New York Insight Blog

Once faith in the Path is established, “heroic effort,” the second of the Five Spiritual Faculties, is an indispensible ingredient in our quest for freedom and happiness.

When it comes to generosity it seems there’s always an internal battle going on in my mind. Why do I offer to do things? How much should I give? What are my real intentions? I can honestly say that I have never really been at peace with my relationship to gift. There are a great deal of entanglements here for me.

As we enter the Autumn season, we contemplate landscapes that remind us that we, as part of nature are shedding the Summer season to make room for Winter, inevitably giving way to renewal and light. We reflect together on what can empower the mind in its journey toward illumination, “enlightenment.” One group of factors given prominence in the Buddha’s discourses on the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment is the Five Spiritual Faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom.

This waking life is like a dream. If we know we’re dreaming, will we hold on to the people in the dream? get upset about how we feel or that we lost something in that dream? Son to Mom: “Pretend you are surrounded by monsters and they are all coming at you. You’re really frightened. You think they’re going to attack you. What would you do?” Mom: “I don’t know—What would you do?” Son: “Stop pretending!”

The Buddha said “In whatever way [we] conceive, the truth is ever other than that.” Does that shake you up? Remember that more often than not, we’re in a state of delusion. We don’t see things as they truly are, but through the lens of habits acquired over a lifetime. In response to painful reaction, we form views of ourselves and others as a way to steady ourselves through uncontrollable change.

We have been reflecting on the teaching of not-self, exploring personal experience through the five aggregates—Form, Feeling, Perception, Mental Formations and Consciousness.