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Dharma Talks
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2025-01-30 The Antidote to Fear: Practicing in Uncertain Times 51:41
James Baraz
It seems like many are feeling either a low-level anxiety or fear these days. Fear about their safety, about disasters like fire or floods, about what the future holds. While this is natural and understandable, when our minds get hijacked by fearful thoughts, it is almost impossible to have a wise or appropriate response. In this talk we explore practicing and skillfully working with fear so that it can transform into courage, compassion and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2024-12-14 Q&A- The source of metta 47:59
Ajahn Sucitto
00:19 Q1 What is the relationship between citta and yoniso manisikara? 05:27 Q2 Faith arises with the ability of the citta to realize the origins of suffering. Nekkhamma is the release anticipation of suffering [?]. Confusion arises here. The process of renunciation for the citta rather than thought. Is this the point where the felt sense doesn’t push forward or stand and enters the path? 08:45 Q3 After the high school shooting 96 km northwest of us that left 4 dead, we can feel the heat. False alarms on social media, another layer of community anxiety and mistrust arises. Our community is predominately black, transient, low income, familiar with violence. … How to step back and recognize the citta is unbalanced? How to avoid being too aggressive and suspicious? 11:12 Q4 How to skillfully investigate myself with a very challenging individual at work?13:01 Q5 When I started mediating 20 years ago I was taught that forgiveness was a preliminary practice to metta. This makes sense to me, especially with the deep groove of self-criticism I see in my mind. 13:56 Q6 I am chronically ill living a restricted and isolated life. It is a great joy but I feel remote from any attainment. Do you have any advice? 14:58 Q7 I recognize a form of vibhava tanha in nihilism that manifests as an inability to move forward in life. As I pondered this i came across a phrase : “Contemplate the dhamma body” and it felt so good.
Dhamma Stream Online Sessions

2024-12-05 talk: Pleasure and enjoyment on the path part 3 27:12
Jill Shepherd
Looking at two common reactions to pleasant sense-based experiences: clinging or anxiety; and the Buddha's crucial distinction between sense-based pleasures, which tend to reinforce clinging, and the mental pleasure that comes from cultivating skilful mind-states
Auckland Insight Meditation Auckland Insight meetings 2024

2024-11-27 Two Ways That Our Practice Can Help with Understanding, and Developing Empathy with, Those with Different Views, after the US Election 63:28
Donald Rothberg
It's important for our teachings and practices to help orient us in relationship to all parts of our lives, including the larger social and political dimensions of our lives. In this session, we explore one core teaching and one central practice that together help us to respond skillfully to differences in political views. The teaching is that of dependent origination, particularly the sequence from contact to grasping. We see how the two forms of reactivity, grasping and pushing away (each potentially manifesting in many ways) result from pleasant and unpleasant feeling-tones, when there is a lack of mindfulness and background habitual tendencies. We can see how the underlying pain, for example, of many working-class people (economic pain; and the pain of feeling disregarded, left behind, and/or not respected), or the pain related to anxiety about changing gender roles, can, especially when manipulated by those in power who provide scapegoats, lead to reactivity. After presenting a model of empathy practice as crucial for bringing our practice to interacting with those with different views, we can also, through such practice, tune in with compassion to the underlying pain, and have a sense of the deep genuine needs, in our examples, for economic well-being, respect, and clarity around gender. We explore all of this in an exercise with the "empathy map," which is followed by discussion. (There were several files shared via screen sharing during the talk. These files can be accessed below and potentially downloaded, by clicking on the "Q" under "Documents," and looking for documents 229, 273, 274, and 275.)
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2024-11-06 Meditation: Remembering Your Spiritual Heart (16:52 min.) 16:51
Tara Brach
During times of great collective stress, it’s common to get gripped by waves of anxiety and fear. This guided meditation, an adaptation of the Tibetan tonglen practice, helps us reconnect with our spiritual heart, the sea of love and light that can hold even the most painful waves in our lives.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2024-09-28 Anxiety and Depression Basic Tools for Meditators 36:20
Amita Schmidt
This talk offers some basic tools and reflections to help meditation students with Depression and Anxiety. You will learn to recognize the optical illusions of mind, label distorted thinking patterns, and unblend from difficult mindstates.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center

