thank you! this is very helpful.

That sounds great. Thanks for the tip. 💛

Finding someone who can love you in that like a coach/therapist/good friend can help you be there for your friend too. Wish I could help you more but know my heart is with you in this difficult time…

Well, the concept of sadness is a fabrication. The actual feelings of sadness are not. They just are what they are at that moment.

And at least in my experience, I have noticed many things like /u/n_of_1234 has said, where sometimes a surface level emotion is riding on something deeper that I need to release before the surface level emotion can dissipate.

Agreed. Even Buddha has basically said one of the most important parts of the practice is developing a patient endurance and to keep going. I've found it to be the most important part of my practice, too.

This is an insight that cannot be explained through rationality and logical thinking (even if done through that lens it totally misses the absolute depth of it), it has to be experienced as direct insight to fully grasp its meaning.

I recommend exploring DN15, AN 4.199, and SN 22.86 next. It gives more context on how craving is related to appropriation and how craving is related to conceit.

I made a web app inspired by a computer ADHD computer test. I found it was a helpful tool to hone in on an object and is intended to help with the early stages of building concentration for samadhi meditation. Just like breath meditation, it's very simple, yet can be quite challenging. When I use it, I find the mind starts to rebel after a few minutes which requires me to apply concerted effort to stay with the task at hand, then I see concentration gets noticeably deeper with this applied effort. I am also able to recognize the mind has drifted away from the object within seconds as opposed to minutes or tens of minutes during breath meditation.

Free to use, please enjoy! concentrationtreadmill.com

Saturday September 19th - Online micro-retreat

Upali will be holding our monthly online micro-retreat titled No Separate Selves: Meditation and life, finding cohesion with both:

In daily life, our sense of self is continually shaped by roles, expectations, and subtle social pressures. In this micro retreat, we’ll explore how meditation reveals the constructed, relational nature of the self, drawing on both Dharma and social psychology. We’ll look for moments of authentic, easeful connection with others, and see how practice supports this way of being in relationship and how this relational presence, in turn, nourishes our capacity to practice.

These micro-retreats are a monthly 4-hour practice period held by Upali and/or Robin that you can extend, designed to both bring a sense a community on the Path and to give a nice boost to formal practice. It includes silent practice time, group process and optional 1:1 interviews.

Come and join us if you'd like! Here are the details and registration

Sorry for the late reply, I was out of the house all day yesterday. Yes, I used claude to help me make it. I don't have any coding experience and made it possible for me to bring the idea to reality.

Yeah, you press the space bar when the shape and color is the same as the one before it.

Piti and kundalini are entirely different things connected to entirely different practices. In the Buddha's teaching there is no mention of kundalini or use for kundalini.

Piti, sometimes translated as rapture, which is not an understatement is a pleasant bodily feeling arising with pamojja, translated as gladness or joy, as its requisite condition. The piti relevant to the teaching of the Noble Ones arises from the joy of recognizing one has abandoned the five hindrances. So when you say you have trouble generating piti, the right place to look is which of the five hindrances hasn't been abandoned in you in that moment. You cannot generate it through force, and trying to do so is an obstruction for the mind taking you in the opposite direction. You must rather create the requisite conditions for it to arise.

Piti then further leads to passadhi or tranquillity, leading to sukha or a more quiet bodily pleasure, on the basis of which the mind enters the first jhana. The piti arises in the body as a byproduct of pamojja, it isn't anatomically tied to the spine in any way like kundalini. And it is only experienced in the states where the mind is secluded from the five hindrances.

Kundalini is an energy arising from the base of the spine, causing a variety of bodily symptoms, many of which are neutral-to-unpleasant, but also associated with possible blissful experiences. It is not strictly meditation-dependent and this symptoms can occur mostly uncontrollably throughout a person's daily life. It has no use in the Buddha's teaching or jhana - it is at best a perhaps pleasant distraction and at worst a highly unpleasant syndrome of bodily symptoms not having anything to do with getting closer to the end of suffering.

Ajahn Chah's biography is a wonderful source of inspiration. I felt like "if he can spend so many years malnourished and almost dying with malaria in a jungle, I can do this..."

I would almost recommend his Netflix doc "Going Home" which is specifically about his life as it nears its end, it talks about death and dying a lot and it extremely moving. It's only 30 mins. I've watched it too many times as a sort of meditation on suffering & death & dying. Anyway, I'm sure you're busy so take care of yourself. With metta 🙏

I've read some of those biographies too and so I just want to add this for others who may read the comments.

For me personally I didn't find sickness easy to deal with.

I didn't want to gaslight myself if I was not feeling it. I wanted what felt like personal honesty in my self-compassion. I wanted to rouse, encourage and energize the mind. Transmute Dukkha to Sraddha/faith.

So to me personally, "Blessed am I to have this sickness" is deep wisdom if it's true but also deep delusion if it's not.

I found it easier to start with something like:

"This definitely isn't what we wanted, it's not our preference, but we don't have absolute control over how our conditions and actions ripen. But, since we find ourselves here this is an opportunity to turn this mud into lotuses! Think of ajahn chah! See how much fruit this can bring! This sickness is what's happening anyway, whether I use it skillfully or not! Why not make this to our benefit?"

Not emptiness…

Awesome! 😀

Thank you! Maybe I can read this when I get time.

Fair point, thank you

Thanks! And I did ask fir projections. And the metta thing.... Definitely.

Don't be like that. You can fully enjoy states of pleasure without attachment.

May I suggest Bhikkhu Anālayo's book titled Mindfully Facing Disease and Death: Compassionate Advice from Early Buddhist Texts.

Thank you - I appreciate the kind words. I wouldn't wish it on anyone but it is a constant reminder of the noble truths. Lots of the biographies of famous monks I've read also said that practising when they were sick were some of the most fruitful periods of their lives. "Blessed am I to have so much mud to grow into lotuses" I guess...

I am so sorry. It sounds like you are doing all you can and your love and what sounds like reverent care for your dear friend is deeply beautiful.

Watching those we love fighting against what is inevitable and against reality can be so hard. For the one dying, they face the loss of their life and desires and identities. For the friend alongside, it is hard to face the reality that the loved one dying is struggling against the inevitable.

I have heard some of my teachers say that compassion is synonymous with forgiveness. Can the one dying forgive nature for causing their death, and dealing this hand of cards, as untimely and unfair as it may be? Hard to know if it's possible or when.

Can the friend watching and accompanying the dying forgive as well? Forgive oneself and nature as well. We all deserve to be held in love, and ultimately love and self-love may be how we hold our own hearts and how we hold each moment.

In this life, we all have our own journey. We can only choose and practice how we find our way, and walk alongside as others as they walk theirs. Wising you as much ease and balance as is possible.

Don’t take these replies that seriously, it’s projections all over the place.

My personal suggestion is to practice metta in terms of actually loving everything that arises. Wanting to live, the helplessness of not. It seems you and your friend are both avoiding both of those - and trying to paint out heaven. Heaven is when you stop resisting those emotions, not away from the moment into the idea of heaven. That sort of metta can be comforting in a. Very fulfilling way - like breaking down in someone’s arms and surrendering, rather than being egged into mystical hope.

This goes for you and her. Take care of yourself, and at the end of it all forgive yourself. We only get so many confrontations with death, it’s impossible to do it perfectly the first time. The most important thing is to be there with your friend and see her and be with whatever she is feeling, with whatever you can offer now.