Cristof tells his experience with Vipassana meditation, first as taught by S.N. Goenka, then how Ajahn Brahm added pieces to the mosaic, and finally how Bhante Vimalaramsi rounded off the picture.

Entering the first Jhana is simply the result of letting go. Letting go of what? Letting go of sensual pleasures like seeing, hearing or tasting, as well as of unwholesome thoughts. When body and mind are thus aligned, our meditation experience can reach new depths.

Today we reflected about the forgiveness meditation instructions of Bhante Vimalaramsi from last week, and how we made use of them in everyday life in the last week. We did that privately in our Zoom session only, then opened the guided meditation to all on YouTube.

We’re honored to be having Bhante Vimalaramsi visit our session today, exactly six months after his first visit to the High Country Meditators. We’re learning from him how to do forgiveness meditation correctly, a powerful tool to forgive ourselves, others, and lift burdens off our shoulders to live happily.

This week we review meditation instructions by Bhante Vimalaramsi: the 6 R’s. Recognize, Release, Relax, Re-Smile, Return, Repeat. We’re reading from Bhante’s book The Anapanasati Sutta, downloadable for free.

Mens sana in corpore sano - goes the often quoted Latin saying: which is best translated in meaning as a healthy mind can only live in a healthy body. Do you want to know who came up with that?

Last week, we started learning about the “Four Divine Abodes” for the mind. The first one is unconditional love, which doesn’t expect anything in return. This week, we look at the other three: compassion, joy, and equanimity.

I would like to let a master explain what metta is and how it fits in with Buddha’s teaching and meditation practice. So, I am reading you today from the book “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching” by Thich Nhat Hanh.

In today’s talk, we are blessed to welcome Bhante Vimalaramsi and hear him speak about life, meditation, the 6 R’s, and how to keep a light mind. The talk includes a very informative and inspiring Q&A session.

We are so delighted that many of you have found the 6Rs to be a breakthrough in your practice. But there were also some questions that arose about the 6Rs.

Last week, we learned from Bhante Vimalaramsi about adding smiling and relaxing to the active part of the process of meditation. Today, I want to let Ajahn Brahm chime in. He’s big on smiling, enjoying, and relaxing during meditation. We often hear him say: “Relax. To the max.”

During the last eight months we have been meditating weekly together. So how is your meditation practice unfolding for you? We have come across a new monk whom we didn't know about a week ago. He taught us something that we have been missing in our meditation practice.