2024-09-04 Meditation: Touching Peace 22:02
Tara Brach
This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2024-06-15 Wise effort and inquiry 45:35
Michael Grady
Working with fear and anxiety
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center Living Dharma: Practicing with a Spirit of Inquiry

2024-05-05 Dealing with emotional damage: shock, grief, anxiety 27:21
Ajahn Sucitto
Dhamma Stream Online Sessions

2024-05-05 Selfie of the Mind 25:48
Ayya Medhanandi
Are we present here and now? How much do we obsess in thought? Is the mind filled with worry – wavering from anxiety to fear?  Here and now, we examine and ascend to peaceful states. When we’re dreaming, wake up. Know that we’re asleep. Know that we’re not present. Know the mind that is upset, angry or boiling and cool it. Use the Buddha’s tools to repair and return our attention to present moment awareness. Mindfully knowing, seeing clearly with blameless joy and wise insight, we lighten our burden. We are cultivating the garden of the mind.
Toronto Theravada Buddhist Community (TBC)

2024-04-15 There Is An Oasis 22:45
Ayya Medhanandi
Too long we have been caught in the grip of anxiety, anger, and clinging that lead nowhere. But there is an oasis in the depths of our native humanity. To understand what is true, we must empty all that is untrue. This is ultimate care of the mind: disentangling the knots in the heart that obstruct the moral-ethical fabric of our true nature. So we set our inner compass beyond all these blinding mental habits to witness that inner radiance. In the mirror of pure emptiness we reflect that silent knowing the truth of what we are.
Portland Friends of the Dhamma

2024-04-08 Freedom from Fear 53:07
Ajahn Sucitto
Bhavana, cultivation, is associated with bringing into being fruitful states and dwelling in them. Without this ground, citta- heart - goes out, focuses on conditioned phenomena. The natural result will be uncertainty, anxiety, fear. Practices for clearing fear at its root are described: contemplation of death, mindfulness of body and breathing, generosity, virtue.
Amaravati Monastery

2023-11-19 Working with anxiety and other afflictive states 44:50
Jill Shepherd
Some suggestions for navigating difficult mental states
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center Three-Month Retreat - Part 2

2023-09-23 Q&A 1:15:23
Ajahn Sucitto
Questions are précised and read into the file.This text is shortened further. 00.51 Q1 You said we create an imaginary world for our imaginary selves. Some people believe in the power of visualization where we can imagine a better world or a better self. 03.05 Q2 Please distinguish consciousness, the mind and the brain. 05.57 Q3 You use the word heart, but you don't use the word brain. 12.36 Q4 If there's no distinction between you and I, is there just a oneness? 13.00 Q5 Is the citta permanent? 14.13 Q6 A friend said her response to a car alarm was the same as her response to bird song. Where is the place for beauty in this? 15.29 Q7 In walking meditation, do we feel the movement and sense what your mind is doing with that experience? 21.28 Q8 Some thought patterns seem like some kind of karmic knot. They're not comfortable and yet I keep going into them. 25.08 Q9 What can I offer my dying friend to support balance for them? 32.20 Q10 Can thoughts just arise randomly? 37.02 Q11 If someone cheats us, do we just forgive them and move on? 41.18 Q12 I find that many of my interactions, conversations and what I do to work seem to be just abstractions and distractions. My desire to live more in dhamma makes me avoid people without this interest. 46.58 Q13 Do thoughts always arise from feelings? 50.03 Q14 What is time as an experience? 01.00.57 Q15 Where does collective consciousness fit into this? 01.03.09 Q16 How can we plan for the future and avoid the pitfalls of 'becoming'? 01.04.52 Q17 How to use Buddhist practice to deal with trauma and serious anxiety? 01.10.10 Q18 Is the teaching of no satisfaction /suffering more than 'there's no permanent satisfaction'? 01.13.34 Q19 It seems like the more I examine my own suffering, the more compassion I have for other people.
London Insight Meditation In person: a Matter of Balance

