Mindfulness Outreach Initiative

How often do you reflect on having fun and playing as an adult? What do fun and play look like in your life? Does it result in joy? These are the questions Chaplain Kyle Sorys poses to the audience in this week’s talk. After a fifteen-minute meditation, Kyle starts by sharing his past struggles with meditation and his current exploration of including fun, play, and joy into daily mindfulness practice, primarily in the form of “Photography Meditation.” This leads to a short teaching on the cultivation of bare awareness — being aware of the essence of sense experience without adding anything extra. According to Kyle, it all comes down to creating the cause and conditions right now, in this moment, that brings about our future happiness and well-being. And for him, it is vital to incorporate fun and play.   If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

How has your practice resulted in a greater sense of patience and an ability to be patient? As MOI teacher Johnathan Woodside states in this talk, just by returning again and again to the present moment, we are cultivating patience. Patience involves having a nonjudgmental and non-preferential willingness to engage with what is present. It also includes developing disenchantment, stilling, and direct knowledge of experience. Johnathan adds that patience helps the mind see clearly, especially the illusion that getting what we want leads to lasting happiness. Instead, we realize that everything is constantly changing and is ultimately unsatisfactory. In addition to patience, Johnathan also stresses the practice of non-doing, of just being aware of our experiences and meeting it all with mindfulness. We no longer are out to manage or control our experiences. There is no longer anything to gain or anyone to become. We merely sit and observe what is taking place to gain insight. As Johnathan says, “We don’t have to make anything happen. We just have to be witness to what is happening without delusion.” If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

In this week’s talk, MOI teacher Mark Wiesman leads us in a guided meditation through the Four Divine Abodes: loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Mark tells us that we can go to these four places anytime we need. They are tools that can help us cultivate more openness and expansiveness in our hearts and minds, which by nature leads to more calm and peace in our lives.   If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

Every human being experiences suffering at some point in life. Suffering is one of the ultimate truths that connect us to all humanity. But suffering is also unique to each of us in that we all experience suffering in our own distinct ways. Thus, in this talk, MOI teacher Anne Savery asks us an important question: “What are you suffering with right now? What parts of life are causing you suffering?” The point of this question is not to know suffering itself but to recognize how we relate to suffering. Anne states that when we notice suffering, we often recoil, resist, tense up, and want to run away from it. It takes courage and patience to show up and be present with suffering. In mindfulness practice, suffering is something we can acknowledge, work with, and release into freedom. Or it can be something we continually carry with us, creating more suffering in the long run. If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

How often do you experience “bad days”?  When asked this question, MOI teacher Jonathan Woodside genuinely answered that he rarely has a bad day anymore.  He attributes this to two things: (1) living a skillful life by avoiding harm and (2) viewing every experience (both pleasant and unpleasant) as an opportunity for insight.  Of course, this naturally arises from the fruits of mindfulness and meditation practice.  But it is also more nuanced than that.  In this talk, Jonathan goes into detail about following the precepts, seeing into the nature of reality, letting go of preferences, and establishing a deep intimacy with mindfulness practice when life feels too busy.  He says it’s about being mindful of when the mind is entangled with suffering and when it is free of craving.  In the end, Johnathan encourages us to continually ask ourselves, “How is the mind right now?  Is there suffering or not?”   If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

What does it feel like when the mind is overcome by craving and clinging? How about when it is free? When the defilements of craving and clinging are present, we feel it in the body. We feel ourselves being pulled around and controlled by it. We become bound, fettered, and chained to it. But when the mind is free of defilements, we experience more freedom. There is more spaciousness, peacefulness, contentedness, and ease. What a difference! And, as MOI teacher Mark Wiesman states in this talk, mindfulness is the key. We are encouraged by Mark to notice those moments when we are craving and clinging, as well as the moments when we let go and accept things as they are. “Be curious,” he says. “Ask lots of questions. It will lead to more mindfulness and understanding.” If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

What comes to mind when you think of patience? Is it a positive or negative association? As MOI teacher Anne Savery states, part of the practice is observing our conditioning, history, and relationships with different things in the dharma. According to Anne, patience holds a variety of meanings. It involves endurance, spaciousness, forgiveness, and equanimity. “In the space of patience,” she says, “one can find joy and gratitude.” But first, there needs to be stability and tranquility to access this space. We must know how to calm the body, mind, and breath. Hence, the importance of meditation and present moment awareness. It is only in the present moment that we can practice patience and experience true joy, and with the arising of joy naturally comes gratitude. If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

What is it like when you notice the mind lost in stories? What is it like when the mind arrives home to the present moment and sees clearly? These are the questions MOI teacher Johnathan Woodside asks us in this week’s talk as he discusses the difficulties of staying with the present moment experience of reality. He says that noticing how busy the mind is, how wild and distracted it can be, is the initial insight of meditation practice. We can easily be discouraged when we notice the business of the mind and how difficult it is to stay present. But Johnathan states that this is good news. It is a valuable insight that not everyone realizes. Without real effort, we can spend most of life lost in thought, caught up in the various stories of the mind. To help us stay present, Johnathan teaches us that it is helpful to keep coming back to the simple instructions of practice: become still, direct the attention inward, mindfully connect with the breath, and be present. It is in the simplicity of our practice that we can tap into all the happiness and joy that life offers. If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

How often do you notice and reflect on the attitudes and intentions you bring to an experience? How often do these dispositions lead to peace and contentment? In this week’s talk, MOI teacher Kyle Sorys introduces the topic of Right Intention, the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. He states that mindfulness of intention is vital to how we walk the path because our intention is the cause of everything we do. Thus, it is beneficial to have a wise and skillful attitude as we approach all the daily activities of our life experiences, including our spiritual practice. “How you’re going to be transformed and changed is not by the activity you do,” Kyle says, “but by the motivations and intentions that are behind what you do.” If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/

How often do you find yourself discussing Dharma and practice with friends? For MOI teacher Mark Wiesman, it is more often than not, as Mark has lots of “dharma friends.” In this week’s talk, Mark shares four themes that have come up in his Dharma conversations with friends over the past month: (1) Can you meditate too much? (2) What is the difference between a cause and a condition? (3) Is there a problem with peak experience? (4) What exactly is right view? Mark continually touches on meditation, practice, and the path in this talk. He explains that practicing this path includes investigating the nature of reality. We are asked to frequently look at things, see them as they are, notice the characteristics of how reality behaves, and observe how the mind reacts. Diligent effort eventually leads one to a continual awareness of nature, unfolding moment by moment where there is no clinging or grasping. There is no desire for things to be different than they are. Mark says this practice is about being with things as they are, as they unfold, without getting caught up in them — being engaged with life but not being enmeshed. Essentially we practice this path to no longer depend on outer circumstances for lasting contentment, peace, and ease. If you feel inspired by these teachings, and wish to practice generosity, please consider supporting MOI and its teachers by visiting, https://mindfulnessoutreachinitiative.org/generosity/