RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling
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A person goes to the forest
or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having
crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence
of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: “Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I
am content.” (SN 47.10)
When feeling a mental pleasant feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a
mental pleasant feeling”… one is just aware, just mindful: “There is
feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
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We forget sometimes that it is okay to feel joy. In fact, it is encouraged. It is attachment
to joy that is a problem, not the good feeling that comes with mental
pleasure. The aggregate of feeling, which includes both physical
pleasure and pain and mental pleasure and pain, is an inevitable and
natural aspect of all experience. The challenge is to experience
pleasure with equanimity, rather than with desire.
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Just as you can
find both pleasure and pain when you review bodily sensations, the same
is true of mental life. Take a few moments to inventory the contents of
your mind. Certain things you think of are accompanied by happiness,
while others arise with mental pain. Allow yourself to experience mental
pleasure when it arises, and carefully observe the inevitable tipping
point when the mind becomes attached to that pleasure.
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RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)
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With the stilling of applied and
sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of
absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without
applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of
concentration. (MN 4)
Breathing in short, one is aware: ‘I breathe in short’; or
breathing out short, one is aware: ‘I breathe out short.
This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated,
so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)
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Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
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