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Thich Nhat Hanh on Our Appointment With Life  I took my precepts with him and he gave me the Dharma name Patient Friend of the Heart

8/28/2014

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Our Appointment with Life1 Reply
From the Assembly of Stars Meditation Hall at Lower Hamlet, Plum Village. This is the first dharma talk of the annual Summer Opening retreat at Plum Village. This short 37-minute talk is in English with a focus on the three energies of practice – mindfulness, concentration, and insight. Both the audio and the video are available below.

Mindfulness is a kind of energy that we can generate. Everyone has the capacity to generate the energy of mindfulness and allows us to be aware of what is going on in our body, in our feelings, in our perceptions, and in the world around us. What is happening in the here and the now. The world around us the object of our mind. If we are not in the here and the now then we cannot know what is happening in the present moment. We have an appointment with life. We may have been running and looking for something elsewhere and we will miss our appointment with life.

Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. For example, drinking our tea. When you are very aware of something, you are concentrated on something and you begin to see something deeply. Therefore, mindfulness contains concentration. Can we see the nature of no birth and no death in our tea? Mindfulness also carries the energy of insight. What are the three energies? Mindfulness. Concentration. Insight. We can all generate these energies, right from the beginning of our practice. With these three kinds of energies, we can do many things. For example, we can generate a feeling of joy and a feeling of happiness.

How do we live deeply every moment of our daily life? How do we see our conditions of happiness? How do we make use of our suffering?






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Podcast: Download (Duration: 37:17 — 85.3MB) | Embed


This entry was posted in Plum Village, Retreats and tagged 2014 Summer Opening, Three Energies onJuly 10, 2014.
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An ancient list of the benefits of lovingkindness meditation

8/27/2014

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Here is an ancient list of the benefits of loving kindness practice. For a guided meditation see my previous post:

1. You will sleep easily.
2. You will wake easily.
3. You will have pleasant dreams.
4. People will love you.
5. Angels and animals will love you..
6. Angels will protect you.
7. Poisons, weapons and fire will not harm you.
8. Your face will be radiant.
9. Your mind will be serene.
10. You will die unconfused.
11. You will be reborn in happy realms.

I can only attest to some of these benefits. Mostly, this practice cultivates a much greater sense of love and tenderheartedness.

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Guided Meditation Video of the Week.  Lovingkindness with Sharon Salzberg

8/26/2014

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Something to think about

8/21/2014

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Life is a gift.  It is not a project.
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Spiritual but not religious?

8/6/2014

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Here is a sermon on why "spiritual but not religious" isn't enough.
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    About the Author

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    Rev. Arvid Straube has been helping people grow spiritually for more than 35 years as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He has been practicing and teaching Vipassana 
    meditation for over 20 years, studying with many teachers including Joseph Goldstein, Thich Nhat Hanh and Shinzen Young.

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