Mindfulness for Life

Session x – A day of retreat – deepening practice

University of Oxford’s Mindfulness Centre 1

Before we get started
lets, just take a few
minutes to arrive.

A Day of Retreat -
Deepening practice

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THE GUEST HOUSE
(JELLALUDIN RUMI, TRANSLATION BY COLEMAN BARKS)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

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 Everything has its own life.
HOKUSAI SAYS
Everything lives inside us.
Roger Keyes
He says live with the world inside you.
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice. He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
He says keep looking, stay curious. or write books. It doesn’t matter
He says there is no end to seeing if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
He says look forward to getting old. and stare at the ants on your veranda
He says keep changing, or the shadows of the trees
you just get more who you really are. and grasses in your garden.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting. It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

He says keep doing what you love.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child, Contentment is life living through you.
every one of us is ancient Joy is life living through you.
every one of us has a body. Satisfaction and strength
He says every one of us is frightened. is life living through you.
He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear. Peace is life living through you.

He says everything is alive -- He says don’t be afraid.

shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, Don’t be afraid.
trees, wood is alive. Water is alive.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

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Always We Hope
Lao Tzu

Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
There is no need to run outside
it will turn out.
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
This is it. Rather abide at the center of your
being:
No one else has the answer, for the more you leave it,
no other place will be better, the less you learn.
and it has already turned out.
Search your heart and see
At the center of your being, the way to do is to be.
you have the answer: Abide at the center of your being.
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

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Always We Hope
Lao Tzu

Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
There is no need to run outside
it will turn out.
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
This is it. Rather abide at the center of your
being:
No one else has the answer, for the more you leave it,
no other place will be better, the less you learn.
and it has already turned out.
Search your heart and see
At the center of your being, the way to do is to be.
you have the answer: Abide at the center of your being.
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

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What and
How to

RAIN

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 Mindful movement

University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre - mindf ulness f or lif e - SESSION 5 - ALLOWING AND LETTING BE 8
 Multitasking is a thief

University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre - mindf ulness f or lif e - SESSION 5 - ALLOWING AND LETTING BE 9
The roots of mindfulness meditation

Don't blindly believe what I say.

Don't believe me because others convince you of

my words.

Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from

others, whether of authority, religious teachers or
texts

~ Buddha.

Dukkha => Anitya => Anatta

Suffering => Impermanence => Non self

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The Satipatthana Sutta – Establishing of Awareness

The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

1. Kayanupassana – Mindfulness of Body

2. Vedananupassana – Mindfulness of sensations

3. Cittanupassana – Mindfulness of the Mind (mental states)

4. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents)

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The Satipatthana Sutta – Establishing of Awareness

The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

1. Kayanupassana – Mindfulness of Body

1.a Mindfulness of Breath (Anapanapabbam)

Knowing Breath is coming in, breath is going out on its own

Knowing if the In-breath is long or short, if the Out-breath is long or short

1.b Mindfulness of Postures (Iriyapathapabbam)

While walking, I know I am walking; While standing, I know I am standing

While sitting, I know I am sitting; While lying down, I know I am lying down

While whatever be the posture, I know I am in that posture

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The Satipatthana Sutta – Establishing of Awareness

The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

1. Kayanupassana – Mindfulness of Body

1.c Mindfulness of Activities

When going forward and returning one acts clearly knowing

When looking ahead and looking away one acts clearly knowing

When flexing and extending one’s limbs one acts clearly knowing

When eating, drinking, consuming food, and

tasting one acts clearly knowing

When defecating and urinating one acts clearly knowing

When walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up,

talking, and keeping silent one acts clearly knowing.
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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
2. Vedananupassana – Mindfulness of sensations

Vedana refers specifically to that quality of pleasantness, unpleasantness, or neutrality that arises
with the contact of each moment’s experience. These feelings/sensations arise with both physical and
mental phenomena. There’s a sensation in the body or we hear a sound, and we feel it as being
pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Likewise with a thought or an emotion— we feel it as having one of
these three feeling tones.

What is a Vedana (Sensation)?

