Willa Thaniya Reid (formerly Ajahn Thaniya, top photos), has been practising formal Buddhist meditation since the 80s. Her primary training has been through the Thai Forest Tradition of Luang Por Chah. The Forest Tradition is in harmony with her affinity for the natural world and for reflective teachings. For 18 years she was part of the monastic community of this tradition based in England. As the senior nun of Cittaviveka for eight years, she offered support to the lay and monastic community; teaching retreats in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia. She brings to her teaching a love for the original suttas of the Buddha. For the previous six years she served the community in Melbourne, offering spiritual support to the dying and their families. She has a Masters degree in relationship counselling, and clinical pastoral training. In 2015 she returned to New Zealand to develop a meditation community with her partner.
Parting words and expressions of gratitude from the teachers. “These are opportunities in this human realm to experience letting go, gratitude, compassion, gladness, equanimity.”
How do we meet the past, the difficulties? How do we maintain hearts of love through dreadful things? If we let ourselves come into contraction then we’re not capable of the love that’s needed in the next moment. So we stay in empathetic connection to things, keeping a sense of forgiveness, understanding and kamma – cause and effect. This is our training, these acts of love.
When the heart’s deliverance is not yet ripe, a good friend is recommended. One who keeps me aligned to what’s precious, who’s respectful and shows care and connection. We seek this externally, and also internally, being a good friend to oneself – not harsh, not critical, staying connected with what is loving, kind, upright and generous. We take it as a protection wherever we go.
A mind that is capable of delight and appreciation is needed for waking up. But how capable are we of that? It’s something to train in, a practice in balance, of finding the middle way. Let the tenderness and appreciation we have for beings be for our own being, our own awakening consciousness. Take in the kindness people show us and come out of the sense of alienation. Let this cultivation bring joy and gladness to the heart.
Balance between discipline and self-love; failure as a shadow side of practice; addiction to Dhamma talks/books; skillful way to deal with anger; benefits of regulating breath.
Taking care with what we connect with, with that which supports our capacity to be here – grounded, present, receptive. Guard from anything that takes us away from the fullness of citta. In this place we keep meeting whatever is arising with qualities of friendliness and welcome, everything belongs. From that place of welcome, response happens. Love meets love.
If we come back to the primary frame of this teaching, the work is to understand how this heart gets agitated, to see how suffering arises. If we are upright, if we have this sense of goodness and connectedness, there’s a capacity to meet the difficulties rather than struggle with it. Grounded in this strength, remain available to what’s happening here.
Difference between wise caution and anxious reaction; use of psychiatric medicines; please condense teachings and instructions for practice; cultivating relationship with gods/celestial beings; commitment to waking up entangled with wanting and striving; transitions in place, experience and practice.
Let the Dhamma resonate and support our understanding of our own lives. The encouragement is to come to know it for oneself. Come into body, ground, here, establish mindfulness. Whatever is happening, we have a way of meeting it and coming into right relationship in a way that steadies and frees the heart.
The Buddha’s teaching is a deepening examination of cause and effect. It takes us out of the contraction of self-view, stress and suffering and into the possibility of waking up. Take in the teachings as nourishment, let them soothe and stabilize the citta. We’ve been given all we need. Trusting the process, trusting ourselves, let us serve this awakening heart.
Maintaining mindfulness on sleeping and waking up; relationship between being sensitive and taking things personally; human enhancement and right view; sense is of being a frightened deer – practices for inner sense of security; gathering the good for wandering mindstates.
When we cultivate and sustain the deep friendliness and well-wishing described in the Mettā Sutta, a certain clarity starts to arise – one recognizes the shifting nature of everything, arising dependent on conditions. The upright heart grounded in love allows us to be present to what is. The grip of certainty softens and the tendency towards fixed views falls away.
Wherever you are, waking up is here. It’s not somewhere else in some other time, it doesn’t belong to somebody out there. Let us come out of small senses of ourselves and take up this tremendous teaching. Again and again, establishing faith and confidence regarding the heart, letting insight arise – this is how we touch nibbāna in the body. [SN 48:50]
How to respond to the energy of craving (taṇhā); how to navigate states of calm; advice for approaching cancer without fighting/setting up a war; how to work with thinking, between suppressing in meditation and reacting while living in the world; encountering doubt after 20 years of practice; how to work with unhappiness/sadness.
We may wonder where love sits in the whole of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s not always directly pointed at in the suttas, but heart cultivations enable citta to know dukkha and wake up to the way things are. Citta is strengthened in its capacity to be present with skillfulness and love, support for which are provided by body and breath.
Returning to sitting, supporting citta to settle and open, we give it skillful things it can be in touch with – breathing, the heart medicines. Understanding the power of perception and feeling, we place attention carefully, bringing qualities of welcome, availability, friendliness – guarding against what is harmful and afflicting. Just knowing, body feels like this, citta feels like this.
Guidance for transitioning to standing, staying present, letting uprightness establish itself. Keeping the quality of opening, meeting what is here with love and friendliness, letting breath wash any strain away.
In this cultivation we’re deepening our understanding of the heart that is at home. The soothing and relaxing quality of breathing supports citta to meet whatever arises. With qualities of love, friendliness and compassion, attune to cause and effect, putting down what brings agitation and contraction, and aligning to what brings well-being.
Questions have been grouped by theme: Breathing; how do we work with the regret; questions around citta; how does piti (rapture) manifest in the body; heart feels like a lump of black coal.
We practice coming into full presence with the unshakable qualities of heart the Buddha pointed to. Noticing what is here, our relationship with it and the different inflections of the heart. If there’s hostility or unkindness, these are not true, they are defilements that obscure the truth. They need meeting and understanding, but not believing in. What is needed now is the quality of mettā, that deep well-wishing with the absence of any kind of hostility.
Establishing uprightness of mind, heart and body - ground and feel ourselves here. With friendliness and non-contention, opening and attuning to what’s here, establishing presence with the way things are.
As we establish this time of practice, we approach it with faith in the possibility of awakening. Upright in the energetic sense of heart and body, open to what is here. Let the beautiful energy of breathing stroke through the whole of experience of body. Soothing, calming, bringing well-being.
How to deal with bodily pain; what to do when mind is obsessively thinking; mind goes dull and I keep falling asleep; what to do with weird energies that can happen; I can’t seem to do breath meditation.
