Seattle Insight Meditation

Episode

Metta

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-10-06

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Practice metta this week while walking down the street. Send lovingkindness to all beings on the street without discrimination. Walk at a normal pace and begin by directing metta toward yourself. As different beings pass by offer metta, “May you be content. May you have ease of well being…” You don’t know who will arise in your awareness—friends, neutral people, those that bring up fear or aversion. See this exercise as an adventure in metta, not knowing who will arise in your field of attention moment after moment. Include other beings besides humans in your practice. Alternate between yourself and other beings as you practice metta.

TalkID=749 SeriesID=33

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Wisdom

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-07-21

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Exercise one: Ask yourself what you understand about the dharma—not what is intellectually satisfying but what you truly understand. For instance, do you understand how suffering arises? Do your actions demonstrate this wisdom? How deep is this truth? How far has it reached into your cells?
Take a point of dharma that you frequently hear in talks but is not sufficiently integrated. For example, dharma talks speak about the pure, clear mind of awareness and nonjudgmental acceptance. Have you experienced this firsthand or is it a conceptual understanding? First know the difference between the two forms of knowledge. How will you go about understanding dharma issues more directly? Is thinking about them sufficient? Take the issue you select and attempt to experience it firsthand. For example, what is the mind like when it is free of judgment, and what is it like when it judges? Which mind is clearer and therefore more accessible to wisdom? Work with the dharma point all week and notice how wisdom arises naturally from interest and bare attention.
Exercise two: When you sit in meditation, notice how the noise of thought seems to keep you away from the breath. Observe how “you” are very present, struggling to get back on your breath. You may believe you are struggling with the thinking to return to the breath, but the struggling is actually creating more thought that does the opposite. You are working against wisdom. Watch the defenses against silence (emptiness) arise when you are able to be with the breath. Notice your boredom, restlessness, and desire for stimulation. These are mental states that keep “you” being “you” and ward off the wisdom of seeing clearly. Be careful not to struggle with even these states of mind. Attempt to open and include all states of mind. To open is the opposite of struggle and therefore in alignment with wisdom. The mind is very tricky and there is a proper place for wise effort.  But does that effort have to be so forceful and striving? This week examine the differences and linkage between forced effort, opening to a mind state and the noise of the mind.

TalkID=747 SeriesID=17,32

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Samadhi

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-06-30

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework What value does focused presence have on your life? Can you think of any activity that a steady mind does not enhance? What external and internal conditions cultivate this steadiness? Notice the effect of stimulation on your stability of mind. Notice the effect of argument and controversy. Is there a way to move your life towards greater clarity?
This week investigate the relationship between simplicity and your ability to focus. As an experiment, try to eliminate any distractions that are not absolutely necessary. Plan the week in advance so everything nonessential can be postponed. Deliberately slow down so you always know what you are doing while you are doing it. What effect does the speed of your day have on your clarity? Structure the week so you have fewer commitments, fewer auditory and visual distractions, socialize a little less, and have a regular disciplined sitting practice. You may want to extend this week into several weeks. Notice the effects this intentional simplicity has on your stability of mind.

TalkID=746 SeriesID=17,32,38

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Mindfulness

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-06-16

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Why be mindful? What is the value of mindfulness—not theoretically, but practically–in your life? Has it become a necessity, like taking a shower or eating, or is it a burden, something added mechanically because you think it is good for you? What would make the practice your own? What would make it effortless and natural, a faithful interplay between you and the experiences of living?
What is your life like when you sit every day and what is it like when you do not? Start noticing the qualitative difference between being mindful and being lost in thought. How does the world feel when you are thinking about it as opposed to living it? What difference does mindfulness make in the subtle sensitive moments when you hear a bird call or feel the brush of a breeze or in the more gross reactive moments of anger or fear? Unless the reasons for practicing are internalized, the meditation will not be your own.

TalkID=720 SeriesID=17,32,38

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Effort

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-06-02

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework How does effort support the first spiritual faculty of faith and how does faith in turn support effort? What is necessary for you to exert effort? What is necessary for you to sustain effort? What is the goal of your spiritual practice and how does that play a role in your effort? What progress have you seen? What are the values and limitations in viewing spiritual growth as progression on a path?
Is your effort based on empowering your mind or feeding your heart? Is it focused toward discipline or interconnection? Examine your spiritual effort this week and see if it is in service of the heart. Is it effort towards kindness, acceptance, allowance, and letting be, or is it a cold, self-demanding effort? Do you hold yourself in your heart as you exert effort or in contempt? Say to yourself, “Let there be heart in this,” to soften into the effort of the moment.

TalkID=719 SeriesID=17,32

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Faith to Doubt, Faith to Trust

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-05-19

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Fear confines and contains your faith. Where is your trust limited and irresolute, your confidence strained and your devotion obstructed? Faith grows as your understanding deepens. What areas of practice need further discernment? Where are you relying on outside authority to boost your confidence and tell you what is true?
Surrender is the surest act of faith. Worry, doubt, control, and fear are what you do to make surrender safe. But true faith is surrendering into life just as it is without deliberation or forethought. This week work with the question “Is there love for this, too?” whenever there is resistance. Remain steadfast through the barrage of fear that inhibits true faith. Begin to realize fear is a temporary illusion of the mind’s truth and faith is founded in the reality of the truth.

TalkID=718 SeriesID=17,32

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Faith: Introduction

Teacher: Rodney Smith

Date: 2003-05-05

Venue: Seattle Insight Meditation Center

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Homework Does your faith extend beyond your own empowerment? Is your life about you and your accomplishments? What holds reverence beyond the sense of you? What uplifts your spirit? How do you know it is true?
What keeps you coming back to meditation after a particularly difficult sitting? See if you can get a sense of what keeps you on your spiritual path. Is it belief or a confidence beyond knowing? Practice the phrase “Just surrender to the dharma” when a difficulty arises in your life or practice. Your job is to be mindful and know what is happening; let the dharma take care of the rest. See if inspiration and confidence come from repeating this phrase.

TalkID=717 SeriesID=17,32

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