When the Buddha taught the four foundations of mindfulness, part of the way he instructed students to be mindful of the body was through the lens of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air. These elements are not mystical and need not represent an archaic way of looking at substances. Instead, they are useful tools for looking deeply into the nature of the body and our experience in it. In this talk, I discuss two useful ways of working with the elements in meditation practice, and I share my personal experiences of working with anxiety and fear using these methods.
This talk was go even to the online sangha of the Boundless Freedom Project. For those interested, the Boundless Freedom Project is an organization that focuses on sharing mindfulness and the Dharma with incarcerated people. In fact, the Boundless Freedom Project is the modern iteration of Buddhist Pathways Prison Project, the same organization that sent volunteers into Folsom State Prison, where I first sat in sangha and heard the story of the Buddha told. We meet online every Thursday evening at 6pm Pacific (here is the Zoom link).
