Topics Include: 1) Mindfulness of mental formations: the common view of the mind as a stable, permanent, perceptual faculty and the countervailing Buddhist view of the mind as a series of discreet cognitive events with no stable, permanent observer. 2) A single moment of awareness as citta; and the feeling tones accompanying awareness as cetasika. 3) Noting mental states as happening by themselves as a result of circumstances and not referring to any self or person. 4) How not to feel invested in our mind states. The clarity of vision that occurs at the more advanced stages of meditation. 5) The teaching of the seventeen stages of sense door perception. 6) Seeing our experience through the lens of pure awareness without getting caught up in papanca or mental proliferation. 7) The story of the film: My Teacher the Octopus. The challenge of the Dharma in this age of difficulty for humankind and the planet.
September 4, 2021
53 min.