While experiencing a pleasant sensation, understand

Anything that is experienced at the body level is a
properly, "I am experiencing a pleasant sensation"
sensation:
Tightness in the shoulders, jaws, eyes, forehead etc.
While experiencing an unpleasant sensation, understand Sweat in the palms, dried throat, sinking feeling in
properly, "I am experiencing an unpleasant sensation" abdomen,
Tingling, pulsating, vibrating,
Pain, Itching, throbbing, heat, cold, pressure,
While experiencing a neutral sensation, understand numbness,
properly, "I am experiencing a neutral sensation" Contraction, expansion, lightness, heaviness,
Feeling of the speed of the heart-beat, breath etc 14
The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

Habitual tendencies Mindfulness practices

• Cling to the pleasant • Noticing the pleasant experience as pleasant

experience, *RAIN

• Push away the unpleasant • Noticing the unpleasant experience as unpleasant

experience, *RAIN

• Noticing the neutral experience as neutral

• Ignore the neutral experience, *RAIN

*RAIN = Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Non identify with the experience

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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
3. Cittanupassana – Mindfulness of the Mind (mental states)

Knowing the presence or absence of the three unwholesome

roots of mind and how they color or condition our mind.
• Desire – Greed or lust or craving
• Aversion – Hatred, ill will and anger
• Ignorance or Delusion – Bewilderment and confusion

What are the different mental states?

When there is a desirous mind, understand properly there is a Desire or lust or craving Aversion, hate, anger
'desirous' mind; and a mind without desire as the mind 'without Clear mind Confused or deluded
desire' Collected mind Scattered mind

When there is hatred mind, understand properly there is a 'hatred' Expanded mind Contracted mind
mind; and a mind without hate as the mind 'without hate' Surpassable mind Unsurpassable mind
Concentrated Distracted
When there is a deluded or confused mind, understand properly
there is a 'deluded or confused' mind; and a mind without delusion Freed mind Not Freed
as the mind 'without delusion'
Dukkha => Anitya => Anatta
Suffering => Impermanence => Non self 16
The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
3. Cittanupassana – Mindfulness of the Mind (mental states)

Mind-states What is shaping our experience?

• You are always in a mood
The effect of moods/ emotions/
• Moods like filters on our experience mental states?

• Coloured spectacles How do we see

• Ourselves
• The world
• 'Wholesome' and 'Unwholesome'
• Others
▪ The thoughts are to the mind just like the sounds to the ear
▪ No need to blame any thoughts as we don’t have any control on the
arising of thoughts, they are not me. The thoughts are events
happening in the mind and they are not facts. In an angry mood?
▪ Bring the attention from the content of thoughts to the underlying
mind-state.
In a content mood?
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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
3. Cittanupassana – Mindfulness of the Mind (mental states)
Emotions and moods are often what we most personalize. When we identify with them, we build a superstructure
of self on top of the shifting landscape of experience: “I’m angry,” “I’m sad,” “I’m happy.” But as we practice this
mindfulness of mind, we notice more clearly what mood or emotion is present and how it is coloring or
conditioning the mind, without adding the idea or sense of self.

We simply know the angry mind is like this, the sad mind is like this, the happy mind is like this. Experiencing
the mind in this way opens us to what Ajahn Chaa called “a taste of freedom”:

Within itself, the mind is already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. It
becomes agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it
into unhappiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind’s true nature is none of these things. Gladness or
sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us.
The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself, then we think that it is we who are upset or
at ease or whatever. But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful, really peaceful. So we must
train the mind to know these sense impressions and not get lost

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The Satipatthana Sutta – Establishing of Awareness

The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

4. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)

a. The Five Hindrances
b. The Five aggregates of Clinging
c. The Six Sense Spheres
d. The Seven Factors of Awakening
e. The Four Noble Truths

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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
2. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)
The Five Hindrances:
All things arise when the appropriate conditions are
• Sense desire present, and all things pass away as conditions
change. Behind the process, there is no “self” who
• Aversion is running the show.
• Sloth and Torpor (Laziness and Lethargy)
Body is not just an entity but it looks like a
• Agitation and Remorse (Anxiety or Nervousness and Regret or Guilt) process… bodying
• Doubt

When sense desire is present; know properly that the sense desire is present

When sense desire is absent; know that the sense desire is absent

Clearly know how the sense desire that has not yet arisen, comes to arise

Clearly know how the sense desire that has now arisen, gets eradicated

Clearly know how the sense desire that has now been eradicated, will in future no longer arise
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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
2. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)

The Five Aggregates of clinging (Khandhapabbam):

•
• Matter/ Material elements (Rupa)
• Sensations (Vedana) Noticing change, explore the experience of change,
impermanence… it is changing like bubbles on the surface of
•
•
Perceptions (Sannya) water
• Reactions (Sankara) (Conditioned things, mental volition) To explore the nature and origin of happiness and suffering.

