So good morning.
Thank you for your practice this morning.
We're beginning a series we started on Tuesday on the seven factors of awakening.
These supports that help us to be free in our minds and our bodies.
The seven factors of awakening are considered to be the crown jewels of Buddhist practice.
Some scholars of Buddhism have pointed out that of the many different schools in this lineage or in this practice of Buddhism they're all kind of like these branches of a tree and they branch out from the main trunk but the sap that runs through the whole tree like the eternal flow that keeps the tree alive are the seven factors of awakening.
So they're pretty important.
So we get this sap running through us and it all comes in the wake of just doing mindfulness practice.
So the first factor of the seven factors of awakening is mindfulness and the mindfulness is listed because it's considered a relatively simple practice of just staying present and holding something in the mind.
So having a presence of mind and awareness of what's happening just here now.
So if you want to be mindful of your breathing you're holding the breath in mind.
If you want to be mindful of your feet as they walk then you're holding the experience of your feet in your awareness.
You have a presence of mind and a sense of the feet and you let the experience of the feet sort of fill your awareness,
Fill your mind and fill your attention.
So with mindfulness we bring to mind the present moment,
We bring to mind some aspect of the present moment and often it's the breath and then we hold it.
We hold ourselves in that experience.
That's what the essence of this practice is,
Holding to that present moment experience and it's a training.
You know it's a training.
As many of you know the mind wants to hold a lot of different experiences.
The mind has a mind of its own right?
So part of mindfulness practice is a little bit like taming a wild horse and one technique,
I actually had a wild horse growing up so I know this technique pretty well.
One of the techniques to tame a horse is that you tie them to a long lead like a long rope around a post and they run around and they buck a little and they do whatever they're going to do but they they're on this long lead so they can't get away.
They just run around in circles around the post and eventually they calm down or they slow down a little bit and that kind of mechanical approach it also works for our minds.
Like the post can be our breath.
You know the mind is going wild and you come back to the breath and the mind goes wild and then you come back to the breath and eventually the mind will calm down and settle down.
You know partly because it's giving up and partly because we begin to understand the mind a little bit more.
You don't really know how wild the horse is until you've tied it to a post and then you see how strong the horse is the mind is.
Maybe it breaks the rope.
Maybe it pulls off the post.
But as we see what's going on a little more clearly then we can start to develop some understanding and wisdom around it.
Some of those concerns that keep the mind wild.
You know with practice the mind begins to lose interest or it's kind of fascination with our preoccupations.
You know we just cultivate the ability to know our minds and what's happening.
We recognize oh I'm breathing and now I'm in the future and now I'm in the past.
We recognize this is an inhale.
This is an exhale.
And we start to sense when the mind is preoccupied that feeling of pressure and then coming back to the breath the release of that pressure the movement of the body as we breathe.
It's almost like when we're getting a massage if you've had a massage the feeling tone of that experience.
You know we have these nerve endings that allow us to feel the pleasure and the pain.
You know and when we're feeling the pleasant and we're in the flow of that it's quite nice.
We can sense the pleasantness and the breathing like the waves of the ocean.
And maybe when it's not so pleasant when it's uncomfortable we can learn to attune and to align with that as well.
You know in a supportive way like letting it be there a willingness to be with whatever is present.
And notice it may get strong and then it diminishes.
So vipassana means to see clearly and the idea of seeing is a metaphor which the Buddha used a lot.
Somehow the idea of seeing with this inner eye.
You know we we settle back and just kind of allow the mind to gaze and to be aware of what it's aware of.
It's kind of like I like the image of leaning against a tree and watching the river go by.
You know there's a sense of ease and relaxation kind of settling back and just watching the phenomena flow because it's a phenomena.
So this capacity that we're cultivating here is you know this capacity to observe is part of mindfulness.
And traditionally that capacity to observe is is considered you know as an advanced form of mindfulness practice.
So perhaps the cultivation of mindfulness for you can be through a single word.
I like to actually make it very simple.
A simple representation as we move through these seven factors of awakening.
And the representation of the practice of mindfulness can be brought down to just the word here.
Just the word here.
Here.
Here.
You know as you go through your day to day you can say that word to yourself.
Not the way that you would command a dog or you know a misbehaving child but rather someone that you're really close to someone that you love.
Here.
Here like a gift.
Here I'm here as a gift as an experience and as we move through these seven factors of awakening I'll offer like word that will allow you to work with these factors in daily life.
So the first factor mindfulness is just here.
