 Most viewed - Bodhi Tree Vipassana Retreat - Patrick Kearney |
File02_(AM)_Introducing_Mahasi_method.mp3Introducing Mahasi Method2749 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
Today we introduce the method of meditation we are practising during this retreat. Yesterday morning we just brought a sense of open curiosity to the examination of mind/body experience. This morning we are applying system to this investigation, stimulating what the Buddha calls yoniso manasikara, “appropriate attention.†We do this through the meditation method created by Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma (1904-1982), which is structured by his division of experience into primary and secondary object, along with the fundamental activities of noting, naming and noticing.
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File01_At_Bodh_Gaya.mp3At Bodh Gaya1875 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Forest Monastery (2009)
Tonight we look at the Buddha's activities during the weeks immediately after his awakening. We see him as a powerful shaman, and how he wrestled with the question of whether or not he should attempt to communicate his awakening. It took the intervention of Brahma Sahampati to persuade him to teach. Why was the Buddha so reluctant? And what does his reluctance tell us about the dharma he wanted to teach — and about himself?
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File09_Not-self.mp3Not-Self1755 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
We come to Anattalakkhana Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), where the Buddha presents the five aggregates associated with clinging and reveals their real nature. The five aggregates are one of the two main ways in which the Buddha analyses the nature of the human being. They represent what we cling to to create our sense of who we are and what the world is.
We look at the Buddha’s description of how we construct our identity through the three movements of: craving (tanha), the drive to possess; conceit (mana), our fundamental sense of separation and identity; and view (ditthi), the completed concept we have of ourselves-within-our-world. We consider how the Buddha's understanding of not-self (anatta) plays out in his understanding of life-after-life. If there is, fundamentally, no-one here, then who moves from one life to another?
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File04_(AM)_Contemplating_elements.mp3Contemplating the Elements1711 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
The foundation of satipatthana (establishing mindfulness) is the tracking (anupassana), or contemplation, of our experience of body. As we remain present to physical experience over time, we learn to drop beneath our concepts of body to its direct, sensual impact. What we normally take to be “my body†becomes, as we go deeper, different manifestations of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water.
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File10_(AM)_Contemplating_the_thought-stream.mp3Contemplating the Thought-stream1633 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
Our addiction to thinking creates a major barrier to settling into Samadhi, “unification†or “concentration.†Often we try to push thought away, or simply endure it as an unpleasant fact of life. But the essence of this practice, according to Mahasi Sayadaw, is to note, or be deliberately aware of, whatever is predominant in any of the six sense fields, now. If thinking is currently predominant, then thinking should be our meditation
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File08_(AM)_Contemplating_feeling.mp3Contemplatingt Feeling1550 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
This morning we move onto the third satipatthana, that of vedana, usually translated “feeling.†We explore what we mean by feeling, and try to come to an understanding of what the Buddha means by “vedana.†Vedana can be seen as the affective aspect of experience, the capacity of any given experience to move us in some way — to provoke a response. For the Buddha, feeling and response are inextricably linked. To understand what we do, we must understand what — and how — we feel.
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File07_On_truth_and_Kondannas_awakening.mp3On Truth and Kondannas Awakening1523 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
We continue with Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), completing our examination of the four truths by looking at the Buddha's conception of truth, found in Canki Sutta (MN 95). When the Buddha speaks about “truth,†what does he mean? A proposition? Something to believe? Or is he speaking of something else?
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File06_(AM)_Contemplating_breathing.mp3Contemplating Breathing1511 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
This morning we experiment with breathing as our meditation object. We learn to experience breathing as air element (vayo dhatu) — the movements within the body associated with inhalation and exhalation — and cultivate a sense of detail and precision in tracking these movements.
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File03_The_middle_way.mp3The Middle Way1469 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
Tonight we begin our examination of Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), the Buddha's first recorded teaching, delivered to his five ascetic companions. He has found a strategy to communicate the dharma, which he calls the "middle way" (majjhima pa?ipada). What is the middle way, and how does the Buddha communicate it? And what does "turning the wheel" refer to?
We also preview the four truths, how their basic structure reveals the Buddha’s dynamic vision of dependent arising (paticcasamuppada).
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File15_Burning.mp3Burning . . .1451 viewsPatrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
Tonight we come to Adittapariyaya Sutta (Burning …). The Buddha taught this to the former dreadlocks ascetics, presenting his analysis of the human being as constituted by six sense fields. These are the sensitivities of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind, and their corresponding sense objects.
The six sense fields are the counterpart of the five aggregates, which were presented to the five companions in his first teaching. While the aggregates are predominantly mental (four of the five are mental), the sense fields are predominantly physical (five of the six are physical). While the aggregates construct a self primarily through cognition, culminating in our sense of narrative unity, the sense fields construct a self primarily through feeling, culminating in our sense of sensual unity. The teaching of the sense fields are centred on drivenness (tanha) and the dis-ease (dukkha).
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