We received this beautiful video letter of gratitude recently, which touched our hearts deeply.
So we wanted to share it here as we feel it represents a universal expression of gratitude and appreciation, which is not about ‘us’, but points to and touches into the deep movement of Love, Truth and Beauty that permeates this world, this heart — right here to be felt and tuned-in to.
Many thanks to Itai for giving permission to share it, and for his beautiful words springing from the heart.
Below is a recent podcast interview with Ayya Jitindriyā on the subject of Buddhism and Psychotherapy. The interviewer is Sol Hanna, from Western Australia, who hosts the Treasure Mountain Podcast.
Just click on the image below to link to the podcast platform and listen…
Dear Friends,
It is with great sadness that we let you know our dear little Catty, ‘Sumudu’, passed away yesterday (18th Jan.) after a brief illness. The likely cause, it seems, was infection by a paralysis tick. Even though we never found one on her or in the house, the vet said that all the symptoms matched that illness and speed of decline.
Our dear friend is sorely missed, and will be for quite a while. As a mature feline, she emanated such love and presence that she was always a source of pure joy and a cause for the emergence of spontaneous loving care. Her contented ‘beingness’ reflected the purity of consciousness itself, (well, 99.9% of the time)! Admittedly, she still had some preferences, and would let us know without hesitation when she wasn’t pleased with a meal offering served up from time to time… But, her old body had particular needs – like all of us! She was a grand 22 years of age, so, finding what supported her well-being was a pleasure.
Viveka Hermitage feels so much emptier without her physical presence… and it will take some getting used to, as she has been here since its instigation and was a significant part of our little community! But, in recollecting the Dhamma, we are remembering the unswerving truth of anicca – change and uncertainty – in all forms, in all conditioned things, and the life-lesson of not clinging to, not identifying with any manifestation of the khandas, whether as so-called ‘self-forms’ or ‘other-forms’.
And, while feeling the sadness of her loss, we are remembering too that it was the very essence of loving-conscious-awareness that emanated from Catty which was/is her true essence – as it is with any and all of us – that true nature which never dies, is never separate, has never been born, is never truly affected by changing conditions, even as the kammic forms undergo the cycle of change. This is the truth and essence of her being, as it is the truth and essence underlying all forms of being. Her little being was just so good at reflecting that ever-loving-presence in her form-being!
So, we are grateful for her gift of Dhamma and the time we shared together – grateful for her uncomplicated loving presence, and bless her passing out-of-form as a release from aging, illness, and the confines of death-bound phenomena. May she rest in perfect peace – may she fully rest in the ultimate nature of nibbana – the deathless – the liberation of, and from, all cycling forms.
Happy New Year to you all!
On the 11th of February this year, we offered a one-day online retreat live on YouTube. It has been archived so those of you who couldn’t join live can participate whenever it’s convenient for you. Everything you need to know is below. Enjoy!
Cultivating Mindfulness & Wisdom
A One-Day Online Retreat with Samaneri Jayasāra and Ayya Jitindriyā
On YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara
The cultivation of mindfulness, full awareness and wisdom are central to the path of awakening as taught by the Buddha. In this online day retreat, Samaneri Jayasāra and Ayya Jitindriyā offer teachings and guided meditations based on mindfulness practice, supporting the development of calm and insight, and integrating it into our daily lives.
We encourage participants doing the whole retreat in a day to practice observing noble silence for the duration if possible, as this really helps deepen the practice. There are periods of Q&A (recorded from the ‘live’ sessions) both in the late morning and afternoon sessions . The whole retreat (in 4 video sessions) is archived on Samaneri Jayasara’s YouTube channel for you to engage in whenever it suits you.
See the retreat schedule below, and the links to the Retreat playlist on YouTube.
