the habitual reactive tendencies of clinging to the pleasant, avoiding the unpleasant and ignoring the neutral. Whereas the first foundation helps us cultivate focused calm, the second cultivates balanced sensitivity, which is described as equanimity, when one is able to remain present to the full range of internal sensations without impulsive reactions.

ADDITIONAL READING/RESOURCES

TO REFLECT

During this week, I’d like to invite you to continue investigate your relationship with craving/attachment and also the other hindrances (anger/aversion, confusion, distraction/worry, dullness):

  • When you notice your craving/attachment/wanting, what part of you is present? Can you identify it?

  • How do you normally relate to it? Do you stay? Do you leave? Can you hear what it has to say?

  • And, what does it need? (I want to really emphasize the listening here: when a part express their needs, how we are with it? how we attend to it?)

TO PRACTICE

TO CONTEMPLATE

“Listen to the listening”

SESSION 3

REVIEW

3rd NOBLE TRUTH: CESSATION

We are clearing the mind/freeing our mind. STOPPING THE PATTERN / THE HABITUAL CYCLE OF SUFFERING

Clarity of mind = little pieces of freedom + a sense of possibility

In psychology context > UNLEARNING/UNDOING/RECONDITIONING the habit of suffering

Deconstruction of preconceptions: narrative, choices, associations

If we want to stop the way we are experiencing, we have to go back to how we create our preconceptions and go to that open awareness. In order to do that we need to go to the source = watch our mind or stay on the edge of the mind

Process of perception: initial perception > awareness > evaluation > integration 

Who is observing?

The Self (In buddhism, there is no self so we call it our Buddha Nature)

The third foundation: Mindfulness of Mind

  • The 3rd foundation attunes one to the nature of mind itself, opening the lens of awareness to include awareness itself.

  • One learns to observe the states and qualities of awareness without being compelled by them 

  • One learns to override habitual reactions of clinging, avoiding in the second foundation. In the third one, one learns to decondition automatic reactions by applying antidotes that counter balance the so-called five hindrances to mental pliancy.

  • Mindfulness of mind protects one from the escapism and disassociation by engaging mind/body events, fully, clearly, courageously without reactive tendencies

  • Mind in Buddhist Contemplative practice is that spacious awareness in which thoughts arise, capable of reflecting on itself and recognizing the true nature of things 

ADDITIONAL READING

The eye of the I - David Hawkins

TO REFLECT

  • When parts step back, who is there? Can you get a feeling of it?

  • What qualities of the Self can you locate within when not burden by parts?

  • An informal practice: as you go through the day, when you notice an overwhelming feeling or too much thinking or any sensation that needs some attention, pause and ask yourself WHO IS OBSERVING?

TO PRACTICE

TO CONTEMPLATE

“Always we hope someone else has the answer, some other place will be better, some other time it will all turn out. At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. There is no need to run outside for better seeing. Nor to peer from a window. Rather abide at the center of your being, for the more you leave it, the less you learn. Search you heart and see the way to do is to be” Lao Tzu

SESSION 4

“THE MIDDLE PATH DOES NOT GO FROM HERE TO THERE. IT GOES FROM THERE TO HERE.”

REVIEW

4TH NOBLE TRUTH: THE PATH (OR THE EIGHTFOLD PATH)

By living ethically, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom, we can be on a journey to alleviate suffering, cultivate a sense of freedom and awakening. The path was divided in 8 instructions organized under ETHICS, WISDOM, MEDITATION.

Here I’d like to leave the invitation of instead of looking at this as a guideline rather to see it as an invitation for us to see what we want to put more attention or energy. It doesn’t have to be linear, it can enter at any point.

  1. Right Thought

  2. Right Speech

  3. Right Action

  4. Right Livelihood

  5. Right Effort

  6. Right Mindfulness

  7. Right Concentration

Read more about it here

4th FOUNDATION OF MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness of experience (also called mindfulness of phenomena)

Here we Include the body, sensations, mind while opening the circle to embrace all experience arising in the present moment

Middle way

The middle way refers to the Buddha’s view of life, it’s present throughout his teaching,. It is for this reason that Buddhism itself is sometimes referred to as the Middle Way

Read more about the middle way here.

TO REFLECT

  • What my whole experience is telling me right now? What is this season of my life? What is it asking? What is it bringing?

  • If I feel fragmented, what is possible? What is possible for me to do, embody, cultivate right now?

  • When I think on my unfolding path as a journey, rather than a destination. What helps me to stay in the middle path?

TO PRACTICE

Traveler, your footprints
Are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
You make your own path as you walk
As you walk, you make your own road (...)

- Antonio Machado

SESSION 5

“Do you pay regular visits to yourself?” - Rumi

REVIEW

What is self compassion?

Compassion is our intention to alleviate others and ours suffering. Compassion, therefore, presupposes the recognition and clear seeing of suffering.  Self-compassion has exactly the same qualities—it’s just compassion turned inward.

MSC(Mindful Self Compassion) Germer, Neff

When there is suffering, the question in mindfulness is : can i make room for this?

In self compassion the question is what do I need?

3 main components for self compassion: self kindness, common humanity and mindfulness

SOFTENING….

When we are in fight (feelings of defense, anger, aversion), quickly becomes self criticism which can be soften by self kindness

When we in flight (feelings of dissociation, confusion, avoidance), quickly becomes self isolation which can be soften by common humanity (i’m only human) not a justification but an understanding

When we are in freeze (feelings of stuckness, block), quickly becomes self absorption which can be soften by mindfulness  

Self compassion is not: self pity, self indulgence, self esteem.

RAIN(Brach, Tara model)

Tool to help and support with difficult emotions and to find our way into self compassion. Bridging mindfulness and compassion.

R: Recognizing

A: Allowing

I: Investigating

N: Nurturing

Additional Reading

Radical Compassion, Tara Brach (rain method explained in depth)

Dr. Kristin Neff (leading on self compassion research)

TO REFLECT

SELF COMPASSION BREAK

Think of a situation in your life that is difficult, that is causing you stress. Call the situation to mind, and see if you can actually feel the stress and emotional discomfort in your body. Now, say mentally to yourself:

1. This is a moment of suffering. 
That’s mindfulness. Other options include: This hurts.  This is stress. This is difficult. In a way, here we are saying YES to what’s here. to what’s present

2. Suffering is a part of life. 
That’s common humanity. Other options include: Other people feel this way. I’m not alone. We all struggle.

Now, put your hands over your heart, feel the warmth of your hands and the gentle touch of your hands on your chest and say to yourself:

3. May I be kind to myself. You can also ask yourself, “What do I need to hear right now to express kindness to myself?” Is there a phrase that speaks to you in your particular situation, such as:
May I learn to accept myself as I am
May I forgive myself
May I be strong
May I be patient

or it’s okay, i’m here. i’m sorry, I care.

TO PRACTICE