Arete House Podcasts - Inspired Thinkers Series

So I am firmly suggesting that Vikalpa is kind of the thing in the way. It is the thing we need to deconstruct. Vikalpa is like: a wall being continually built, by you, by your mind, by your thinking and discursive activities……kind of all the time; it is the notion that you are something of a constant wall builder. So, it is not “there” as something you can find and tear down – like your ego, your self-centeredness as a thing or entity; it is much more like a process which is always taking place, which you must begin to see and then begin to intervene on, to arrest. The post 015 Episode Fifteen – What’s The Thing In The Way? [https://aretehouse.com.au/2021/04/21/thing-in-the-way/] appeared first on Arete House [https://aretehouse.com.au].

Insight meditation is really a critical process. A process of negation – one is trying to actively undermine something; to tear down a solid wall; to uncover something which has been concealed. To find something which is normally hidden. So in most traditions, it is a deconstructive process, not a process of building something up. So a large part of the job of insight meditation is correctly identifying what this thing in the way might actually be. First you have to find it, and only then can you start tearing it down…… The post 014 Episode Fourteen – Insight Meditation [https://aretehouse.com.au/2021/03/26/insight-meditation/] appeared first on Arete House [https://aretehouse.com.au].

In shamatha meditation, nothing is being added, and nothing is really being taken away. It’s just a point where stillness and stability may be discovered as part of the functioning of your mind; alongside all the other crazy, interesting, dirty, strange stuff. It is at precisely such a point where the Dharmic traditions offer a doorway into where and what the mind is – a doorway which does not depend on a couch in New York, an analyst and a lot of cash….. The post 013 Episode Thirteen – Taming the Swarm of Bees/Mind [https://aretehouse.com.au/2020/12/14/taming-the-mind/] appeared first on Arete House [https://aretehouse.com.au].

In this episode we begin our investigation of the mind by asking ‘how do we know what the mind is?’ And I invite you to examine those often unexamined predicates about how we know what the mind is, by widening and going beyond the sense that brain and mind are simply synonyms. The post 012 Episode Twelve – Knowing the Mind [https://aretehouse.com.au/2020/11/03/knowing_mind/] appeared first on Arete House [https://aretehouse.com.au].

When we have an actual technique to work with, such as tonglen, this will only work in the context of intention and repetition. There is no magical panacea, a technique that you find or someone gives you that just kind of magically works. It is by the sheer weight of accumulation that it works. How many times does a top 100 golf player hit a ball with a club? Or the concert pianist hit the piano keys? Good spiritual technique is not the slightest bit different – it emerges through immense repetition. The post 011 Episode Eleven – Spiritual Technique [https://aretehouse.com.au/2020/10/15/spiritual-technique/] appeared first on Arete House [https://aretehouse.com.au].