•
We hold on to things that are inevitably changing.
• Consciousness (vinyana) - cognizing function of the mind
To explore the sense of me and mine. Me is a process that is
unfolding. Investigate the story of me. It is happening,
arising due to co-dependent arising.

Such is the sensation

Such is the arising of sensation

Such is the passing away of sensation

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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
2. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)
The Six Sense Spheres (Ayatnapabbam):
• Eye - Seeing
• Ear - Hearing The Buddha uses this contemplation to analyze our
• Nose - Smelling subjective experience and, through this experiential
analysis, to deconstruct the deeply held concept of self.
• Tongue - Tasting
• Body – Touch
• Mind - Thinking

Understand properly the tongue

Understand properly the taste and the bondage that arises dependent on these two

Understand properly how the bondage that has not yet arisen, comes to arise

Understand properly how the bondage that has now arisen, gets eradicated

Understand properly how the bondage that has now been eradicated, will in future no longer arise
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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
4. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Bojjhangapabbam):
• Awareness / Mindfulness (sati)
• There is a subtle joy of simply being presence… notice and acknowledge it
• Investigation of dhamma (dhammavicaya)
• There is subtle joy of simply doing/noticing small things with wakefulness,
• Effort/ Energetic/ Enthusiasm (viriya) aliveness
• Rapture/ peaceful joy (piti) • The ease, calmness, peacefulness, happiness comes from inside and
doesn’t depend on external circumstances like a lake gets filled from the
• Tranquility/Calm (passaddhi) springs inside it
• Concentration (Samadhi) • The peace comes from the mind being equanimous
• Equanimity (Upekkha)

When 'awareness' is present, understand properly that the 'awareness' is present

When 'awareness' is absent, understand properly that the 'awareness' is absent

Understand properly how 'awareness' that has not yet arisen, comes to arise

Understand properly how 'awareness' that has now arisen, is developed and perfected
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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
4. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents or categories of phenomena)

The Four Noble Truths (Saccapabbam):

Exposition of... • There is a subtle joy of simply being presence… notice and acknowledge it
• The truth of suffering • There is subtle joy of simply doing/noticing small things with wakefulness,
aliveness
• The truth of the arising of suffering
• The ease, calmness, peacefulness, happiness comes from inside and
• The truth of the cessation of suffering doesn’t depend on external circumstances like a lake gets filled from the
springs inside it
• The truth of the path • The peace comes from the mind being equanimous

Understand properly "This is the suffering", understand properly as it is

Understand properly "This is the arising of suffering", understand properly as it is

Understand properly "This is the cessation of suffering", understand properly as it is

Understand properly "This is the path leading to the cessation of suffering"

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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
The Results of establishing of awareness (mindfulness):
“Monks, if anyone should develop these four satipaṭṭhānas in such a way for seven years, one of two
fruits could be expected for him:
Either final knowledge here and now, or, if there is a trace of clinging left, non-returning.
Let alone seven years . . . six years . . . five years . . . four years . . . three years . . . two years . . . one
year . . . seven months . . . six months . . . five months . . . four months . . . three months . . . two
months . . . one month . . . half a month . . .

if anyone should develop these four satipaṭṭhānas in such a way for seven days, one of two fruits
could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or, if there is a trace of clinging left,
non-returning.
So it was with reference to this that it was said: [DIRECT PATH] “Monks, this is the direct path for the
purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha
and discontent, for acquiring the true method, for the realization of nibbāna, namely, the four
satipaṭṭhānas.”
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A Day of Retreat – Deepening practice

Thank You
Patanjali Yoga Sutras

What causes our experiences in life ?

Sutra # 2.13 Sadhana paada: Sati mule tadvipako jati ayur bhogah
As long as there are traces of kleshas (impurities/ mental defilements) one has to have the birth/life
(species), life span and the experiences of pleasure & pain (based on one's karma samskaras / prarabdha
karma)

What are the kleshas (Impurities/ mental defilements) ?