Download Flyer and Retreat Schedule here
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Retreat Schedule
Session 1:
8:30am: Introduction, Dhamma reflection & guided meditation
9:45am: Walking meditation (30mins)
10:15am: Tea Break
Session 2:
10:45am: Guided meditation + Q&A
12:00pm: LUNCH BREAK
Session 3:
1:30pm: Dhamma reflection & guided meditation
2:30pm: Walking meditation (30mins)
3:00pm: Tea Break
Session 4:
3:30pm: Guided meditation + Q&A
4:45pm: Closing dedications and end of Live retreat
NB: For those who wish to continue the retreat practice into the evening to make a full day, we’ve provided links below for two guided meditations with Dhamma reflections. The first is from Ajahn Chah, and the second from Ajahn Dune, two great Masters from the Thai Forest Tradition. These talks are read by Samaneri Jayasāra and have been especially selected for the final sessions of this retreat. Listen to one or both, as you like.
Link to: ‘Developing Samadhi’ – by Ajahn Chah (62 mins)
Link to: ‘The Method of Developing Bhavana’ – by Ajahn Dune (44mins)
~ May all beings be well ~
Over the years, many people have enquired of us about how to work with challenging emotional states, such as anger or depression, anxiety or grief. These are very human experiences that we all encounter at least at some stage in our lives, if not on a more regular basis. Meditators are not immune to these emotional experiences, and in fact, when we start a spiritual practice, we may even come into contact more strongly with mind-states and emotions that we haven’t seen so clearly before.
Its important in our spiritual practice not to disassociate or cut-off from emotions with the idea that we should be more ‘detached’ or ‘above’ such things. But rather, we can develop an attitude of real interest in them in order to begin to understand these states with wisdom. We also, of course, need to develop the heart qualities of kindness and compassion to fully embrace such experiences without judgement, as resistance merely sharpens the pain.
Ayya Jitindriyā has created a series of guided contemplations and meditations which offer a way of working with some of this more challenging emotional terrain that we encounter in life. The series invites us and guides us to come more fully into presence with these emotional experiences, allowing them to transform… and in the process, to transform us – into more fully integrated, balanced and wise human beings.
While the approach in the guided practice is aimed at supporting those in the midst of such states to come out the other side with a deeper understanding and a more peaceful heart, they may also prove beneficial for those who wish to process and understand more deeply these experiences from a recollective perspective (i.e. if not currently feeling too impacted by them). Regardless of your current mind-state however, we hope you’ll find them helpful resources!
You’ll find this new series on the ‘Guided Meditations’ page of this website (under the ‘Resources’ tab), and we’ve also linked to it here.
Here is a new set of Q & A’s which you might find helpful.
These questions from listeners and friends of Viveka Hermitage have been selected to share here as their topics would be of general interest to our audience, and some go very deep. They have arisen either in response to teachings uploaded on the ‘Wisdom of the Masters’ YouTube channel or from our live meditation sessions.
Just click on the question-links below to find the full questions and our responses… In some cases they are quite long, more like a back-and-forth conversation.
They have also been added to our Q & A page, found here.
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On Consciousness…
On Death, Fear and Practice…
On Awareness…
On Emptiness and Not-self…
Q: Is jhana [meditative absorption] the emptiness of anatta [not-self]?…
On Abstaining from Intoxicants…
On Thinking…
Q: We can’t stop our thinking, can we? Or is it our wrong thoughts that ‘obscure the mind’ for us?…
As the new year of 2023 approaches, (and as ‘time’ seems to be rolling by with increased speed and vigour), it brings forth some reflections and inquiry into the experience of ‘time’, the perception of ‘years passing’, what moves the ‘mind’, and the mystery of what it is to ‘be’ at all.
In this current age, with IT and AI increasingly at the centre of our lives, in some respects it is a world barely recognisable from the years preceding the advent of the world-wide-web… Or is it?
While the overall data processing has picked up a huge pace – in both the incoming and outgoing streams, whether via artificial or innate intelligence – the flavour of the content when scrutinised appears to be much the same as it ever was, albeit some in thinly-veiled disguise. As an apparently evolving species we may ‘feel’ like we are progressing… but are we, for the most part, merely travelling in circles as ever before, in repeating cycles of habitual activity and reactivity?
While in some respects we are exploring many new frontiers of knowledge and socialisation, if one were to judge by the outer signs – in the news and social medias, in popular discourse, in geo-political posturings, in the various outer expressions of humanity – one can easily find evidence of the same forces playing out as ever before.
