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Dharma Talks
2015-09-05 Heart Meditation: Letting go of Judgment 18:10
Tara Brach
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2015 IMCW Labor Day Weekend Retreat

2015-09-05 Letting Go of Judgment (retreat talk) 53:14
Tara Brach
The scales of judgment confine us in a limited sense of self, they restrict the depth and fullness of our loving. This talk explores the genesis of projecting badness on to parts of ourselves and others, and how we can use mindfulness and self-compassion practices to evolve our consciousness and free our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2015 IMCW Labor Day Weekend Retreat

2015-09-05 The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 2: Guided Meditation Studying the Thick Self 11:43
Donald Rothberg
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2015-09-05 The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 3: Varieties of the Self 44:49
Donald Rothberg
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2015-09-05 The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 1: Introduction and Overview 45:58
Donald Rothberg
The teaching of anattā (“not-self”) points to one of the three fundamental areas of liberating insight taught by the Buddha (along with the teachings on impermanence and on suffering or dukkha). Yet anattā can very challenging and confusing for contemporary practitioners. Is there “no self” (as anattā is sometimes translated)? How do we make sense of our feelings of individuality, identity, ancestry, and vocation? How do we address our own personal experiences of woundedness, trauma, and oppression? Are these all simply to be “transcended”? How is a sense of self actually in many ways important for contemporary spiritual development, and how is working with our own individual conditioning, whether psychological or social in origin, central to our liberation? How do we integrate attending to such conditioning with opening as well to the power and energy of experiences beyond the habitual sense of self? In this daylong, we will explore these vital questions primarily in a practical way. Using the metaphors of “thinning the self” and working with a “thick” sense of self, we will cover three aspects of practice: (1) cultivating, in several ways, the “thinning” of the self, both in meditation and in everyday life, including working with the Five Skandhas or “aggregates” of experience; (2) tracking and working with different manifestations of a “thick” sense of self, both as appearing in experience and as hidden to awareness; and (3) opening to experiencing beyond a fixed sense of self, as awareness, compassion, and responsiveness deepen.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2015-09-05 Awareing 1:15:12
Patrick Kearney
Here we learn to structure our attention more loosely, to enable us to see the object of awareness within the broader context of our attentional field. When we hold an object too closely we may miss the context within which it is held, including the one who is attending to it. When we learn to hold the object more loosely, we can appreciate the context within which it is held, and understanding (sampajañña, paññā) emerges within this context.
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney

2015-09-05 The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 5: Not-Self & The Five Skandhas 13:28
Donald Rothberg
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2015-09-05 The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 4: Guided Meditation on the Five Skandhas 41:10
Donald Rothberg
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2015-09-04 Opening Night Welcome Talk 51:30
Pascal Auclair
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center Uncovering Innate Freedom: Labor Day Meditation Weekend

2015-09-04 Entering the Dharma Stream 54:59
Sharda Rogell
As we shift from a self-centered view to a dharma-centered view, we enter the authentic truth of our experience, and see with new eyes, even when facing difficult mind states. What can support this turning?
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Labor Day Retreat

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