Introduction to Mindful Meditation

I started an online meditation course this week.

The course was put together by the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA.  I had come across the website audiodharma.org some time ago and have spent time listening to the various talks available in mp3 on the site.

There was one series in particular that interested me titled “Introduction to Mindful Meditation”.  I downloaded them and began listening, but never became fully engaged, nor tried to use them to start a meditation practice.  I continued to visit the site however and saw a new section mentioning that in the next few months they would begin an online meditation course based on these talks by Gil Fronsdal.  I immediately emailed them requesting my place in the class.

The course began this last Monday, and I can’t say I’ve been doing very well at it so far.  My family life has been hit pretty hard with a few things this week which were taking up my time and mind in many ways.  I know that I allowed these to be a distraction and excuse for me in many ways, but what’s done is done.

I’m getting back on track now and am going to email my support instructor and fill her in on what’s been going on in my life this week, and how my meditation sessions have been thus far.  I also decided that I would add all of the information here for anyone that is interested.   The course may be audited by anyone, you just don’t have the extra benefit of the support from an instructor.

I know many of you practice Vipassana meditation (greenfrog, etc) and so I would love to get your thoughts on the practice and any advice you may have as I begin/continue my journey.

You can access the information by following the meditation link at the top of the page or by following the below link.

Introduction to Mindful Meditation

Hopelessness and Death

Hopelessness and Death
by Pema Chodron

Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring security or confirmation. Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring any ground to stand on. In fact, when your mind turns toward the dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness.

In Tibetan there is an interesting word: ye tang che. The ye part means “totally, completely” and the rest of it means “exhausted.”  Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out.  We might say “totally fed up.”  It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope.  This is an important point.  This is the beginning of the beginning.  Without giving up hope that there is somewhere better to be, that there is someone better to be we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

We could say that the word mindfulness is pointing to being one with our experience, not dissociating, being right there when our hand touches the doorknob or the telephone rings or feelings of all kinds arise.  The word mindfulness describes being right where you are.  Ye tang che, however, is not so easily digested.  It expresses the renunciation that is essential for the spiritual path.

To think that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic.  To seek for some lasting security is futile.  To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of our most basic assumptions.   Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone “out there” is to blame for our pain one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking.  One has to give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction.  Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there is anywhere to hide.

Hopelessness means that we no longer have the spirit for holding our trip together.  We may still want to hold our trip together.  We long to have some reliable, comfortable ground under our feet, but we’ve tried a thousand ways to hide and a thousand ways to tie up all the loose ends, and ground just keeps moving under us.  Trying to get lasting security teaches us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can’t be done.  Turning our minds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery.  At every turn we realize once again that it is completely hopeless we can’t get any ground under our feet.

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