2023-06-22 Q&A 41:36
Ajahn Sucitto
Questions précised - 00:16 Q1 Is it possible to start waking up and still have a mind that is clinging or fixating at times? What are the characteristics of awakening? 14:27 Q2 Sometimes there are moments where everything is gone or stops, with no thoughts or awareness f an outside world. Time seems to be gone as well. Can you say something about this?16:21 Q3 It seems the heart needs to be allowed to know itself. When with family and partner there seems to be no possibility for this. This is desperately uncomfortable which doesn’t resolve and is filled with fear. Can you offer some guidance. 22:54 Q4(a) I feel parts of the body frozen in anxiety. Spacious awareness and reclining help. What else would help? Patience? (b) I get feelings of joy, gratitude then contentment. When contentment arises I feel the desire to move on rather than stay with it. What can I do about this? (c) What can I do if the energy flow gets overwhelming say with sickness? 34:46 Q5 What would you say to a teenager who seems to have ill will in the family? 36:44 Q6 No matter how good meditation is in the previous evening, there will come sleep and with it the end of awareness. Next morning we have to start again.
Moulin de Chaves Regaining the Centre

2023-06-14 Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness: A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer (Part 2) 41:24
Tara Brach, Judson Brewer
Anxiety is spiking around the world and we need the radical medicine of awareness to unwind it. In this two-part conversation, Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer look at how anxiety is a habit that can be unlearned as we cultivate a curious and kind mindful presence. Jud offers the scientific grounds for this “unwinding”, drawing on his experience as a pioneer and leading researcher in the field of mindfulness and addiction.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2023-06-07 Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness: A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer (Part 1) 53:03
Tara Brach, Judson Brewer
Anxiety is spiking around the world and we need the radical medicine of awareness to unwind it. In this two-part conversation, Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer look at how anxiety is a habit that can be unlearned as we cultivate a curious and kind mindful presence. Jud offers the scientific grounds for this “unwinding”, drawing on his experience as a pioneer and leading researcher in the field of mindfulness and addiction. Together they explore the power of particular mindfulness-based strategies, including noting what is happening, recognizing our habit loops, arousing curiosity and cultivating self-care. They shine a light on the genesis of worrying, how it perpetuates anxiety and ways we can become disenchanted with the habit.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2023-06-06 Changing those Deep Patterns 26:19
Ayya Santussika
We may think that our anger, anxiety, regret, jealousy, longing, sorrow, etc. are just a part of our character, or our karma, or that they assail us and we have no control over them or the power to abandon them. In this talk, we look at how to challenge this perception and stop feeding our mental and emotional patterns.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center The Buddha’s Gradual Path: Spiritual Progress in Lay Life

2023-05-09 Meditation: Befriending Fear with RAIN (15 min.) 14:55
Tara Brach
When we have the courage to pause and meet fear with the mindfulness and compassion of RAIN, our awareness and wisdom awaken. This RAIN meditation will guide you in unhooking from anxiety and fear, offering a pathway to inner transformation and a fearless heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2023-02-15 15 talk: Restlessness and remorse 38:36
Jill Shepherd
An exploration of physical and mental restlessness, anxiety and remorse, and some ways to help these afflictive energies release
Te Moata Retreat Center :  Seven-day insight meditation retreat

2022-12-22 Outside the Storm: A Meditation for working with Strong Emotions 9:14
Amita Schmidt
Instead of trying to bring mindfulness to emotions from the inside out, this meditation will help you develop awareness of the calm outside of emotions (eg. the outside of the storm). Some people have found this tool to be very useful in decreasing anxiety, overwhelm, and fear.
Clintonville Sangha Ohio

2022-11-23 Meditation: Touching Peace 21:56
Tara Brach
This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2022-11-22 Survey the landscape-with sympathy 40:05
Ajahn Sucitto
Steady the heart by not picking up the signs of crisis or anxiety. Instead use the simple and steady body rhythms and signs that hold the heart. Make the heart the priority.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge Mapping the Territory: New Light on the Satipatthana

