We review briefly our previous practices and investigations of body practices in the last three weeks. We then focus on the body's connection with mind and heart, how we practice individually with each of them, how we explore the dynamic relationship of body, mind, heart. We end by focusing on heart practices for our bodies and those of others, and on opening to the further mysteries of bodies.
After a brief review of the first two series, we focus on body practices to develop insight into 1) impermanence, 2) suffering and the roots of suffering, and 3)constructions of self. We suggest several concrete practices to develop wisdom through awareness of bodily experience.
The journey and thread that weaves through each,... one begets and is of the other... how Valentines day and Presidents day can lead us to Awakening...
We review and expand the themes from last time- the importance of body practices for our times and lives, exploring our attitudes toward the body and developing basic body practices. Then we focus on mindfulness of the body, outlining several further practices and emphasizing especially how body practices help us practice more fully and critically in the flow of the daily life.
The body is the doorway to great transformation and mystery. Practicing with awareness of the body is central to grounding our practice in a highly mental culture. We explore 1) the importance of body-based practice, 2) our cultural and personal attitudes toward our bodies, and 3) a set of initial body practices.
James and co-writer of Awakening Joy Shoshana Alexander, plus many friends from the 10-month course--dharma teachers, happiness experts, neuroscientists, musicians and more--share their thoughts on true happiness. This is the PM Session which includes Syvia Boorstein, and Anam Thubten Rinpoche.
The Buddha's teaching on views and beliefs is radical, pointing to how we might investigate our attachments to and grasping after views and come to hold views much more lightly. How do we practice with views? We offer a number of further perspectives, from the Buddha and Nagarjuna, and practices to work with views.
The Buddha spoke highly of the value of Sangha, as a refuge and a support for practice & understanding. This talk explores what Sangha is & its positive values.
We explore the nature of "views" (or strong beliefs or opinions) and how to practice with them by 1) grounding ourselves in some of the famous passages on views in the teachings of the Buddha, 2)identifying why and how views can be problematic and lead to suffering, and 3) offering practices this week to explore our views, whether personal, political or religious/spiritual.
We look at the nature of distraction- not attending to what is our intended focus- in three main ways, each of which we can respond to: 1) our distraction moment to moment and how we train in mindfulness, 2) our distraction in our everyday lives, and 3) how our lives become distracted in relation to our deeper intentions.
After a short account of emptiness and how we cultivate a deeper understanding of it in very practical ways, we explore the nature of compassion. We look at how it can be developed and what forms it can take, all the time pointing to how mature compassion invloves a deep sense of emptiness and interconnection (and vice versa).
We review the teachings on emptiness in the context of the broader teachings on the centrality of developing wisdom and compassion, expanding our examination of these teachings from last time. The last part of the session involving doing several exercises, partly explaining experience as a flowing "stream" (and seeing what obstructs the flow) and partly doing a series of four exercises with "ordinary objects" designed to take us out of our ordinary way of constructing things.
We first review basic perspectives on emptiness and compassion and then explore three basic ways to access emptiness: 1) being with inner flow of experience and seeing where self and fixation occur, 2) opening to the "flow experience" in activities and relationships and 3) cultivating a sense of interconnection
We examine the teaching of seeing the emptiness of self and things and how this, in its mature expression, is compassionate activity. We suggest simple practices to explore this sometimes confusing teaching, and everyday examples of how emptiness and compassion come together.
Discussing the integral nature of spiritual practice and action in the world. This is part III, the question and answer period for the evening discussion.
In the context of previous talks, we explore intention practice in three ways: 1.) understanding the importance of intention in our practice and in life 2.) cultivating intention as aspiration- being in touch with deeper intentions, and 3.) working with intentions moment to moment and in specific activities.
We continue to look at work and service as a path, naming some key aspects of this path: 1. general intention that our work and service be practice for ourselves and others, 2.connecting inner and outer practice, 3. identifying core challenges and "obstacles", 4.developing awakened qualities and 5. establishing community support for this path.
We may understand and express our spiritual practice as helping others. What does such a path look like? What are some of the challenges and issues? We name burnout, self-righteousness, being overwhelmed, attachment to outcome, etc. and begin to explore how to work with these challenges.
We are each the star of our own movie. Practice invites us to honor every member of the cast of characters in our life, remembering that they have their own reality. And through it all we can wake up from the dream.
We continue to explore 1) being mindful when a wind is present; 2) the nature of the winds; 3) responding skilfully.
We add an emphasis on resting in what is deeper and examine several issues that arise in practicing with the winds
An examination of how we practice with pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame; with stories referring to Buddha's teaching + discussion.
Patience and Wisdom as part of our continuing exploration of the Path of Sila, Morality, and one of the main components of the overall path to wisdom.
