Luis Burgis
Practice Guide
Practice Guide
  • Practice Guide
  • Skills
    • Foundational Skills
    • Equanimity
      • 1 Calm & Overwhelm
      • 2 Physical Softness & Restlessness
      • 3 Mental Softness & Restlessness
      • 4 Joyful Contentment & Dryness
      • 5 Softening
    • Conditioning
      • Distinguishing Positivity & Negativity
        • Strengthening Virtue
        • Weakening Vice
      • Loving-Kindness
        • Activating Kindness
        • Kindness Self
        • Kindness to All
        • Kindness to Difficult Person
        • Fundamental Kindness
      • Forgiveness
      • Feel Good
    • Sensory Clarity
      • Causality
      • Deconstruction
      • Auto
      • Best Opportunity
      • Enchantment & Disenchantment
    • Attention
      • Shorten Mind Wandering
    • Applied Skills
      • Daily Life
      • Procrastination to Alignment
      • Posture
      • Pain: Reducing Suffering
  • Understanding
    • System Design
    • Conditioning
  • Interviews
    • Coming Soon
  • ☀️Luis Burgis
  • ☀️Happy Virtues
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Understanding Softening
  • Practice Visual
  • Guided Practice
  • Core Instructions
  1. Skills
  2. Equanimity

4 Joyful Contentment & Dryness

Last updated 1 month ago

Understanding Softening

Practice Visual

Guided Practice

Core Instructions

What

Enjoying Contentment by releasing the effort underlying discontentment and gradually enchanting your mind with it

Benefits

  • Contentment

  • Enjoying Now

  • Mental Calm

  • Recognizing Mental Restlessness & Discontentment

    • e.g., Discontentment, Frustration, Anxiety, Anger

  • Recognizing 'Effort' within Mind

Progress

  • Sensory Clarity to necessary & excessive effort underlying Discontentment & Contentment

  • Ability to release excessive effort

  • Ability to enjoy the release of effort

  • Ability to enjoy contentment

Instructions

Weakening Discontentment

  1. Notice or Activate Discontentment

  2. Notice Tension in the area behind the eyes

  3. Notice Effort underlying

  4. Recognize Disadvantage

  5. Release the effort underlying tension & discontentment

  6. Notice Discontentment Weakening & Contentment Strengthening

    1. e.g., Activity weakening, pausing or drop completely

  7. Recognize Advantage

  8. Enjoy

  9. Until it fades & repeat

Strengthening Contentment

  1. Notice or Activate Contentment

  2. Notice Softness in the area behind the eyes

  3. Notice Effortlessness

  4. Recognize Advantage

  5. Softening into it

  6. Enjoy

  7. Until it Fades & Repeat

Consider

Subtleties

  • Discontentment & Contentment may require patience to develop one's sensitivity towards clearly perceiving them

  • Discontentment manifests as unpleasantness, a desire to control, wanting reality to be a certain way, pushing the unpleasant away, pulling the pleasant towards you

  • Contentment manifests as pleasure, allowing experience to be however it wants to be

Necessary & Excessive Effort

  • Excessive effort is based on non-equanimity i.e., resistance towards your present sensory experience

  • Necessary effort varies depending on the situation and is based on equanimity

    • e.g., thinking about what your next steps are, curious about the pleasure of relief

Enjoy :)

  • Maintaing Contentment and noticing its effortlessness, softness, gently smiling into it will gradually support the enjoyment of contentment

  • Pointing your mind towards the benefit of releasing of effort via enjoying the experience

Daily Life

  • Check in throughout the day about any discontentment and their excessive underlying effort

  • Release the effort, enjoying the relief

Acknowledgement

MIDL
Drawing