Aloha to you and your family and friends,
In this newsletter I would like to wish you a blessed and joyful holiday season filled with laughter, gratitude, integrity, honesty, and love.
My teaching for the month of December is below. May it encourage and inspire you to live from the silent wisdoming and still compassion of your core Self in this Only Moment Body.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Peaceful Buddha’s Enlightenment. December 25, December 20-28, December 8th
Dr. Bonnici
Shugyo Daijo-roshi
REST IN YOUR CORE SELF AND ACCEPT
THE WEATHER OF YOUR MIND
All Rights Reserved
Revised September 22, 2011
Andrew Shugyo Bonnici, Ph.D.
When you sit in meditation do not seek to empty your mind or stop your thoughts. Passing thoughts are just a natural part of being human. Compassionately accept the arising and the passage of your thoughts while resting in your visceral core Self in this Only Moment Body of everyday life.
When you sit down in meditation, know that the arising and passing of thoughts is the present weather of your mind. Sometimes the weather includes many dark drifting clouds, sometimes a few puffy clouds, and sometimes just a blue sky. Sometimes you become the clouds and at other times you see that the drifting clouds are not you. The correct posture of “true meditation” is to drop your heady awareness into your core Self and simply accept your passing thoughts as the ever changing inner weather of your mind. Fewer thoughts are not necessarily a good thing and many thoughts are not necessarily a bad thing. Unconditional acceptance of your mind’s weather means before your preferences or ideas of what is good meditation or bad meditation. Just remain ever wakeful and intimate with the original stillness of your core Self and know that true meditation is the practice of ever returning and ever awakening to core Self in this Only Moment Body of enlightened life without felt attainment or gain.
Your sole purpose in just sitting in meditation is to honor the sincerity of your practice, arouse unconditional faith in the wisdoming of the process, and just breathe consciously into your body core with a gentle and intimate tenderness for each breath. Your practice is to consciously breathe in and out, while resting in your core Self one breath at a time. Practice letting your thoughts come and go like drifting clouds. If you wakefully rest in your core Self during one inhalation and one exhalation, this is called complete accomplishment of meditation without regret. If you are taken by your thoughts for a period of time and awaken to felt intimacy with core Self and breath, this is also called complete accomplishment of meditation without regret. Both are equally the true practice of meditation and the precious accomplishment of enlightened life right here and now.
Don’t try to willfully concentrate, empty, or focus your mind, just feel the breath as it enters and fills your body, especially in the center of your lower abdomen. Drop your tendency to judge the weather of your mind. Express your true sincerity by continuing to just return to core Self and intimacy with breath even in the midst of passing thoughts. Gently resting in the center of your lower abdomen know that you are effortlessly being core Self in this Only Moment Body of boundless intimacy and enlightened life right here and now.