Thanissara, from London, was a nun for 12 years in the tradition of Ajahn Chah and has taught internationally for over 30 years. She is co-founder of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat, South Africa, Sacred Mountain Sangha, California, and Chattanooga Insight, Tennessee. She has an MA in Mindfulness Psychotherapy Practice from the Karuna Institute UK and is co-author of Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Guide to Engaged Buddhism, author of Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth, and several books of poetry. She is a member of the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock and co-guiding teacher of Sacred Mountain Sangha.
The mind like a rabbit in the head lights of the Hua T’ou
The swoon of the bardo’s and present time effects
Not using meditation like a lawyer but understanding what gets us obstructed
The story of Hui Neng & the world speaking the Diamond Sutra
Jatukanni’s question to the Buddha
Host & the guest and the fundamental confusion between the two
Staying at home, the one that hears the sound and the sound merge
Allow the world the come to the heart.
Before knowledge
Original nature & original split
Self structure as defence against original pain of separation
Encouragement to ‘bear the reality’ of suffering, to listen beneath the splits
The holding of splits within this one heart
Empathy rather than judgement
The difficult practice of compassion
An abandoned old lady
Bearing reality of being human
With patience obstruction drop away
Like walking into the mist
The more the suffering, the more the bliss
Indestructible Heart
Using the breath to steady the mind, to reflect on impermanence and to see ‘non ownership’
The boulder is not heavy if you don’t pick it up
This is ‘how it is’ – methods to access the third noble truth
Replacing reactivity with mindfulness – the flood stopper
The Buddha’s reluctance to teach
The first turning of the Dhamma wheel
The Four Noble truths and accompanying practices
Contemplating desire – resolving dukkha – the primary split.
Replacing reactivity of mind with mindfulness
Mindfulness as container & as that which reveals & discerns what is
Citta conditioned by perception & sankhara
Healing the citta through mindful awareness
Finding balanced energy as a support for mindfulness
Path Activity breaks up obstructions
Beginners mind, patience, kindness
This is how it is
Working with how it is rather than how it should be
The three streams of karma / energy
Samadhi as healing
The challenge of dukkha. Without Mara, no Buddha.
Path Activity illuminates the hindrances
Without hindrance there’s no path
That which knows desire and aversion is not desire & aversion
‘I Know You Mara’