Next week's class will continue and the weeks following will complete the Paramita sequence.
We review and fill out some of the themes from part I, why it is important and yet often confusing to work with anger; and several guidelines and tools (mindfulness, reflection, heart practices) for practicing with anger individually. We add an overview of how to practice with anger in relational an social contexts with others, focusing especially on skillful speech.
For many of us, it is hard to know how to practice with anger. We explore some of the reasons for confusion about anger, including the mixed messages we get about anger in many settings, the different connotations of what is translated as "anger" East and West, and the conditioning around anger. We then outline three ways of more "inner" work with anger, through 1) mindfulness, 2) reflections and 3) heart practices like lovingkindness, compassion and forgiveness.
We first revisit the exploration of the shadow, how it forms, and how we work with it, we then look into the nature of collective shadow phenomena, how the personal and collective shadow inter-penetrate, and how we work with the collective shadow. The key, as always, is to establish a relatively safe space to develop awareness, compassion and wisdom, leading to skillful action.
The shadow as it relates to spiritual practice. That which does not fit the self image is excluded and becomes part of one's shadow. Reactivity as in indication that shadow material is in play. We explore ways in which a fixed self of is linked to shadow.
As human beings, we move between the boundless, profound dimensions and the more mundane, worldly realms of body and mind. How do we in our practice cultivate an openness and receptivity to our boundless nature and not be so caught in our mind.
Exploring the shadow - personal, relational, and collective - is one way to work through the deep structure of ignorance. We explore the nature of the shadow, the phenomenon of projection, and several ways to practice with the shadow.
Mindfulness practice and the body - Learning to cultivate the awareness of the body as temple, as mystery and as a vehicle for mindfulness and awakening
We continue to explore the cultivation of equanimity by focusing especially on how we keep balance and, increasingly, unshakability with the eight worldly winds of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, and praise and blame. We also focus on the qualities of understanding, joy and faith found in mature equanimity, with stories from Martin Luther Kind, Jr., Etty Hillesun and more treatment of multiple near-enemies of equnimity.
Mudita practice both opens us to joy and extends that joy beyond our usual boundaries, transforming our conditions that limit joy to a limited circle and focus on the negative. We explore some of the roots of this personal and social conditioning and end by identifying some of the qualities of mature joy.
Dialogue between Rabbi Jeff Roth and Sylvia Boorstein about the expression of Dharma truths using a Jewish idiom. Rabbi Roth is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioner Program.
How does our meditation practice relate to the natural world? How does nature support our awakening. This talk explores how nature supports us to be more aware & develop awe, wonder, love, appreciation, peace and connectedness.
We explore the practice of Mudita in the context of the other three Brahmaviharaas; seeing how it goes again both self-centered joy and tendencies to focus on problems or what is "wrong" in a situation. There is some guidance in the formal mudita practice, as well as more general cultivation of joy.
We continue to explore the practices to develop, examining the nature of compassion - its relationship to the other brahmaviharas, the receptive and active dimensions of compassion, the near and far enemies; how we might practice compassion in the world - interpersonally and socially; and the relationship of compassion and wisdom.
The practice of compassion can occur both as a formal practice - one of the four practices of the Brahmaviharas - and as an everyday practice in the context of our lives. Compassion practice works because it helps us to to open to our deeper being. Yet to do this, we have to learn also to open to pain - and suffering - understood as the reaction to pain.
What is Equanimity? Why is it so difficult to be at ease in difficult circumstances. What supports this beautiful quality of the heart and how does it relate to metta (love), compassion and appreciative joy.
The dharma teaches that the quality of our relationships is totally a function of our state of mind, and our ability not to contend with our experience.
The intrinsic nature of mind is naturally lucid, aware, bright, open, empty and cling free. It is only temporarily limited or corrupted by being mixed with adventitious obscurations.
Lama Surya Das explains & elucidates natural meditation, nowness-awareness, how to sit and gage and be, and explains his original four kinds of mindfulness.
A central attitude of dharma practice is learning to open to experience instead of the typical contraction of grasping at pleasant or aversion towards unpleasant. Qualitites of opening include forgiveness, patience, sense of humor, presence and loving kindness are explored.
In this time of darkness between Solstice and the New Year, it is a wonderful time for reflection, quiet and renewal - in our practice and in our lives generally. We explore a number of factors and practices that support renewal and post three questions at the end to help open us up to what renewal means for each of us
After a review of four guidelines for practicing with fear, we explore more deeply the nature of fear, including many of the more unconscious ways that we carry fear, as well as the biological basis of fear. We also examine the relationship of fear to a sense of self, and of opening into fearlessness.
We continue to explore the nature of fear and how to practice with fear, with several stories and a deeper look at how fear appears. Fear is not the problem - our unskillful way of reacting to fear with confusion and repetitive negative stories is what we explore and transform.
