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Retreat Dharma Talks

The Magic of Awareness

The paradox of awareness is profound and yet very simple. It can’t be described because it has no objective qualities and no limitations. Sometimes it comes naturally to the surface when we are fully in the present moment and no longer lost in thoughts or mental projections. Awareness is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither good nor bad.

In this retreat we will learn how to pay attention to this quality of awareness through formal and informal meditation. Once we know how to pay attention, it can be experienced in an instant, in all circumstances. When we learn to reside in that liberated mind, we find the very thing we have been seeking all along.

2024-06-15 (7 days) Spirit Rock Meditation Center

  
2024-06-16 The Breath Is Your Partner (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 65:13
Trudy Goodman
This is the opening morning of the retreat, offering guidance in working with the breath skillfully by infusing the mindfulness with lovingkindness.
2024-06-16 Metta with Breath and Body (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 30:07
Trudy Goodman
Affectionate breath practice, feeling cared for by the breath. Metta for the body, brief lovingkindness body scan
2024-06-16 Seeing Everything through Sacred Outlook (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 54:54
Anam Thubten
Seeing our inner light and darkness as sacred, and working on letting go of identification with our internal afflictions with all embracing awareness.
2024-06-17 Instructions Including Breath, Body Sensations and Sounds (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 51:09
James Baraz
2024-06-17 The Magic of Awareness (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 61:37
James Baraz
By opening to the perspective of everything arising and passing away in the space of awareness we see through the illusion of separation, directly experiencing anatta, the selfless nature of reality. We also let go of identifying with hindrances and and other ways we identify with the natural unfolding of experience. This talk includes an exploration of the Kashmir Shaivism text "Realization of Our True Heart."
2024-06-18 Mindfulness of Emotions (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 58:41
Trudy Goodman
How the emotions are sensed in the body and why it's important to learn to feel them.
2024-06-18 Facing Death (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 49:20
Trudy Goodman
This talk is about a recent near death experience and the choice to live, exploring how and why dharma practice is essential to facing death without fear.
2024-06-19 Big Mind Meditation (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 57:15
James Baraz
This meditation shifts from focusing on objects in our experience to the awareness in which all objects appear and disappear.
2024-06-20 Guided Meditation for the Last Day (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 58:30
Trudy Goodman
Guided meditation for the last full day of retreat
2024-06-20 Intrinsically Empty, Naturally Radiant Ceaselessly Responsive: Awareness and Compassion (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 64:23
James Baraz
Awareness is not only spacious and wakeful, compassion is also an inherent component. Expressing care to address the suffering in the world is understood to be an essential part of practice. This talk explores the greater implications of this understanding especially at this critical time of global dukkha on so many levels.
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