Simple, Practical Instructions

“Sayadaw U Tejaniya came up with these three, simple, very practical practice instructions:

1 check to see if right view is in the mind;

2 see if you’re aware;

3 continue supporting the continuity of practice.

For him, this sense of right view was so important. So then meditation practice can become really simple.

What that really enabled me to do was, when strong difficulties were coming up, and I wasn’t sure what was happening, now I could check & see: how am I relating to this experience?; what’s my view in the mind?

One of the most conditioned views that we have – and this is what we would say is

‘wrong view’ - those qualities that lead toward a sense of suffering or ill ease; and then

‘right view’ meaning those qualities that lead onward, that free us from a sense of contraction, being identified.

So one of the strongest ‘wrong views,’ that so far seems completely universal to me - I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have this view in the mind – and the view is that we take things very personally. ‘It’s happening to me’ or ‘this is mine, my emotion, my sadness, my fear, my nervousness.’

I was thinking how a quality like shame – and I like to talk about shame because I think it’s such a hidden, internalized quality that’s so easy to cover over, that in our culture seems to be everywhere and it’s so unpleasant. Have you ever enjoyed your shame?

The interesting thing is that I’m starting to enjoy shame. That’s radical. So I was thinking if I were to ask you to either write an essay, or paint the colors of shame, write music or poetry or cook a meal that represents shame, shame would become something that you would become interested in. You could study it. You could look at it.

So seeing what the shift is there

from taking something that’s happening to me – I don’t want to experience this quality,

to something now that’s known. It’s a natural process: it’s conditioned, it arises when the causes are there, it lawfully unfolds, and we can study it.

It’s one of the fundamental ways of looking at right view – to understand things as being lawful, causes & conditions.

Somehow, delusion in the mind blocks seeing that right view of things as being nature, as being natural, to the one aspect of our experience that is so important, which is our own mind and heart. So for example, if we go outside, even though we may find it unpleasant, we don’t ask the wind to stop blowing, or ask the trees to shift a little bit here. Sometimes we ask the clouds to move a little bit faster, and get out of the way of the sun. But in general, we have this innate understanding of how things happen. There’s a lawfulness to life. Can we turn that understanding towards our own experience?"

Alexis Santos 2016-10-24 49:19 "Exploring right view and the attitude of practice." Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center: Three-Month Part 2

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/525/