Seven Factors of Awakening

1) The basic meanings of the Pali word, sati, or mindfulness. 2) Mindfulness as a full sustained presence to experience, fundamental mental strength. 3) Mindfulness as a guard of the sense doors. 4) Mindfulness as calling to find what is skillful and what is unskillful. 5) Mindfulness as the ability to see things as they truly are. 6) Mindfulness as a balancing element in the five enabling factors. 7) Mindfulness as the path spiritual awakening and as the basis for mental health. 8) Understanding mindfulness as a way to face our lives with openness, wisdom and acceptance, and how to live a good life.

Recorded May 26, 2018

1) The seven factors of awakening. 2) The four characteristics of mindfulness. 3) The first characteristics of mindfulness: the ability to establish and maintain a stable awareness. 4) Mindfulness as a skill based activity. 5) Mindfulness as a form of emotional intelligence and basic psychological intelligence. 6) The second characteristic: the quality of standing near and guarding the mind. 7) Understanding how the thought is not the thinker. 8) Why we don’t see reality as it truly is: the delusory nature of thought.

Recorded June 2, 2018

1) The four characteristics of mindfulness. 2) The third characteristic: Understanding the moral implications of skillful and unskillful thoughts and actions. 3) The concept of hire and ottapa, or moral shame and moral dread. 4) Understanding the fundamental importance of morality and this in the Buddha’s teaching. 5) The fourth characteristic: Seeing things as they truly are. 6) Why we don’t see the world as it actually is: the nature of bare attention.

Recorded June 9, 2018

1) The seven factors of awakening; 2) The four characteristics of mindfulness; 3) The fourth characteristic: seeing things as they truly are. 4) We we don’t see reality as it truly is: the four layers of illusion. 5) How we see reality as it truly is: bare awareness and clear comprehension. 6) The concept of bare awareness. 7) How mindfulness attenuates afflictive emotions. 8) The true basis for the transformative power of mindfulness.

June 30, 2018

1) The seven factors of awakening: mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. 2) The four qualities of mindfulness: presence of mind, guardian of the sense doors, knowing what is skillful and unskillful, seeing reality as it truly is. 3) The two aspect of seeing reality as it truly is: bare awareness and clear comprehension. 4) Clear comprehension: seeing things from all sides or different perspectives. 5) Recognizing the suitability and timing of an action. 6) Knowing the proper domain of our mind. 7) Understanding the perfection in all things.

Recorded July 14, 2018

1) Review of the seven factors of awakening. 2) The four aspect of mindfulness. 3) Investigation or truth discerning wisdom. 4) What wisdom reveal: the three universal characteristics of experience: impermanence, suffering and non self. 5) Understanding non self as impermanent transitory psycho physical processes. 6) Overcoming fear and seeing investigative wisdom as the vehicle for awakening.

Recorded July 21, 2018

1) Review of the seven factors of awakening. 2) The four aspect of mindfulness. 3) Investigation or truth discerning wisdom. 4) What wisdom reveal: the three universal characteristics of experience: impermanence, suffering and non self. 5) Understanding non self as impermanent transitory psycho physical processes. 6) Overcoming fear and seeing investigative wisdom as the vehicle for awakening.

Recorded July 28, 2018

1) The seven factors of awakening. 2) The five areas of investigative inquiry: our thinking process itself; intentions and motivations; emotions; cause and effect or karma; the nature of the awakened mind. 3) Investigating skillful and unskillful thoughts, words and actions.

Recorded August 11, 2018

Topics Include: 1) Review of the Seven Factors of Awakening. 2) Areas of Investigation: our mental landscape; the power of intention; emotions; cause and effect or karma; the awakened mind itself. 3) The significance of samadhi as a state of awakened mind. 4) Two kinds of suffering: one that leads to more suffering and one that leads to awakening. 5) Cutting through the delusion of self through the understanding of identification.

Recorded August 18, 2018

1) The five areas for spiritual investigation: our mental landscape, the power of intention, emotions, karma or cause and effect, and the awakened mind itself. 2) Using the mind to investigate skillful and unskillful actions and afflictive emotions. 3) Investigating personality structures: the greed type, the aversive type, the delusory type. 4) the underlying theme of self and non self through how we identify with our thoughts and emotions. 5) Understanding mind and body, or nama rupa. 6) Understanding “self” as a linguistic construct, an artifact of grammar. 7) The illusion of form, language, and the construction of the ego.

