Correcting the Foundations

Ajahn Sucitto starts from the impatience of waiting for the pandemic to end and what it shows about becoming, the habit of living toward a future. He argues that our world is put together by mental attention, that the mind keeps making an identity, and that social roles and ideas of who we are give no foundation to stand on. The baseline he offers instead is direct experience.

He proposes building on virtue joined with lovingkindness, since virtue without it is only law, and treats good and unwholesome states as energies that can be felt in the mind. He compares attention to a finger placed on an experience to feel and listen, not to push. He recommends recollecting awakening, and ends by moving into meditation.