Schedule & Info resuming June 15, 2016

This is the entire holy-life, Ananda, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.   the Buddha, Connected Discourses 1.3.18

Insight Meditation

Meditate, don’t be negligent, lest you may later regret it!

Insight Meditation is a non-sectarian method to train one's mind/heart towards peace and happiness. It can also be the cornerstone for a transformative meditative spiritual path. Each of us will choose how much or how little we want to give or take from our spiritual lives. With Insight Meditation we train ourselves to directly observe all experience without reaction, without judgement, without concept. A mind/heart without reaction allows us to rest into what is happening right now. A non-reactive mind is at peace, our deepest happiness.                                           Allan Cooper

All are welcome

Beginners and experienced students are welcome. Personal instruction and private conversations with Kalyanamitta (spiritual friend) Steve Katona are available by arrangement.

Steve has a practice history since 1989 beginning with Rinzai Zen under Seiju Bob Mammoser and Kayozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi. After that and for six years he practiced Vipassana meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka and Mother Sayamagyi in the tradition of U Ba Khin. This included several ten day retreats and shorter intensives.

For the last five years he has studied Theravada Buddhism and practiced Mahasi Vipassana with Allan Cooper, Sayadaw U Vivekananda, Sayalay Daw Bhaddamanika, Sayadawgi U Pandita, Sayadaw Pannathami, Sayadaw U Thuzana and others. His practice history includes a three month and a four month silent retreat in Nepal at Panditarama Lumbini and numerous twenty-one to thirty day silent retreats.

Here is a link to an elaboration about the word ‘uposatha.’ It seems interesting but is definitely in the nice to know, not need to know category.

http://www.vipassana.com/resources/uposatha.php

Uposatha Vihara

The location of Uposatha Vihara [UV] (Pali for Buddhist Day of Observance Lay Monastery) is 205 Natalie Ave NW Albuquerque NM 87107   Email to UV should be addressed to upasakask@gmail.com          For more information  call 505 604 6828                                       

The current schedule at the UV is posted below. Changes in the schedule for holidays or other reasons will be posted clearly on this site. Please check or call before your planned attendance.

It will be appreciated if your arrival is at least five minutes before sitting begins. The entrance is on the driveway side of the house and not the front door facing the street.

Chanting beginning the morning sits consists of homage to the Buddha, taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, and the five lay precepts. This takes less than two minutes and is in English. Yogis may chant or not.

The evening schedule is one sit of 55 minutes. Following that will be a brief (less than 10 minutes) period of metta chanting in English. Look at the page of chants for content.

Metta (with boundless friendliness)

Sundays

Practice on your own is encouraged. AVS from 6:30 pm until 8 including meditation and frequent Dhamma talks

Mondays

AVS 6:30 am chanting and sitting until 7:30 am

UV 5:30 pm sitting until 6:25 pm followed by metta chanting 

Tuesdays

AVS 6:30 am chanting and sitting until 7:30 am

UV 5:30 pm sitting until 6:25 pm followed by a five minute break and then metta chanting 

Wednesdays

AVS 6:30 am chanting and sitting until 7:30 am

UV 5:30 pm sitting until 6:30 pm

Thursdays

AVS 6:30 am chanting and sitting until 7:30 am; no evening service at UV in lieu of Dharma talk and sitting at the Albuquerque Vipassana Sangha. They often have guest teachers and interviews available. You can check here: 

http://abqsangha.org/site/

Fridays

AVS 6:30 am chanting and sitting until 7:30 am; no evening sitting 

Saturdays

Encouragement for home practice ad lib

 

Food for Yogis

Why is Patience Needed in Meditation?

“Patience leads to Nibbana,” as the saying goes. This saying is most relevant in meditational practice. One must be patient in meditation. If one shifts or changes one’s posture too often because one cannot endure the sensation of stiffness or heat that arises, samadhi (good concentration) cannot develop. If samadhi cannot develop, insight cannot arise and there can be no attainment of magga (the path that leads to Nibbana), phala (the fruit of that path) and Nibbana. That is why patience is needed in meditation.

Patience is mostly needed with unpleasant sensations in the body like stiffness, sensations of heat and pain, and other sensations that are hard to bear. One should not immediately give up ones’s meditation on the appearance of such sensations and change ones’s meditational posture. One should go on patiently, just noting as “stiffness, stiffness” or “hot, hot.”

Moderate sensations of these kinds will disappear if one goes on noting them patiently. When concentration is good and strong, even intense sensations tend to disappear. One then reverts to noting the rising and falling of the abdomen.   Sayadaw U Pannthami

Automatic Slow Down

When driving on the freeway, one may be driving at sixty or seventy or even eighty miles an hour. Driving at that speed, one will not be able to read some of the signs on the road. If one wants to read those signs, it is necessary to slow down. Nobody has to say, “Slow down!” but the driver will automatically slow down in order to see the signs. In the same way, if yogis want to pay closer attention to the movements of lifting, moving forward, putting down, and pressing the ground, they will automatically slow down. Only when they slow down can they be truly mindful and fully aware of these movements. op cit

Tomorrow, as a practice that may be more difficult than it appears, every time you insert a key or touch a door handle do it mindfully with noting intention and tactile awareness of reaching, touching, hardness, resistance, temperature up to and including letting go of the key or the door. If you have the patience and commitment, and you perform all or part of the tasks mentioned without mindfulness, stop and do it over.

Are you committed to being mindful as much as you are able?