As an Urban Community Dharma Center we are continually balancing our mission to provide access to these powerful teachings with our challenges to be financially resilient as a not-for-profit organization. We have a commitment that no one is turned away from the teachings for lack of funds and have an open scholarship policy that ensures that our programs remain accessible to all.
Dear Abhi, What Advice can you give me about having a tight jaw when meditationg. I have tried to place my tongue behind the bottom teeth, but this does not have a strong effect. Are there other ways to release the jaw when sitting?
In the Satipatthana Sutta, the root text in which the Buddha gives detailed instructions for practicing Mindfulness, he promises that following those instructions precisely and diligently for even as little as seven days will lead to freedom. Wow!! This gets my attention.
Isn’t it wonderful that this week we as a country pause to celebrate a holiday devoted to gratitude and giving thanks! We collectively agree to focus on the quality of mind that the Buddha cited as defining what it means to be civilized. In fact, he said it was rare to find in the world people who 1) are first to do a kindness, and 2) who are grateful and thankful for kindness done.
Our human life will never be without sorrows, struggles or difficulties. The Buddha called our mixed bag of sorrows, beauty, joy and great difficulties, the eight worldly winds: gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. It is possible to discover Equanimity, the seventh factor of awakening, not apart from, but in the midst of these changing winds.
Dear Abhi-dhamma, One of the big questions for me in my practice has been how to balance and discriminate between the contingent feelings and emotions rooted in ego and self and those things that, upon examination, appear on the surface to be selfish, but taken in a purely objective view (e.g. outside of the perspective of practice) have the potential to simply be seen as personal choice.
The fourth factor of Awakening is Piti—the third of the uplifting or energizing factors along with Investigation and Energy.
On the night of the Buddha’s awakening, he vowed: “I shall not give up my efforts until I have attained liberation by perseverance, energy and endeavor.” I imagine from this, that he was singly focused on liberation, with the wherewithal to apply all of his energy to it.
Last week, we recommitted to our practice of Mindfulness, the first of the Seven Factors of Awakening (qualities of mind/heart that lead to awakening). From these mental factors an awakened perspective emerges.
Dear Abhi-dhamma, I have practiced meditation on and off for years. It is so frustrating when I stop, to get restarted in a daily practice. I was in a Sangha, and moved from the area, and very far to return. I am sure others have this struggle. Thank you for your assistance.
