Metta-Vipassana: Seeing Clearly & Responding Wisely

The Buddha offered the cultivation of mindfulness as the direct path to liberating wisdom. Through observing our thoughts, emotions, and feelings in present awareness, we develop insight and familiarity with our inner landscape. However, we are often looking at our direct experience through the lens of aversion, fear, obsession, etc... "HOW" we focus on our present experience is just as important as what we are paying attention to. With mindfulness, we learn to bring a gentle, kind, & friendly attitude to the practice of present time awareness. Mindfulness is, and should always be, looked at in the context of the Buddhist ethical basis of "non-harming". Buddhist meditation asked us, how can we look into our own hearts and minds with a kind & gentle quality of awareness? How can we learn to befriend the mind?