The Buddha’s breakdown of the forces that move us, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a simple yet profound way to understand what’s going on both in and around us, and also how to carve a path out of the mire of repeated cycles of reactivity that lead to dukkha [Pali] – the experience of unsatisfactoriness, suffering, or stress.
‘There are the three roots of the unwholesome…. and the three roots of the wholesome…’ (ref: AN 3.69 – https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.069.than.html )
Basically, the three roots of the unwholesome, or unskilful are: greed/covetousness; hatred/aversion; and delusion/confusion. And the three roots of the wholesome, or skilful are their opposites: non-greed; non-hatred; and non-delusion.
When acting with a mind that is influenced by any of these mental states, we either dig ourselves into the mire of more dukkha and stress, or dig our way out of that mire. It’s that simple really.
The Buddha, with his fully awakened vision, understood that:
“Mind is the forerunner of all conditioned states. Mind is their chief, mind-made are they. If one acts or speaks with an unskilful mind, suffering follows them like the cart-wheel that follows the hoof of the ox. [Or]… If one acts or speaks with a skilful mind, happiness follows them like their never-departing shadow.” Dhp 1.1-2
There’s a lot to be understood here. The fact that the mind itself (or mind-states more accurately) is what fashions our experience, and that by understanding the forces at play in the mind we can influence our experience, both in the here-and-now and in the resultant conditions to come. Within this territory alone lays the path of awakening, the path to freedom.
Choose any human volition you wish to examine, any display of the human mind in its various expressions, whether internally or externally, and you will find these primary influencers of greed/desire, hatred/aversion, delusion/confusion, or non-greed (kindness), non-hatred (compassion), non-delusion (wisdom) at the root of those expressions of body, speech and mind.
Mind often has a mixture of these influencers infiltrating it – rarely just all bad or all good… this is called ‘a mixture of black and white karma’ – which we all experience to some degree or other. And it is a constantly changing show. But the roots of the wholesome grow with our beginning to discern these influencers within our own minds and hearts, and explore how to bring about a more wholesome balance – regularly reflecting on the current mental states and giving rise to wholesome/skilful intentions of kindness, compassion, generosity and understanding, especially where we see their opposites at play.
It may feel like we are completely under the sway of unskilful influencers in the mind at times, but as soon as we recognise them, with the intention to understand and grow beyond, we are already well on the path to ditching the way of dukkha! We have the power in fact, to transform any moment with our understanding of this territory, with our cultivation of right view, right effort, and right mindfulness (ref: MN 117). This is the path of freedom the Buddha articulated. But it has to be engaged to be seen and known and realised.
So what is this sense of ‘time’ and ‘time passing’ in reality? And who is it that is caught up in it? Apart from the conventional agreements of the social norm in accepting the solar or lunar calendar methods of marking time and regulating our behaviour, in the main, the sense of time seems inextricably bound up with patterns of perception (memory/labels and imagination) relating to ‘past’ and ‘future’, with the stream of mental movement and its habitual referencing of a concept of ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’. But can time ever be pinned down? Can space ever be pinned down? Can ‘I’ ever be pinned down? Can awareness ever be pinned down? In fact, can any perceived thing ever be pinned down?
This is a contemplative inquiry, something to be actively looked into… For only then can we see the truth of these things for ourselves. Only then can we free ourselves of illusory bonds, of illusory habit patterns of mind, of illusory influencers of mind… Only then can we wake up to the truth of reality – in the sense of seeing and knowing what keeps us in a state of stress or unsatisfactoriness, or what releases the mind from the sense of being caught in the cycling of repeated stress, discontent, or suffering.
The world we live in is indeed a challenge at times, but no matter what, it is in that very same place we find ourselves that we can awaken. Awakening is awakening out of habit patterns, awakening to conscious awareness here-and-now; it is the place of freedom, and the place of transformation…. The place of place-less-ness and time-less-ness – because it is ever-new, not caught in past-travelling-to-future perceptions running on auto-pilot… but a portal to freedom – where love, kindness, compassion and wisdom are born; where peace can truly be found and felt, even amidst a world of apparent challenges. Waking up is as profound, yet as simple as that!
May 2023 be a year of transformation in your world, where this love, kindness, compassion and wisdom spring forth evermore, bringing relief to all who know and meet these truths.
With deep appreciation for your practice and commitment to truth, and with deepest gratitude to the awakened masters who compassionately guide us to this portal.
With love,
Jitindriya, Jayasara, and ever-purring Cat
Below is the full video interview just released from the makers of the Deep Transformation Podcast, a discussion with Samaneri Jayasara about her ‘Wisdom Of the Master’s’ YouTube channel — how it began, her inspirations, what drew her to Buddhism, and more…
(NB: We previously posted a link to the edited podcast version a few months ago, which you can find here…)
Greetings dear Dhamma friends.
Today we are entering the traditional vassa period (rains-retreat season). This is an ancient tradition observed by Buddhist monastic communities everywhere (originating in Asia, during the three-month monsoon period each year). The vassa season commences on the first day of the waning moon of the eighth lunar month – this year being the 14th July.
This tradition predates the time of Gautama Buddha. It was a long-standing custom for mendicant ascetics in India not to travel during the rainy season as they may unintentionally harm crops, insects or even themselves during their travels. Although many Buddhist ascetics and monastics (like us) now live in regions that don’t have a monsoon season, it is still a tradition that is observed by the larger Buddhist community as it provides a structured opportunity to focus more on intensive meditation practice and to spend more time in solitude. The Buddha encouraged his disciples to continue to observe this period of practice and to limit travel outside of the monastery or hermitage where one was residing.
Although we live a fairly simple life at Viveka Hermitage, just maintaining a hermitage and our various web resources entails ongoing responsibilities. We also established Viveka Hermitage only one year ago and the property needed some work and TLC, so there have been quite a few things to do which has kept us relatively busy. But now we have this wonderful opportunity of the vassa retreat for more solitude and focus on formal meditation practice.
For many people, being alone for long periods of time and observing noble silence for much of the day would be a torture. But for some, like us, who are more hermitic types, we look forward to the vassa retreat each year. Solitude and quietude provide such potent conditions for settling the mind and for allowing insight into Dhamma to arise. After an initial settling-in period and an adjustment to less sensory input, I always find that many ‘knots’ naturally unravel and everything loosens and softens. The body likes it, the mind appreciates it, and the heart begins to open more and more.
What more can be said about the benefits of solitude that hasn’t already been eloquently expressed by the Masters? All the great spiritual Masters spent long periods in solitude because the benefits for deep meditation are recognized and valued. Without periods of solitude, I doubt many of them would have developed and accessed the profound wisdom and compassion they displayed and shared. The Pali word ‘Viveka’ actually has the meaning of solitude/seclusion, so the name of our Hermitage reflects the inspiration and motivation for setting up this place.
Viveka is not just about physical solitude though, it also means solitude of the mind/heart from the habitual and ongoing proliferations, imaginations, desires, and aversions. It is about finding that place within that remains equanimous and unmoved by all the sensory input – sights, sounds, smells, thought impressions, emotional reactions, and so on. Ultimately, this kind of solitude is something that can be cultivated by everyone, even within a busy daily life. It’s something that can develop as one becomes more stable in the practice of Dhamma. Therefore, periods of alone time each day can be a wonderful support for our practice and give us the boost we need to meet the various demands that come our way.
So, for this next period of time (until mid-October), you may hear a little less from us; however, we will be with you at the deepest level of Dhamma connection and will share some reflections along the way with you too.
Wishing you all wellness of body, mind and heart; and may you find, or build-in, some periods of quiet and solitude in your life (even just five minutes here and there if that’s all you can find for now), to recharge your energy, renew your commitment and motivation to realizing the Dhamma, and to heal and nourish your hearts.
With much mettā,
Jayasāra, Jitindriyā, and ‘Cat’
BTW, you might find the latest guided meditation we’ve uploaded called ‘Silence and Stillness’ supportive for practice. May it help you discover the silence within.
This brief video was created by Jayasara and Jitindriya to convey and enhance these beautiful reflections on Love by Emmet Fox.
