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Tonight's topic is the third foundation, which is the mind, our brains, how to bring mindfulness to what your brain is doing, what kind of thoughts are arising, what kind of attitude the mind has. Whether the mind is experiencing wisdom or ignorance. For many people it's one of the things that really sets Buddhist meditation apart and mindfulness apart from a lot of other meditations.

So for a topic tonight: your relationship to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Just thinking about these three feeling tones. Maybe there's somebody here who you know, joining us tonight, who feels like actually pleasance is quite hard to tolerate…

Tonight I'm going to do a little bit on this mindfulness of the body, becoming mindful of the four elements in the body and then we're going to do a meditation. It's called a charnel ground meditation or a corpse meditation, where we reflect on the impermanent nature of the body. Then we'll have some discussion about death. What’s your relationship like with death? When’s the last time you experienced death? How do you relate to the fact that your body is only going to live so long?

Tonight I'm going to continue what I started last week and probably will do the next few weeks. It's the Satipatthana, the four foundations of mindfulness the way they chant it, as they practice it in the monastery.

Tonight I'm going to start what will turn into several weeks series on mindfulness, the seventh factor of the Eightfold Path and the primary meditation technique that the Buddha taught and encouraged for freeing ourselves. Freeing ourselves from the causes of suffering. Mindfulness, present time inquiring with an attitude of friendliness or kindness, meta loving kindness attitude.

I’ve gotten some sh*t for saying this in the past, but I haven't learned. Some of Martin Luther King's views and politics, I believe, are inspired by Buddhism. One time I gave a Dharma talk that MLK was a Buddhist, and then I got a whole bunch of sh*t about it, because he was very much a Christian. But a lot of his politics in civil rights and in fighting ignorance and oppression were influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent approach to creating change.

I'm going to talk a bit about the Buddha's first noble truth, that the beginning of the path to freedom starts by acknowledging and turning towards becoming fully aware and breaking any shred of denial that we might have about our suffering, about the dukkha, about the sorrow, the grief, the sadness, the loneliness, the afflictive emotions that we experience as humans. As well as all of the loss and the sadness and difficulty, the difficult situation that we're all born into.

I feel like the core of what I'm going to talk about tonight is Sangha, it's community and the importance of drawing near and sustaining connections with Sangha. With people who are wise, or at least trying, attempting to be wise and have the intention to be wise.

What comes up for you around the holidays? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you bring your practice into it?

Tonight I'm going to talk about the reality of the suffering in the world and the suffering of existence. Why life is not easy and pleasant and why people aren't wise and compassionate.

The topic tonight is about love and loving ourselves. A core part of what the Dharma is teaching us is to love ourselves and each other.

Tonight I'm going to talk about maladaptive strategies. It's that strategy that's like, well, it feels really good when I do it, but I know it's creating negative karma for me because I'm lying or stealing or cheating. I love lying and stealing and cheating. It feels so good. But I know that in the long run, it's an unhealthy behavior. In the long run, it destroys my fucking life.