Citta 101
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and feeling is like a bubble;
perception is like a mirage,
formations like pithless trees
and consciousness is like a trick
...
No essence is discovered here.
S 22:95 (Pali Canon)
"...the mind's nature is inherently radiant. Its brightness is not something that we have to produce, rather it is the intrinsic nature of mind, the citta." - Ajahn Amaro in Silent Rain
"See the five aggregates to be empty of nature. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are emptiness." - Heart Sutra
Mission
Citta 101 is a support for groups and individuals integrating contemplative approaches into professional life. Our focus is on life experience as contemplative, supported by meditative or phenomenological investigation.
We understand this fullness of experience, developing subtle awareness, as means for reaching our greatest potential as humans responsive to all our environments (biological, physical, social, professional), to be the most fundamental skill one develops short of enlightenment.
Founder
Mary Rees established this website in 1998. She has been teaching contemplative practices since 1989: mindfulness and insight since 1989, integrating mindfulness into professional settings since 1985, and offering relational practice since 2001.
She was active in establishing Insight Meditation Houston (IMH) at its inception in 1988 when Rodney Smith left Houston, and was active in that group as long as Rodney was its Guiding Teacher (until 2001). During those years she maintained its first website; taught beginning courses; organized and managed several retreats a year, including ten day retreats; and initiated the effort to create a retreat center which then developed as an independent facility created through committed work of members of IMH and Houston Zen Community , the Margaret Austin Center.
Mary now works with individuals plumbing the depths of meditative experience incorporating philosophical means, that is accessing preconceptual experiences, usually unnoticed even in meditation, through use of micrphenomenological interviews. She also works collaboratively and internationally in integrating contemplative approaches in science.
