Notes from One Day Guided Meditation by Phra Chun Kiang - 18 October

8 kinds of suffering:

1. Birth

2. Aging

3. Sickness

4. Death

5. Separation from loved ones

6. Associating with people you don't like

7. Not getting what we want

8. The 5 clinging aggregates - form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness - 5 senses + mind

Eg when we see Venerable that is eye consciousness. We see form and feeling arises; pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Mental formations, what the mind starts to think, arise.

Meditation helps us to understand workings of the mind. We are studying ourselves.

Craving for sensual pleasures is greed. 

Craving for becoming is because we don't want to let go of pleasant feelings eg eating something very nice.

Craving for non-becoming is hatred of sth unpleasant. Eg if Venerable scolds us vulgarities we will feel unpleasant as we hate the vulgarities being directed at us.

We should go into meditation with right thought. Some ppl may meditate to get psychic powers which is wrong intention. The benchmark is: are we reducing greed, hatred and delusion?

It is better for a sick patient to go to consult a doctor than to attend health conference. A dhamma talk is like a health conference, a general guideline for many people. It is better to do our own practice and have personal consultation for our issues.

During the retreat we did breath meditation, walking meditation and loving-kindness meditation.

Breath meditation involves being aware of the breath, breathing in and out.

Walking meditation involves focusing on the movement of our feet as we walk.

Loving-kindness meditation involves radiating loving-kindness to ourselves and other beings, wishing all to be well and happy, and free from suffering and danger.