“The Tracks We Lay” with Benjamin This Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

This Sunday, Benjamin will lead a practice and exploration of the theme “The Tracks We Lay,” as an extension of what Jane offered last week on Wise Understanding.

We will anchor our exploration on this succinct teaching of the Buddha:

“Whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind.”

— MN 19, Dvedhāvitakka Sutta, trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Ajahn Sucitto offers a vivid image for how these inclinations form:

“What may have begun as your own impulse, or someone else's that you followed or reacted to, gets embedded — and creates a track in the citta's field. Then fresh physical or verbal actions move down that path. To use an analogy: a wild pig, alarmed or excited by something or another, darts through the undergrowth in a forest. It thereby creates a track. Other pigs, and deer, see that track and walk down it. The track widens and becomes established. You're wandering through the forest, see the track, and, as it represents an easy way through the undergrowth, you also use it. The track becomes a path and eventually a road. Cars drive down it, so that even when the forest is cut down, there is no other way to travel. You're not familiar with the wider territory. Eventually, because the road is convenient, you build your house beside it. That’s how it is: the mind keeps running down sankhara tracks that were established through a careless impulse, or by chance, or even by other people.”

— Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma

We will explore how mindfulness helps us notice these tracks of the heart and mind, and how intention gives us the possibility of choosing to walk a different path.

All are welcome. Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight

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