Nature of the Mind with Glen Svensson

What is the nature of the mind? Why do we need to understand and realize this? Currently we are slaves of our mind - dominated by mental afflictions such as anger, craving, and confusion and often overwhelmed by negative thoughts, emotions, and memories. As such, we experience a lot of dissatisfaction and suffering in our life. By coming to realize the conventional nature of our mind - that our mind is clear and knowing - we tap into the clarity, stillness and bliss already present within our mind but obscured by our mental afflictions. Thus, we begin to heal our agitated dysfunctional mind, achieve emotional balance and become masters of our mind.
During the Friday evening and Saturday sessions we will describe and practice various meditations that will enable us to realize the nature of our mind. In particular, we will be placing special emphasis on the shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state - the practice of simply observing the mind and all the mental events arising within the mind - as means to realize the conventional nature of the mind. We will also introduce the shamatha practice of awareness of awareness - the practice of simply resting in awareness - particularly as a basis for the vipashyana practice of investigating the underlying ultimate nature of the mind. Finally, we will look at how all these various practices can be integrated into our daily life so that we can progress in the practice and thereby receive maximum benefit from them.