Recorded September 1, 2018

Connecting the teaching of mind and body to the stages of awakening. 2) The underlying theme of the teaching: non self or anatta. 3) Understanding body and mind in the context of non self; the power of identification; and examples of modern research. 4) How we create a self out of our experience. 5) The illusion of form, language and thought. 6) Linking mind and body to cause and effect. 7) The third insight knowledge: the three characteristics of existence, impermanence, non self and suffering. 8) The fourth insight knowledge: rise and fall; seeing impermanence in all things.

Recorded September 8, 2018

The concept of energy, or viriya, and its many translations in English. 2) Viriya as energy or the capacity to accomplish things. 3) Viriya as the capacity to shore things up. 4) Viriya as strength. 5) The use of viriya for wholesome and unwholesome purposes. 6) Viriya as courage. 7) Finding that sense of purpose and direction that can guide and drive our lives. 8) Does spiritual and material accomplishment in our lives depend on our own efforts or is the product of divine intervention.

Recorded September 15, 2018

The question of energy and its importance in achieving our goals. 2) Achieving our goals and the question of divine intervention. 3) Distinguishing skillful and unskillful use of energy. 4) The five enabling factors: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding. 5) Understanding out to strategically use energy in our practice and life. 6) Understanding the role of sleep in energizing our waking hours. 7) How we can live a better life by understanding our use of energy.

Recorded September 22, 2018

1) Review of the discussion on energy or viriya. 2) How expenditure of energy can create energy. 3) Techniques to bolster energy during meditation. 4) Opening to the wonder and beauty of our experience and feeling inspiration and energy. 5) Finding balance of energy in our practice. 6) Understanding the cause that drives effort: spiritual urgency. 7) Reflections on the causes of spiritual urgency: the preciousness and rarity of our presence circumstance; the certainty of death.

Recorded September 29, 2018

1) Review of the discussion on energy or viriya. 2) How expenditure of energy can create energy. 3) Techniques to bolster energy during meditation. 4) Opening to the wonder and beauty of our experience and feeling inspiration and energy. 5) Finding balance of energy in our practice. 6) Understanding the cause that drives effort: spiritual urgency. 7) Reflections on the causes of spiritual urgency: the preciousness and rarity of our presence circumstance; the certainty of death.

Recorded October 5, 2018

1) Introduction to spiritual urgency. 2) Reflections of Ron Kodama on his one month retreat. 3) Developing a long term plan for your meditation practice. 4) Further reflections on spiritual urgency: the futility of accumulation in this life. 5) Facing the consequences of our actions at the end of our lives. 6) Recognizing the preciousness of this life and our opportunity for awakening. 7) Understanding the defects of samsara and the importance of viriya.

Recorded October 13, 2018

1) Understanding the significance of rapture and bliss or piti. 2) Learning to appreciate moments of happiness in our lives. 3) How experiencing piti enhances our engagement with our experience. 4) Distinguishing between piti, rapture and such, or happiness. 5) Distinguishing between worldly and non worldly rapture. 6) Piti that comes from understanding and inquiry. 7) Understanding the transformative effect that piti can have in our lives.

Recorded October 20, 2018

1) Introduction to the seven factors of awakening. 2) Review of rapture and bliss. 3) Understanding the eight levels of jhanic absorption. 4) How the Buddha transformed the jhanic practices into mindfulness. 5) Bringing the cultivation of samadhi to our lay practitioner level: recognizing piti and sukha. 6) The four preliminary levels of rapture.

Recorded October 27, 2018

1) How the Buddha used the jhanic practices to attain awakening. 2) Understanding the preliminary levels of concentration leading to jhana. 3) The five levels of access concentration. 4) The five enabling faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom. 5) Personal experiences with samadhi practice. 6) How deep samadhi can affect our proprioceptive sense of the world. 7) The dangers of rapture: how we can get attached to pleasant feelings. 8) Understanding the skillful use of rapture and bliss.

