We often hear about and experience the suffering caused by greed and aversion, yet delusion, the third of the kilesas, or torments of mind, is in some ways a more fundamental cause of suffering because if we weren’t deluded, we wouldn’t believe that by grasping or pushing away we could avoid suffering. The challenge with delusion is its very definition is that we do
Mahasi Sayadaw taught this style of meditation in which any object that arises in our experience can be the momentary focus of mindfulness, including breath, sensations, sounds, emotions, thoughts, and so on.
Concentration as a unification of mind brings stability of attention and is the foundation for liberating insight. Benefits of Samatha and vipassana. What blocks concentration and how to develop it in the retreat setting.
Many of us have a tendency to be critical and judgmental of ourselves and others. In meditation, this habit can seem quite strong and can create a lot of suffering. But mindfulness is a wonderful tool to enable us to see these thoughts for what they are, so we can begin to bring wisdom and understanding to them. The good news is, like any conditioned habit, we can learn to decondition this pattern.