2022-08-24 Awakening through Difficult Emotions: “The Poison is the Medicine” 48:41
Tara Brach
Most of us know the pain of getting stuck in fear, anxiety, anger or shame. This exploration looks at how the emotion that takes over, when we attend with mindfulness and care, can become a place of deep transformation and freedom. Included in the talk is a guided RAIN meditation.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2022-07-25 Guided Lovingkindness Meditation | Monday Night 28:09
Jack Kornfield
There’s no wrong way to do metta or lovingkindness. Sometimes the practice of cultivating lovingkindness is simply to radiate love without words. Sometimes it’s to begin by holding yourself with kindness. Lovingkindness can be an antidote to anxiety and fear. We become more gracious with the difficulties of life as we open the heart.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2022-07-18 Need Sufficiency and Greed 18:01
Bhante Bodhidhamma
With coming downturn in the economy around the world, fear and anxiety are boud to arise. We are attached to what we own and to oiur lifestyle. By contemplateing what we actually need at physical level and then to consider what we need at a social and personal, emotional level, a lot of the fear and anxiety can be undermined. Contemplating the Four Requisites of a monastic help to ground us.
Satipanya Retreat Centre

2022-04-27 Practicing with Fear 1 65:30
Donald Rothberg
After a brief review of last week's exploration of the relationship of Buddhist practice to Passover, Easter, and Ramadan, we explore a theme that is part of those holidays, and central to our practice--how we work with fear and anxiety. We look at the centrality of such practice, and the different types of fear, distinguishing the unskillful aspects (such as confusion, reactivity, and the continual repetition of negative narratives) from the at times skillful aspects (such as recognizing danger). We then suggest ways of bringing mindfulness to fear, as well as ways of understanding and responding to fear.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2022-04-16 Facing Sadness, Grief and Anxiety 1:22:25
Ayya Santussika
Karuna Buddhist Vihara

2022-04-12 Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind 29:30
Shaila Catherine
On the occasion of the publication of her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind, Shaila Catherine shares a progressive series of strategies to overcome the hindrances of restlessness, obsessive thinking, and rumination; dispel thoughts of anger, hatred, and anxiety; and curb habitual distractions. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators can calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, comprehend the nature of the mind, experience emptiness, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley

2022-03-17 Calming the Anxious Mind: Skillful Practices for Anxiety 52:02
James Baraz
Many people are experiencing stress and anxiety these days. Heartbreaking scenes of victims of the Ukraine invasion and other conflicts, potential escalation of war, political divisiveness or personal challenges all create an atmosphere of tension that is in the air. How can we use our practice to calm the mind and create space to hold it all without getting overwhelmed?
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2022-01-18 Q&A 41:11
Ajahn Sucitto
00:06 Mind in body or body in mind; 01:31 Citta voice and thinking mind voice – how to bring them together; 03:12 Mind storm leads to confusion, compulsive thoughts; 05:51 Sleeplessness, especially accompanied with anxiety; 08:02 how to ensure qualities like love are not coming from self-centeredness or craving; 11:09 Fear around upcoming surgery; 13:34 Losing the balance of mind when overcome with pain; 20:22 Others means of practice in addition to meditation; 21:59 Practicing meditation with the aim of attaining jhānas; 27:04 Getting a sense of pīti during meditation; 34:55 If there's no self who inherits the karmic residues from past lives; 36:51 discernment vs judgment.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart

2021-12-15 Meditation: Collecting and Quieting the Mind (16:48 min.) 16:48
Tara Brach
Our conditioned mind is filled with distractions, including worry-thoughts that continually create anxiety in the body. This meditation guides us in relaxing the body, and then establishing the breath as a home base. By gathering and collecting the attention, the mind can settle and allow for a relaxed, wakeful presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2021-10-28 Am I Enough? 53:06
James Baraz
A great Zen treatise says that someone truly enlightened is "without anxiety about non-perfection." It's no wonder that, with such impossible standards that most people hold themselves to, they always seem to fall short. How is it that others can so easily see our goodness while we're often the last ones to see our "True Nature"? The talk includes a short excerpt of Ram Dass sharing his primary practice to remember who we really are.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2021-08-11 Finding Wisdom in Anxiety 47:15
Kate Munding
Dharma talk and guided practice. Anxiety is a contraction and therefore a form of suffering. Sometimes anxiety is the appropriate response to a situation, but there are skillful ways to navigate this experience. This talk and practice examines how we can learn to soothe the body and the mind using somatic exercises and our imagination to bring expansiveness to anxiety's contracted state.
Assaya Sangha Assaya Sangha Dharma Talks

