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St Michael's Retreat Third Talk: The Functions of Mindfulness in Daily Life
This title has been reviewed for accuracy.
Thay here uses as an organizing principle an introduction to The Discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (c. 20 BCE). The four foundations or establishments are Mindfulness of body, Mindfulness of feelings, Mindfulness of mind (mental formations), and Mindfulness of dharmas (or objects of mind). Thay opens therefore with the body and the interbeing of life and death, the calming of the body through mindfulness, and the reward of being fully present in one’s life. By those means, we can come to be fully present to the joy of life and, also, more fully available to and for our loved ones. Thay then teaches us how to use mindfulness to gain concentration and concentration to cultivate joy. Joy, he argues, is an everyday—every moment—“nourishment” akin to healthy eating. He then shifts to “the joy of abandoning,” drawing upon a parable of the farmer tied to his cows even though they bring more suffering than contentment: our cows are our attachments to our mental formations of wealth, pleasure, accomplishment or fame, etc. Joy can come from abandoning them. Thay then reminds us that the Three Refuges of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are the most precious and perdurable foundations for mindfulness practice. The end of the talk focuses on mindfulness of emotions, overcoming unwholesome mental formations such as The Five Hindrances, and how we can learn to work constructively with pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant feelings, highlighting the importance of helping our children and teens how not to succumb to self-harm but rather to find the practices offered by this talk for finding joy.
This is the third talk in a series given during The Path of Emancipation, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1998. Thay offered this talk at St. Michael’s College, Burlington, Vermont, in the United States.
These teachings later appear in the book The Path of Emancipation.