Sutra # 2.3 - Sadhana paada: Avidya asmita raga dvesha abhiniveshah kleshah
Avidya – Ignorance,
Asmita - Ego / Identity / Pride,
Raga - Cravings/ desires,
Dvesha – Hatredness,
Abhinivesha - Clinging to life, fear of death

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Patanjali Yoga Sutras

What is the effect of worldly experiences in life?

Sutra # 2.15 Sadhana paada: parinama tapa samskara duhkhaih guna vrittih virodhat cha
duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah

A wise, discriminating person sees all worldly experiences as painful, because of

reasoning that all these experiences lead to more consequences, anxiety, and deep
habits (samskaras), as well as acting in opposition to the natural qualities.
All worldly experiences (both pleasant and unpleasant) lead to dukkha!

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The Satipatthana Sutta – Establishing of Awareness

The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)

1. Kayanupassana – Mindfulness of Body
a. Anapanapabbam – The mindfulness of Breath
b. Iriyapathapabbam - The mindfulness of Postures
c. Sampajanapabbam – The mindfulness of impermanence (Activities)

2. Vedananupassana – Mindfulness of sensations

3. Cittanupassana – Mindfulness of the Mind (mental states)
4. Dhammanupassana – Mindfulness of Dhammas (mental contents)
a. The Five Hindrances
b. The Five aggregates of Clinging
c. The Six Sense Spheres
d. The Seven Factors of Awakening
e. The Four Noble Truths

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The four ways of establishing of mindfulness (awareness)
1. Kayanupassana – Mindfulness of Body

• Knowing Breath is coming in, breath is going out on its own

• Knowing if the In-breath is long or short, if the Out-breath is long or short
Mindfulness
of Breath

• While walking, I know I am walking; While standing, I know I am standing

• While sitting, I know I am sitting; While lying down, I know I am lying down
Mindfulness • While whatever be the posture, I know I am in that posture
of Postures

• When going forward and returning one acts clearly knowing; When looking ahead and looking away one acts clearly knowing
• When flexing and extending one’s limbs one acts clearly knowing
• When eating, drinking, consuming food, and tasting one acts clearly knowing; When defecating and urinating one acts clearly
Mindfulness knowing
of Activities • When walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent one acts clearly knowing.

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Brahma Viharas – The key attitudes of mindfulness
(measurables of mindfulness)

• Metta/ Maitri – Friendliness & Loving Kindness/ Goodwill

• Karuna – Compassion
• Mudita – Sympathetic Joy
• Upekkha - Equanimity
+Gratitude

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 A day of retreat – deepening practice
•• 14:55

•• Mindful movement (15 mins) T3

15:10 Multitasking is a thief (10 mins)

•• 12:00
Deepening Practice Agenda
• 15:20

•
Roots of mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta) + CBT (45 mins)

••
Welcome Breathing Space + Housekeeping (10 mins) T1

•
The place of Deepening Practice between final sessions of 6-week or 8-
week courses 16:05

••
Acknowledging, silence, cameras on, comfort, anchors (trauma awareness) Short Break (5 mins)

12:10
Body Scan (25 mins) T2
•• 16:10

•• Sitting with Breath, Body, Sounds, Thoughts, Open

Awareness (20 mins) T1

• ••
12:35
Walking practice (25 mins) T3
Eyes can be open if your sleepy, and set a timer if you are going off camera 16:30

•• 13:00
••
Breathing Space (10 mins) T2

•• ••
Short Break (5 mins) 16:40

13:05 13:55
• Reflections & Sharing (15 mins) P1 then Both/ all 3

• •
Settling practice; maintaining silence; 50/50 reading/typing in
Being with Difficulty Practice (25 mins) Main Break (60 mins) chat before unmuting

• ••
Or RAIN practice T1 Do things that are nurturing, asking yourself
the question, what would support my well
16:55

•
13:30 being and that of others during the break…
what is an act of self-care Closing Practice (5 mins with poem(s)) T3

••
Befriending Practice (25 mins) T2
maintain our day of practice and integrate
Loved-one/pet etc. this into your regular life, Discouraging
Person struggling work, notifications, email; light meal, walk, Close - Poem “Hokusai Says” By ROGER S. KEYES

•
acknowledging loved-ones etc.
‘Important person’ = self Or
Group – opening to send & receive good wishes “Always We Hope” By Lao Tzu
All beings (if time)
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