Foster's Mantras

i am allowed to want to feel and be safe.
i am allowed to be angry, express anger.
i am allowed to feel desire.
i am allowed to use coping mechanisms when i don’t have brighter tools available.
it’s hard to feel anger and hurt right now.
feeling angry is part of the human experience. everybody feels anger sometimes.
what can i do for myself in this moment?
peacefulness. love. ease. happiness. bliss.
i want to take care of you.
i don’t want you to suffer.
i care about you.

Easy Guide to Chakras

Crown - Experience of the divine and connection to the universe.

Brow - Awareness blends with intuition to reveal clarity.

Throat - Communication via inner truth. 

Heart - Unconditional love for yourself and others. 

Solar Plexus - Potential to change the world via wisdom, courage and power.

Sacral - Creativity leads to joy, spontaneity, sexuality, passion and freedom to follow desires.

Root - Safety via having necessities met: food, shelter, grounded in the body and connected to Earth.

(Guest Post) Transcend Or Dissociate

Foster: I usually just trade the word "transcend" for "dissociate" and the real message comes through pretty clearly.

Meditation via Orienting

This is a meditation method that works via a process known as orienting.

I go outside, someplace mostly quiet, just sit there, and look around. That's it.

Sometimes, I welcome gentle attention back into my body, to see what's going on, and if it's chaotic in there, I move my attention back out into the world and just ... keep looking around sensing for danger.

A lot of learned fear responses (read trauma) are reactions to things that aren't happening anymore.

This is meant to be a gentle practice, I go outside, find a place to sit and listening to the birds. When I notice myself in a thought, I gently move my attention either back to my body or just continue to look around and notice I'm safe.

v1.1 - Last edit 13-April-2021
© 2021. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license. 

What kind of Meditation Did The Buddha Praise?

“And what kind of meditation did the Blessed One praise? Here, brahmin, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhāna…With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, he enters upon and abides in the second jhāna…With the fading away as well of rapture…he enters upon and abides in the third jhāna…With the abandoning of pleasure and pain…he enters upon and abides in the fourth jhāna…The Blessed One praised that kind of meditation.”

MN 108 - With Gopaka Moggallāna

© 2021. This work is licensed under a CC Zero License. It is public domain.

Ideal Parents Chart -- Daniel Brown & David Elliott

I made a chart based on my targets for ideal parent meditations.

All credit goes to the Original Authors.

Link to the Google Doc (Likely more up-to-date and to remix)

ideal-parent-and-secure-attachment-chart.pdf

Built to go along with these meditation instructions.

Looks like this.

10 Fetter Model of Enlightenment

Theravada is based on the oldest extant texts of Buddhism. Fetters are mental processes that lead towards suffering.

Fetters are in grey.

Starting - Stream-seeker, looking for deliverance/salvation/freedom from suffering.

1. skeptical doubt (of path, the Buddha, the practice, the fruits, etc.)

2. rites and rituals (not understanding mechanics, why stuff works, engaging in practices that don’t relieve suffering)

3. belief or consequences from self-view (basic duality, belief in independent self, belief in a soul, ignorance about basic impersonal causality)

1st Path - Sottapana - Knows what the path is, on the path, using fruit of the path, understands all parts of identity are fair game. Has had a clean taste of arhatship, to show the path isn’t just possible, but inevitable.

First three fetters are removed.

2nd Path - Sakadagami - Understands that craving and aversion drive a lot of unwholesome behaviors – is working to remove them – has a lot of them already removed.

First three fetters removed, ill-will and sense-desire are greatly reduced.

4. ill-will (aversion based on not understanding impersonal causality)

5. sense-desire (craving based on not understanding impersonal causality)

3rd Path - Anagami - Does not experience ill-will, hatred, greed, aversion, craving, or sense-desire. Lives in the sublimes, exits to understand self-ignorance.

First five fetters removed.

6. desire for material rebirth (craving to be someone else, material existence, usually rich)

7. desire for immaterial rebirth (craving to be someplace else, immaterial existence, usually heaven)

8. restlessness (the urge towards doing vs being, inability to accept what is vs what could be)

9. conceit¹ (“I am this. I am better. I am worse. I am the same.”)

10. ignorance (any conditioned action from karma, any gap in full mental and bodily awareness)

4th path - Arhatship - All contents and processes of mind are known, centerless, free from suffering of any kind.

All ten fetters removed.

References (Other Models)

List of Ten Fetters - Sutta Pitaka
Models of the stages of awakening - Daniel Ingram
Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development - Susanne R. Cook-Greuter
Seven Stages of Enlightenment - Thusness/PasserBy’s
Enlightenment - Culadasa
Ten Bhumi Model - Mahayana

v1.3 - Last edit 23-Apr-2022
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1. Conceit (and it’s antidote) is defined in SN 22.89 With Khemaka
   I wrote a blog post on conceit. ↩︎

Mindfulness of Breath - MN 118 Anapanasati

Mindfulness of Breath is the path the Buddha took to reach his Enlightenment. It isn’t the only path, but it’s a popular one, because the breath is always with us.

Breath is triggering for some folx. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s OK. There are effective ways to meditate.

He presents his path in 16 steps, each step building on the previous one. They are:

Body group (Self-regulation and Scope)

1. Breathing in long, they discern, ‘I am breathing in long’; or breathing out long, they discern, ‘I am breathing out long.’

2. Or breathing in short, they discern, ‘I am breathing in short’; or breathing out short, they discern, ‘I am breathing out short.’

3. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.’

4. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.’

Mental Objects (Cultivation and Awareness)

5. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.’

6. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.’

7. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.’

8. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.’

Mind (Container for Mental Objects)

9. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.’

10. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in satisfying the mind.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out satisfying the mind.’

11. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in steadying the mind.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out steadying the mind.’

12. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in releasing the mind.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out releasing the mind.’

Dispassion Traits (Renunciation)

13. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in focusing on inconstancy.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out focusing on inconstancy.’

14. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in focusing on dispassion [literally, fading].’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out focusing on dispassion.’

15. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in focusing on cessation.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out focusing on cessation.’

16. They train themselves, ‘I will breathe in focusing on relinquishment.’ They train themselves, ‘I will breathe out focusing on relinquishment.’

This is based on this Sutta
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN118.html