2021-07-01 Anxiety Responsive Care (ARC) 8:03
Dhammadīpā
A standing guided meditation for moments of high anxiety
Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery

2021-06-26 Q&A 43:16
Ajahn Sucitto
Cultivating mental/emotional equilibrium – drowsiness, other people. Energies – how to sense subtle body, body sways in meditation, standing meditation, qigong, kundalini. Do we need goals in life; fear and anxiety; physical pain devoid of mental pain; advice about becoming a nun.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down

2021-06-17 Restraining the Outflows 58:11
Ajahn Sucitto
All the world rests on very simple human emotions – fear, anxiety, loneliness, gratification. We run out because of them, or build walls to protect ourselves from them. Practice with restraint, keep coming back to here, now, knowing, it’s like this. Don’t run out, just return, and the outflows fade on their own.
Cittaviveka

2021-06-13 Stop Running and Your Real Home Appears 56:31
Ajahn Sucitto
The tendency to keep running out into concepts eventually results in overload, insecurity, anxiety, collapse. We’re desperately looking for sanity. The steadiness and fulfillment we seek is already here, in the non-conceptual intelligence of body and heart. Rather than going out, return to where body, mind and heart energy come together. In this presence our real home appears.
Cittaviveka

2021-03-13 Desperately Seeking Non-desperation 56:31
Ajahn Sucitto
The tendency to keep running out into concepts eventually results in overload, insecurity, anxiety, collapse. We’re desperately looking for sanity. The steadiness and fulfillment we seek is already here, in the non-conceptual intelligence of body and heart. Rather than going out, return to where body, mind and heart energy come together. In this presence our real home appears.
Cittaviveka

2020-10-29 A Time For Equanimity 60:45
James Baraz
We are in a unique moment in time for the United States and the world. How can we stay centered and even cultivate equanimity? Is it possible to hold a positive vision without getting caught in extra anxiety about the outcome? Can we allow for things to unfold as they will while having a clear focus of what we want to help create? Equanimity includes surrendering attachment while being inspired by gratitude, awe and possibility.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2020-09-10 Holding a Positive Vision 53:47
James Baraz
It seems like an accomplishment just getting through such tumultuous times--wildfires on the West Coast, storms around the country, coronavirus lockdown and the US in daily chaos. It would be understandable to succumb to anxiety and overwhelm. But as the Buddha taught, practice is about overcoming negative thoughts when they arise and cultivating wholesome thoughts and mind-states. We will explore the importance of holding a positive vision even through the storm.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2020-09-02 Transforming Your Relationship with Anxiety 1:19:29
Tara Brach
Strong anxiety frequently triggers fight-flight-freeze, our survival brain’s strategy for dealing with threats. This can become a trance that dominates our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and deepest experience of who we are. This talk explores how we get caught in this reactive trance, and ways of calming anxiety and radically shifting our way of relating to the experience of threat. The gift is discovering an inner freedom in the midst of life, and the capacity to respond to what arises with love-in-action.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2020-04-18 This is The Whole World's Problem 32:35
Dhammadīpā
why and how the Dhamma addresses anxiety about survival, six sense functions, seven awakening factors, Bojjhanga paritta, parenting, pandemic
Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery

2020-03-25 Meditation: Touching Peace 22:51
Tara Brach
This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go. The meditation ends with a beautiful verse from poet Philip Booth.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

2020-03-07 What does Freedom Look Like? - Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop, Part 5 62:42
Mark Nunberg
Common Ground Meditation Center Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop

