Training involves the pause – connect to what’s happening, and use careful attention to deepen into citta. There’s more than just discomfort there – there’s healing potential if one can touch into the healthy spots.
*Sutta reference Udāna 4:1
There are many meditation techniques, but fundamental is finding where the mind will settle - what citta finds comfort in. The more energy rests in that and returns to is, energy is consolidated instead of scattered, running out to external forms. This is the principle for clarification, purification, for awakening.
Mind (manas) whips the heart with its interpretations of how things should be, thereby stirring up discontent and agitation. Mind can be placed in service of heart (citta) instead. Citta’s awakened response to the conditioned realm is one of empathy. Holding, soothing, steadying – there is the possibility to experience the clarity and calm of the Buddha rather than the misery that mind creates.
*Sutta Nipāta: 721, Dhammapada:134, and M.18
The process of purifying gold can help us understand the nature of mind. Clearing out the turbulences and impurities makes way for what is naturally pure and radiant to come forth. Freed from the hindrances, the mind is pliable, luminous, properly fit for work.
*Sutta references: AN5:193; AN3:101-102; SN:46:53; AN6:85
We may feel more isolated than ever, but the truth is that we’re always captive in our sensory prisons. The aim is to liberate and open the heart so that qualities beyond sense consciousness can be realized. Key among the factors needed for liberation is kalyāṇamitta – spiritual friendship.
*Sutta reference AN9:3
It’s possible to meet suffering with an open heart. If the heart can open to grief, pain and vulnerability, a new view is possible – one beyond the cycle of birth and death. Keep the heart open to Dhamma, rooted in faith and goodwill. This is the Path to the deathless. *Sutta References: Therīgatha 6:2; Samyutta Nikaya 12:23; Samyutta Nikaya 1:10
