Ancient Mindfulness, Unity in Duality
Everyone is talking about mindfulness.
Here we will do something about it and recognise its original Eastern base. This is front and centre in UD.
Abstract
This area of practice is a central kernel of the UD canon.
We will look at existence in accordance with the ancient categories of experiencing existence, the 5 psycho-physical constituents, the 5 Skandhas, as experienced in this moment.
Through this series of practices gain insight into the interrelationship of our perceptive capacities, gaining a balanced, clear, free way of life.
content retreat
During this workshop, we will investigate ideas central to the UD canon. We will move towards a revised vision, enabling us to face and manage our challenges appropriately, with clarity and flexibility of mind.
Often we are convinced that external conditions are the reality we experience, having little chance or the possibility of altering those conditions. We then become victims of the experience of external circumstances. However, we can face these challenges with insight into the diversity of perceptive capacities and the interrelated nature at play, providing possibilities of choosing and moving between perceptions in accordance with the categories of the 5 Psycho-physical constituents, the 5 Skandhas.
To be qualified as Mindfulness practices, the investigations must comply with the ancient tradition of using the correct basis of “direct perception” with no language abstraction in between. This is regarding ourselves and our topic of investigation, the keeping of which, when using language perception, qualify the investigation to give the developmental result searched for.
These are methods to become a master in our own home. We will look at what reality we experience with our perceptive capacities and through investigation gain insight into how these are interrelated and could be used in a new balanced way, setting us free.
For this, we will work with “The Four Mindfulness Investigations”.
These relate to the body and its corresponding experiences;
Feeling mind and its feeling-tone and self-reference;
Conceptual mental functioning and corresponding reality;
Differences between experiences and existence, the reference-object as in what exists.
By working through these four phases of investigations, we will learn to modify our perceived reality, giving us a view of life that has a new clear function and appearance.