Online Practice Intensive: Impermanence, Stress, and Selflessness

Fridays 9:00 am- 11:00 am May 17-June 7

In this four-week online practice intensive we will live the practice as a daily life retreat. We will engage in formal Insight Meditation practice and cultivate mindful awareness in all daily activities to foster a seamless continuity of life and practice. The theme for this intensive is seeing deeply into what the Buddha called the three characteristics of existence, impermanence (anicca), stress (dukkha), and not-self (anatta).

In our conventional/ordinary way of relating to life we tend to be focused on the content of experience, on what I am feeling, if I like it or don’t like it, what you are doing, how to change, improve, fix, get rid of, replace, what is happening etc. As a more stable capacity for awareness emerges, we begin to see more deeply not just into what is happening in our minds and bodies, but into the process and characteristics of our experiences. We see that thoughts, feelings, perceptions, intentions, sensations, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. are changing from moment to moment, produce mental stress and dis-ease when clung to or identified with as I, me, and mine, and are selfless or ungovernable in their nature, in other words they arise due to myriad causes and conditions most of which are not subject to our control.

The fruits of meditative practice flow from our transformed understanding of the nature of experience and the new intuitions that follow from that. Our actions naturally follow from our understanding of what is trustworthy, reliable, safe, and desirable. What happens when we transform our understanding of the way things are and develop new intuitions about life and experience? In the practice of Insight Meditation we go straight to the heart of the matter, watch our own minds and see for ourselves. The path and its fruit are here and now, to be discovered by you as you watch your own mind.

Practice intensives are structured as a daily life retreat in which participants make mindful awareness and daily meditation practice a priority even as we go to work, attend to family and/or home duties, and move through ordinary activities. Participants are asked to commit to 45 minutes of daily formal sitting and/or walking meditation for the duration of the intensive as well as bringing a spirit of inquiry into all aspects of their lives as relates to the content of the intensive. This intensive consists of a weekly two-hour meeting either in person or online (two separate cohorts) and the daily practice commitment. I will send out weekly practice notes and video recordings of the online group for those who have to miss sessions and respond to practice questions by email as well as in our weekly meetings.

If the fee or the practice requirement presents an obstacle to your attending, please email me at will@sundaysangha.net