2020-03-07 Feeling Tone and Uncertainty - Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop, Part 4 32:09
Shelly Graf
Common Ground Meditation Center Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop

2020-03-07 Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop, Part 1 50:16
Mark Nunberg
Short guided meditation followed by Dharma Talk, small group discussions, and large group share back.
Common Ground Meditation Center Freedom from Anxiety, Trusting Uncertainty and Change: Living the Practice Workshop

2020-03-05 Skillful Letting Go Practice for Intense Times 49:08
James Baraz
In times of uncertainty and tension--whether a potential global pandemic, the climate crisis, high stakes election--it's easy for apprehension to become anxiety as we constantly are worried about what's to come. This talk explores how skillful letting go practices can help us maintain our centeredness while still being engaged.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2020-02-21 Anxiety: It's Not All in Your Mind 48:02
Jill Satterfield
Part 1: talk and standing practice
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2020-01-04 Freeing Ourselves From Anxiety About Non-Perfection 54:07
Sharda Rogell
We can easily believe that perfection truly exists and if we can work hard enough we may reach it, until we see the pain in our striving and let go.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center Embodying the Heart of Wisdom: New Year’s Retreat

2019-10-20 pm01-biological, cultural causes for anxiety and the subtle body 39:29
Jill Satterfield
New York Insight Meditation Center Anxiety: It’s Not All In Your Mind

2019-10-20 am03-awareness as alert signal - physiognomy of anxiety 28:38
Jill Satterfield
New York Insight Meditation Center Anxiety: It’s Not All In Your Mind

2019-10-20 Emptiness Practices for Depression and Anxiety: Part 2 27:12
Amita Schmidt
How to utilize the teachings of emptiness for depression and anxiety in Buddhist meditators.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center

2019-10-20 am01-introduction, pain and anxiety 19:59
Jill Satterfield
New York Insight Meditation Center Anxiety: It’s Not All In Your Mind

2019-10-19 Practices for Depression and Anxiety: Part 1 38:53
Amita Schmidt
Depression and Anxiety: Practices for Buddhist Meditators, Part 1. (This is part 1 of 2 talks)
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center

2019-10-18 Depression, Anxiety, and The Four Noble Truths 29:05
Amita Schmidt
Depression and Anxiety and the Four Noble truths. How depression or anxiety can assist in understanding the Four Noble Truths. Also Amita's personal journey and experiences in this regard.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center

2019-09-04 Befriending Irene 58:29
Tara Brach
While Tara is away, this talk is from 2011 after Hurricane Irene hit us with fury. Dorian is now leaving its destruction behind, just as we work with our stormy weather within. Whether you face chronic anxiety or more violent storms of fear and anger, you can cultivate the wings of freedom–the mindfulness and compassion–that free you. This talk explores how the habit of being reactive causes us suffering and the ways these tools of meditation can be applied to the inner weather systems that most challenge us.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2019-08-12 A Matter of Death, Life, Truth and Recovery 24:13
Ayya Medhanandi
Call suffering by its true name and the face of the Dhamma will emerge from within us. We meet the truth of impermanence, of death, and the universality of pain as we carve out the understanding of who we are and why we are here. Nourish the mind with virtue and shine the light to our true home, to insights that repair what has been broken and free us from fear, anxiety, and the many sufferings we have endured.
Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT) :  For Our Long Lasting Benefit

2019-07-27 17 talk: fear of freedom 36:07
Jill Shepherd
Acknowledging that change itself can cause anxiety; exploring some different definitions of Nibbana; and a few suggestions for navigating fear if/when it arises in meditation practice
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Transforming Fear into Fearlessness

2019-07-20 15 talk: wisdom and the three universal characteristics 29:54
Jill Shepherd
How seeing the three universal characteristics of anicca-dukkha-anatta (impermanent, imperfect, impersonal) can support the releasing of anxiety and fear
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Transforming Fear into Fearlessness