Recorded November 3, 2018

1) Review of the discussion on rapture and bliss. 2) Understanding the role of pleasure in our lives. 3) Understanding rapture and bliss within the context of the larger spiritual journey. 4) Learning to discern what is the path and what is not the path: how we related to our experience. 5) Attaining joy in overcoming our hindrances and afflictive emotions.

Recorded November 10, 2018

1) Reflections on the Buddha,Dharma and Sangha. 2) How piti or rapture arises. 3) Reflections on one’s silk or morality. Understanding non-harming or ahimsa. 4) Finding joy and happiness in refraining from unskillful actions and committing skillful action. 5) Find happiness in coming to truly appreciate who we are and what we are committed to in the world.

Recorded November 24, 2018

1) Reflections that bring about piti or joy: On the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and on sila, or morality. 2) The reflection on generosity; appreciating our basic sense of generosity. 3) Reflection on the devas, or inhabitants of the heavenly realms. 4) Learning to find rapture and bliss in our own daily lives; finding random moments of joy and happiness in lives.

Recorded December 1, 2018

1) Review of the reflections: on sila or morality, and on generosity. 2) Understanding the difference between mundane merit, or merit based on desire for good results, and supra mundane merit, or merit based on freedom from attachment. 3) Reflecting on inner peace. Noticing those moments when we are released from afflictive emotions. 4) Understanding the concept of peace as part of the Buddhist presence in the world. 5) Learning how to cultivate happiness in our lives. 6) Using the metaphor of a vehicle to understand self and non-self.

Recorded December 15, 2018

1) Reviewing the first four factors of awakening: mindfulness, investigation, energy, and rapture. 2) Mindfulness, the foundation of the seven factors. 3) Mindfulness as the condition for investigation to arise. 4) Understanding how mindfulness works in terms of working with the energy of afflictive emotions and, at a deeper level, understanding how these emotions arose. 5) Learning to differentiate the difference between skillful, wholesome and unskillful, unwholesome thoughts and actions. 6) Some personal stories of unskillful thoughts and actions.

Recorded December 22, 2018

1) The most important result of mindfulness and investigation is knowing the difference between wholesome and unwholesome actions. 2) Understand the role of energy in cultivating wise wholesome actions and abandoning unwholesome actions. 3) Using the five precepts as a basis for committing to a more wholesome and skillful life. 4) Understanding joy and rapture as arising from the energy we commit to living a more wholesome life. 5) Deriving joy and happiness in knowing we have made a commitment to living a moral and ethical life. 6) Understanding how everything we experience in life can be part of our practice, an opportunity for learning. 7) Understanding boredom as a form of greed. 8) Understanding the joy and happiness that comes from living a life of moral and ethical purity.

Recorded December 29, 2018

1) The definition of passadhi or calmness of tranquillity. 2) Seeing the connections between tranquillity and relaxation or the relationship between our physical state and what is happening mentally. 3) Understanding the relationship between calm and sincerity and moral rectitude of mind. 4) How we can use calm as an escape from reality rather than as a means to attain awakening. 5) How to work with the tranquillity factor in meditation. 6) Understanding the role of the relaxation sequence in developing a state of calm. 7) Integrating calm and tranquillity from our meditative practice into our daily lives.

Recorded January 19, 2019

1) The definition of passadhi or tranquillity. 2) The purpose of the relaxation sequence used in our meditation. 3) Overcoming a sense of striving or effort based on desire and craving rather than settling back into a sense of pure presence. 4) Finding a sense of composure and calm in movement…. walking meditation and examples in Japanese culture. 5) Learning how to be completely present in our experience.

Recorded January 26, 2019

1) Review of the factor of tranquillity, calmness or peacefulness of mind both as mental and physical states. 2) The importance of relaxation as a precursor to the attainment of concentration and samadhi. 3) Tranquillity in movement and in daily activities of life. 4) Learning how to know when the mind os calm and tranquil and when it is not. 5) Happiness, concentration and insight: the consequences of a tranquil state of mind.

February 2, 2019

1) What is the fundamental purpose of meditation and the role of concentration? 2) Understanding the relationship between concentration and insight in the meditation process. 3) Outlining the overall structure of jhanic attainment: the material jhanas and the formless jhanas. 4) The five elements of the jhanic process: vitakka, initial attention; vicara, sustained attention; piti, rapture; sukha, bliss; and ekkagata, one pointedness. 5) The description of the eight jhanic states. 6) The origins of the Mahasi lineage based on his interpretation of the jhanic states.