Although I have been teaching the Dharma and Mindfulness practice for many years, it is the watching and being with what is present silently that has taken me full circle.
Transformation Beyond the Constricted Self
After a review of teachings about not-self, and an exploration of the ways that the self appears as an overlay on, or constriction of, the flow of experience, we look in this final talk at what si there when a constrictive self is absent: 1) individuality without identification, 2) awareness, 3) wmptiness of phenomena and self, and 4) compassion and responsiveness.
We first review the basic teachings on self and not-self, exploring the possible confusion and the paradoxes, as well as the teaching of the five skardhas. We then explore three main forms through through which the self appears.
Is there a self?? To explore these questions is to enter the territory of paradox. We investigate how to understand both conventional and conceptual approaches to self....
A discussion of "complaining" -what is the wise response to feelings of despair, dismay - and that experience of feeling victimized when one knows that no "one" is a victim.
Mindfulness of the body goes against the grain of our culture yet is fundamental for most of us to bring awareness, compassion and wisdom to daily life. We explore some of the transformation possible through mindfulness of the body.
Looking at the similarities between creativity and dharma practice with a focus on being comfortable with the unknown and the willingness to surprise yourself.
Dakinis are activity aspects of awakened mind. Outwardly the dakini can support, nurture and protect us. She also can show up to cut through conceptuality. Ultimately dakini is the wisdom aspect of our own minds; the openness aspect that is the space for and is inseparable with everything that is. When this aspect is realized all phenomena, all experience become workable, eventually blissful. True nature is wisdom, openness, compassion and love.
The training precepts can be utilized for living the dharma in daily life, but to be most effective they need a foundation of faith and intention. Also, by stating the precepts positively and in an expanded fashion, we can find new opportunities for mindfulness and insight.
The first of four lectures on the Four Noble Truths, including poetry from Jane Kenyon, Judith Viorst, and Wislawa Szymborska. Emphasizing the First Noble Truth of Suffering.
Turning away is so natural to us but we must turn toward the aggression within us if we want to overcome it. Our practice is to do this, be patient with what we find, and learn to let it come and go rather than fix it. Then we will be able to act with kindness, and to change this world inside and out.
As we begin a new cycle after Labor Day, it’s helpful to identify the basics of our practice, which I do with reference to a just-completed 3 weeks on retreat in the mountains. We look at 1. Foundations – ethics, intentions, creating a space away from habits. 2. Development of concentration and awareness. 3. Heart – practice and 4. Integration in our everyday lives.
We review the nature of the Bodhisattva, in its archetypal expression, its manifestation in extraordinary and ordinary human exemplars, and in ourselves. We focus on the qualities of wisdom and skillful action especially and end with a short ceremony in which the participants develop their own version of the Bodhisattva, and express some of them publicly.
After an overview of the Bodhisattva path, and of the perfections of vow – intention, patience, and meditations, we look at the perfections of wisdom and skillful action. We end with an experiential exercise designed to a different situation.
In this second session, we first review the path of the Bodhisattva, exploring both the Theravada and Mahayara roots and the qualities (paramis, paramites) developed. We focus on vow – intentions, patience, and meditation, looking at how to make the Bodhisattva training real in our daily lives.
The path of the Bodhisattva is both a traditional and contemporary way of connecting inner practice and helping others. After an overview of the Theravada and Mahayara roots, we explore the practice of (1) intention - vows, and (2) patience.
Thich Nhat Hanh has written of how the encounter of Dharma and democracy will bring something new and exciting to the world. We explore 1. the beauty and dream of democracy and its resonance with the Dharma, 2. what currently needs attention in our would-be democracy and 3. a vision of how the connection of Dharma and democracy mature is vital for ourselves and our world.
We explore in general the Seven Factors as a guide to our practice and as an experience of awakened being and presence. We examine each of the seven: mindfulness, investigation, effort, rapture or joy, stillness, concentration and equanimity, with suggestions of what to do to cultivate each quality.
The 4th of July celebration of American Independence met with the Buddhist teaching of interdependence brings a deeper understanding of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The qualities of the summer solstice: stillness (between days with more or less light), light and clarity, openness and space, warmth, and abundant energy, parallel in many ways the factors of enlightenment in the teachings of the Buddha. We explore these qualities through teachings, poetry and suggestions of practice.
We continue exploring the nature and methods of inquiry, the freshness, openness, interest and energy it can bring to practice. We explore (1) mindfulness – based inquiry, (2) deep listening, (3) working with teachings (here particularly the Four Noble Truths and Precepts), (4) radical questions and (5) deconstructing fixed beliefs, with more time on numbers 3 – 5.
