Martin answers questions from students on the closing night of the retreat. Subjects covered include Martins own relationship to dharma practice, questions about integration, exploring Buddhist teachings and working with various obstacles.
Meditation instruction for attending to the fluidity of experience, for tracking the naturally unfolding nature of phenomena in body, heart, mind and world.
These morning meditation instructions explore the expanding of attention, to including the various elements of emotional experience and mental states that colour consciousness.
Martin explores resources for wellbeing, noting the importance of being nourished and uplifted by our practice, in order for it to be sustainable. He looks at the nature of happiness and our relationship to pleasure; the practice of opening up to joy, and points to ways in which dharma practice is fulfilling and freeing.
Martin explores the layers of Basic Dukkha, Reactive Dukkha and Judgemental Dukkha; exploring how they show up in different areas of our experience and pointing to different ways of meeting, exploring and healing our relationship with painful experience.
Some advice on working with physical and postural discomfort, as well as with meditative discomfort, the heat and tensions that show up when we meditate, as we process the unwinding of various somatized patterns and emotional residue.
Martin explores the two pali terms for consciousness - Vinnyana and Chitta. He looks at their functioning in experience, and how we can inhabit our conscious experience to as to meet, explore and understand it better.
Martin explores the ground of meditation practice as the right-here-ness of experience and awareness. He points to an embodied practice, opening ourselves up to an availability to whatever presents itself.