February 9, 2019

1) Understanding the difference between concentration and mindfulness. 2) Review of the eight mundane and supra mundane jhanic states. 3) Understanding ekagatta or one pointedness of mind. 4) Learning how to train our monkey mind. 5) Two types of concentration: fixed object concentration and momentary concentration. 6) Understanding the practice in terms of our ordinary experience and gradual deepening levels of concentration: neighborhood and momentary concentration. 7) Understanding the relationship of momentary concentration in the path to chana or as an opening to vipassana insights or mindfulness. 8) Having the courage to look at ourselves as we really are.

February 16, 2019

1) Review of the two types of concentration of samadhi. The difference between fixed object concentration and multiple object concentration. 2) The second form of samadhi: brining the power of one-pointedness into the broader experiences of our daily lives. 3) Understanding the meaning of chana. Seeing the characteristics of phenomena through mindfulness. 4) Different teachings and interpretations of the concept of jhana.

February 23, 2019

1) Review of the major types of concentration: fixed object meditation, multiple object meditation, and one pointed attention to our daily life activities. 2) Understanding why samadhi is so important: how concentration leads to wisdom and understanding. 3) The importance of concentration in the overall path to awakening. 4) The first factor in the development of concentration: a pleasant abiding in the here and now. 5) The second factor in the development concentration: the supernormal powers or siddhis.

March 2, 2019

1) Discussion of concentration as the foundation for the meditation process. 2) Review of the two types of meditation: single object meditation and multiple object meditation. 3) The four ways of understanding concentration: First, a sense of pleasant abiding. Experiencing the joy of moment to moment experience, while avoiding craving and attachment. 4) The second teaching: the supernormal powers and the dangers of unskillful use. 5) The third teaching: using concentration to perceive impermanence. How we fall prey to the illusion of self in our thoughts. 6) The fourth teaching: seeing impermanence in all the five aggregates: matter and form, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. 7) Comparing single object meditation and multiple object meditation as a vehicle for awakening.

March 9, 2019

1) Review of the four characteristics of concentration: understanding concentration as a blameless form of happiness; the danger of the supernormal powers; understanding impermanence through concentration; and understanding human mortality through concentration. 2) Learning the fundamentals of concentration: developing confidence inner ability to achieve deep samadhi. 3) Understanding the underlying foundation for concentration: morality and ethics and a feeling of non-remorse. 4) Seeing the chain of causation where morality leads to non remorse, non remorse leads to happiness, happiness leads to concentration, and concentration leads to wisdom. 5) Understanding the positive value of remorse and the problem of non-remorse in our society.

March 16, 2019

1) Understanding the breath as the fountain for the meditation process. The four teachings of the Buddha on developing concentration. 2) The first teaching: being aware of the breath. Different methods for focussing on the breath. 3) Being aware of the difference between focussing on the breath and being caught up in our thoughts. 4) The second teaching: being aware of the quality of the breath. Learning to appreciate the level of refined attention required in the meditation process. 5) Understanding the four parts of the complete breath cycle. 6) Understanding our mental attitude as we observe the breath. 7) Seeing the importance of relaxation in our practice and in everyday life. 8) The third teaching: developing strong one pointedness of mind.

March 30, 2019

1) Review of the first two teachings on focusing on the breath. 2) The third teaching: feeling the whole body of the breath or feeling the breath in the whole body. 3) Understanding the nature of the breath cycle and how it leads into concentration. 4) The fourth teaching: understanding how the breath calms the bodily formations. Learning how to develop concentration out of a calm and tranquil mind. 5) Understanding the “beautiful breath.” 6) Understanding the transition from the awareness of the object to an awareness of the knowing mind…finding “normalcy of mind” or the “ordinary mind”. Coming to know the “knower” of our experience.