2019-07-10 From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha-Mind 8: Transforming Our Ordinary Sense of Self 2: The “Doer” 67:01
Donald Rothberg
Description: We first look briefly at the general framework of this series of talks and discussion; we examine: (1) the conditioning of the “ordinary habitual mind,” understood through examining 10 different parameters of that mind; (2) the nature of the “Buddha mind” in terms of these 10 parameters; and (3) how we practice with a given parameter to enact this transformation. Today’s talk is the second covering the nature and sense of self; we review some what was covered last time. We then take the rest of the session examining one manifestation of the “thick” self—the conditioned sense of the “doer.” We look at a number of ways in which the doer becomes more obvious, as when there is anxiety about not doing anything; we might notice this sometimes on a vacation or in retirement. We also examine the cultural dimensions of the conditioning around finding identity as a doer. We then look at how it’s possible to have our doing come more out of presence and being, with reference to the teachings of the Buddha and Chuang-Tzu especially. We conclude with a series of exercises in which we develop a sense of doing that comes more out of presence and being.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2019-07-06 08 talk: Second Noble Truth, craving for sense pleasures, compassion 26:10
Jill Shepherd
Returning to the Second Noble Truth, exploring clinging to sense pleasure as a common reaction to unpleasant emotions, and how compassion and self-compassion offer a more skilful way of navigating anxiety
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Transforming Fear into Fearlessness

2019-07-03 : From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha-Mind 8: Transforming Our Ordinary Sense of Self 2: The “Doer” 63:14
Donald Rothberg
We first look briefly at the general framework of this series of talks and discussion; we examine: (1) the conditioning of the “ordinary habitual mind,” understood through examining 10 different parameters of that mind; (2) the nature of the “Buddha mind” in terms of these 10 parameters; and (3) how we practice with a given parameter to enact this transformation. Today’s talk is the second covering the nature and sense of self; we review some what was covered last time. We then take the rest of the session examining one manifestation of the “thick” self—the conditioned sense of the “doer.” We look at a number of ways in which the doer becomes more obvious, as when there is anxiety about not doing anything; we might notice this sometimes on a vacation or in retirement. We also examine the cultural dimensions of the conditioning around finding identity as a doer. We then look at how it’s possible to have our doing come more out of presence and being, with reference to the teachings of the Buddha and Chuang-Tzu especially. We conclude with a series of exercises in which we develop a sense of doing that comes more out of presence and being.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2019-06-29 06 guided meditation: exploring physical sensations of anxiety and the antidote of metta 31:54
Jill Shepherd
Working in groups of three, each person taking three minutes to name out loud the physical sensations of social anxiety; then a short guided metta meditation before continuing to name out loud the physical sensations associated with metta/kindness
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Transforming Fear into Fearlessness

2019-06-29 05 instructions: the anatomy of anxiety 9:12
Jill Shepherd
Deconstructing the chain reaction from basic sense stimuli to proliferation and anxiety thought-loops
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Transforming Fear into Fearlessness

2019-06-16 Anxiety: It's Not All in Your Mind 5:19:34
Jill Satterfield
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2019-05-19 Equanimity in times of anxiety 42:26
Stephen Fulder
San Francisco Insight Meditation Community

2019-03-17 Freely Knowing 46:55
Martin Aylward
These talks build on one another and work well as a series. This talk looks at the inherently knowing nature of mind. Martin looks at the way we get stuck in knowledge, or knowing about, and generate anxiety and a sense of deficiency about not knowing. He invites us beyond conventional knowing into non-conceptual awareness, and the direct knowing of whatever is happening.
Gaia House Freeness and Friction: How We Meet Ourselves and the World

2019-02-13 Spiritual Reparenting 52:29
Tara Brach
When we are not sufficiently nurtured in childhood, we are inclined toward anxiety, depression, addiction and other forms of suffering. In a deep way, we do not feel at home with others. We are disconnected from our own body, heart and spirit. This talk explores how meditation offers “spiritual reparenting” as we learn to bring interest, understanding and love to our own inner vulnerability. This process of healing extends to our relationships with others and our larger society – by reaching out to widening circles with interest and care, we bring increasing harmony and peace to our world (a favorite from the archives). “That question: Where does it hurt? We need to address it to everyone, if we really want to understand each other.” Ruby Sales
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2018-12-12 Part 2 – