“The Dance of Proactive and Nonreactive Meditation” this Sunday with Benjamin Hohl

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

This Sunday Benjamin Hohl will lead an exploration of the theme “The Dance of Proactive and Nonreactive Meditation” based on Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu’s essay “The Agendas of Mindfulness” (excerpt below). All are welcome! Registration and Zoom information available here.

…Sometimes mindfulness is translated as non-reactive awareness, free from agendas, simply present with whatever arises, but the formula for satipaṭṭhāna [foundation of mindfulness] doesn’t support that translation. Non-reactive awareness is actually part of equanimity, one of many qualities fostered in the course of satipaṭṭhāna, but the ardency involved in satipaṭṭhāna definitely has an agenda, a task to be done, while the role of mindfulness is to keep your task in mind…

The final [Awakening F]actor is equanimity, and its place in the list is significant. Its non-reactivity is fully appropriate only when the more active factors have done what they can. This is true of all the lists in which equanimity is included. It’s never listed on its own, as sufficient for Awakening; and it always comes last, after the pro-active factors in the list. This doesn’t mean that it supplants them, simply that it joins in their interaction. Instead of replacing them, it counterbalances them, enabling you to step back and see subtle levels of stress and craving that the more pro-active factors may have obscured. Then it makes room for the pro-active factors to act on the newly discovered levels. Only when all levels of stress and craving are gone is the work of both the pro-active and non-reactive sides of meditation done. That’s when the mind can be truly agenda-free.

It’s like learning to play the piano. As you get more pro-active in playing proficiently, you also become sensitive in listening non-reactively, to discern ever more subtle levels in the music. This allows you to play even more skillfully. In the same way, as you get more skilled in establishing mindfulness on your chosen frame of reference, you gain greater sensitivity in peeling away ever more subtle layers of the present moment until nothing is left standing in the way of total release.

With metta (loving-kindness),
Minneapolis Insight