In this second talk on inquiry, we review some of the material from last time, including the Kalama Sutta, inquiry as a factor of awakening, and the inquiry methods of (1) mindfulness, (2) deep listening and (3) working with teachings to help inquiry. Then we explore (4) radical questions and (5) deconstruction of fixed beliefs.
Because we live in such a mental culture, we sometimes interpret meditation as getting rid of all thinking. But inquiry and investigation, often aided by language are crucial to Buddhist practice. We look at three practical methods of inquiry, using (1) mindfulness (2) deep listening, and (3) the lens of particular teachings.
Beth Gendler, author of Notes On The Need For Beauty, reflects in dialogue with Donald Rothberg and the Sanga, on the nature of beauty, “cleansing the doors of perception, and the place of beauty in transformative practice.”
We use Dogen’s famous passage to explore issues of self and not-self, by looking at 1. how we study the self, 2. how, in studying the self, we forget the self, and 3. how, in forgetting the self, we are most ourselves and most fully with others.
Right livelihood, one of the factors of the Eightfold Path, is primarily focused on the ethical qualities of our work. We explore this factor, as well as the related sense of vocation or calling – to have one’s life and work express one’s gifts while contributing and providing a path to universal Dharma.
In this second talk on inquiry beneath the surface through working with difficulties, we look at the basic conditioned reactions to pleasant and unpleasant, and look at how to practice and inquire on a personal and interpersonal level
A review of the traditional four “wise efforts,” formulated also in everyday (Kayalcins) language, followed by a discussion of some of the visible hazards of ‘wise effort practice” and of “effortless effect.”
Developing energy and effort in our practice is crucial. In its mature form, effort becomes “effortless” but on the way, we need to support our practice’s energy both generally and moment-to-moment. We look at the traditional teaching of the four “wise efforts,” adding some contemporary metaphors, especially drawn from Kayakins.
We review some of the main themes of transforming judgments – the nature of judgments and four main ways of working with judgments, using mindfulness, inquiry, and heart practices. We add some exploration of the cultural dimension of judgments and how to combine inner work on judgments with outer response and how to combine inner work on judgments with outer response.
Working with judgments is a kind of “royal road” of transformation, taking us into our deep and often unconscious views, sense of self and pain. We look at the importance of this work, and the speaker tells personal stories illustrating four ways of working with judgments: 1. mindfulness 2. seeing core patterns of mind and heart 3. metta, compassion, joy – using heart practices, and 4. deep inquiry.
We focus, in this record of two talks, on the nature of Papanca or “conceptual proliferation” its roots in compulsive craving and aversion, and a number of different ways to work skillfully with Papanca.
At this time of King’s birthday, we use the Vietnamese Buddhist recent understanding of three core areas of the Dharma- wisdom, compassion and courage with each we examine both the teachings of the Buddha and the life and work of King, playing several of his talks.
In our lives we often ask: "What comes next?" in my practice, in my life. We may feel stuck, or energized but not know how to manifest concretely in our lives. We explore the nature of our wold unfolding and some practical ways to tune into "what wants to come next?"
How to recognize, embody and enjoy the fruits of spiritual life. How to allow joy, trust, steadiness, wisdom, well being and compassion to blossom in our body and heart. How to enjoy them and let them fill our life.
This talk explores issues of struggle following 9/11, ways to resolve suffering. These teachings emphasize the necessity to explore deeply our relationship to each other.
How to be in the moment in the face of life difficulties. How to live “into life” in the presence of loss and death. The power of gratitude and trust, and ways to cultivate them as mindfulness practice.
Seeking the sacred. The possibility of awakening exists in every moment. We all can sense our potential for bringing compassion to present world conflict. Stories of India and questions about the Middle East.
In thinking about the path of awareness and the refining of the heart that is the purpose of Buddhist philosophy, Sylvia suggests that she would like to amend the Eightfold Path to be the "Ninefold Path," adding Right Relationship as the ninthfold. Right Relationship is the sense of connection we feel in the world that holds us up. Hand holding is the metaphor Sylvia uses to symbolize this connection. Hands take us from the womb, and they put us in the grave. In between, it is one big "hand holding."
Referencing her own experiences, Sylvia explores the stories we make up for ourselves to substantiate or justify certain views (opinions) that we hold about things -- some to the point of making them into "truths." After considering the possible origins of these views, Sylvia exposes the profound suffering caused by holding these views and the stories around them. Taking it a step further, she wonders: What is the relationship between hope and opinion? Is it wrong to hope or is it part of the nature of the human organism? Perhaps, she concludes, it is the solidified view we hold around a hope that causes suffering.
A talk about faith. This journey is a feasible one despite it being difficult. Sylvia discusses the problem of wobbly mind and how bewilderment and fatigue can lead to doubt. Talking to our friends holds us up in difficult times.
