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Third Dharma Talk, Nottingham Retreat
About twenty-five years ago I wrote The Sun My Heart after insight that “the sun shining in the sky is my heart,” my second heart, as vital as the one in my body. In that book I told of Thủy, a refugee child, who learned sitting meditation’s purpose from a glass of apple juice left still for one hour: as the pulp settled, clarity appeared, and “you want to be clear.”
I taught “pebble meditation” with four pebbles representing:
- a flower – freshness
- a mountain – solidity
- still water – stillness
- space – freedom
Breathing in each pebble’s image and breathing out its quality three times cultivates flowerness, solidity, calm, and freedom.
From the Sutra on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the four establishments are:
• Body (first four exercises of mindful breathing)
- identify in-breath/out-breath
- follow the entire breath
- “Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body”
-
“Breathing in, I release the tension in my body”
• Feeling (exercises 5–8) - generate joy
- generate happiness
- “Aware of painful feeling”
-
“Release the tension in the emotion”
• Mind (the remaining mental formations)
• Object of mind (perceptions)