April 6, 2019

1) Review of the four teachings on focusing on the breath. 2) Confronting the ultimate obstacle of thought. Why is it that thought does not represent reality? How thoughts embody our patterns of conditioning. 3) What happens when our thoughts lead to beliefs and their consequences in the world. 4) The reality of self and other, polarization, division and conflict in society. 5) The illusion of form. Why we do not see the world as it truly is. How we see forms, identify them with words and create language that becomes our thoughts, and ultimately of sense of self. All of which are abstract, conceptual representations of reality, but not reality itself. 6) How thoughts then become the basis of our sense of self. The one who thinks the thoughts. The illusory nature of self. 7) The default mode network and how it reinforces the illusory sense of self. The Buddha’s definition of non-self. 8) So, how do we come to terms of our thoughts? Understanding the basic neutrality of thoughts and impact of how we react to our thoughts. The concept of the first and second darts. 9) Understanding thoughts within the context of Conventional and Absolute Reality. The dual nature of existence.

April 20, 2019

1) Working with thoughts in terms of concentration practice and mindfulness practice 2) Mindfulness is not about not thinking but being aware that we are thinking, what we are thinking, and what the consequences of our thoughts are. 3) Incorporating investigation into the mindfulness. The development of understanding and wisdom by knowing whether a thought is wholesome or unwholesome, skillful of unskillful. 4) The tendency of thoughts to disappear as we begin to note them. How we build stories around our thoughts because of our investment in the meaning of the thought. 5) Understanding the character of our thoughts and their meaning for who we are. Using the factor of investigation into the mindfulness. 6) Comparing the refinement of the mind to the refinement of gold. Understanding obvious and more subtle impurities of mind. 7) Developing tranquillity and stability of mind in the face of the tumult of the world around us. 8) The story of the first dart and the second dart: the cause of suffering.

April 27, 2019

1) Understanding the concept of equanimity. 2) Equanimity as part of the 25 beautiful mind states. 3) Equanimity as “neutrality of mind”. 4) Equanimity as “normalcy of mind.” 5) Equanimity as pure awareness or “citta” as opposed to awareness colored by emotions or feeling tones. 6) Knowing when our awareness is clear or when it is clouded by our conditioned thoughts. 7) How concentration leads to equanimity. 8) The “near enemy” of equanimity: indifference. 8) Why equanimity of one of the most powerful of the beautiful states of mind.

May 25, 2019

1) Understanding how we ring equanimity into our daily lives. Working with the eight worldly dharmas. 2) Understanding gain and loss. 3) Understanding praise and blame. 4) Understanding fame and disrepute. 5) Understanding pleasure and pain. 6) Understanding how our experience unfolds as a natural and lawful unfolding of cause and effect. 7) Understanding equanimity as a dynamic and creative force in working with our experience.

June 1, 2019

1) Equanimity as one of the four Brahmaviharas. 2) The two wings of the Dharma: wisdom and compassion, the mind and the heart. 3) Lovingkindness: near and far enemies. 4) Compassion: near and far enemies. 5) Sympathetic Joy: near and far enemies. 6) Equanimity: near and far enemies. 7) Equanimity as a sense of impartiality and balance.

June 8, 2019

1) The basic structure of the Buddhist cosmology, the process of awakening and the importance of equanimity. 2) The four stages of awakening: stream enterer, once returner, non returner, and arahant. 3) Understanding the Sixteen Stages of Awakening as the curriculum that ties the four stages together. 4) First four stages of emergence, opening and insight: the awakening to how things really are. 5) The next five stages: the stages of disenchantment and disillusion: fear, misery and desire for deliverance; the dark night of the soul. 6) Stage ten: knowledge of reconciliation: seeing all the previous stages as mind states. 7) Stage eleven: how equanimity results from our understanding of the true nature of our attachments and aversions. 8) How equanimity becomes the platform for awakening or cessation. 9) How the process repeats for the ensuing stages of awakening. 10) The importance of equanimity in the process of awakening and in our daily lives. 11) Seeing the unfolding human comedy with a deep sense of compassion, lovingkindness and equanimity.

June 22, 2019

1) The importance of equanimity in the spiritual process. 2) Equanimity as a factor in the stages of insight: the resolution of the joyous states of discovery and understanding and the darks states of transience and impermanence…a perfect balance of mind with no reactivity. 3) Equanimity as the last of the ten praxis or virtues: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, diligence, patience, truthfulness, resolve, lovingkindness and equanimity. 4) The primary importance of equanimity and patience. 5) Developing and strengthening equanimity in our practice…seeing a cup as already broken, not being attached to the fruits of our actions, the practice of acceptance.

June 29, 2019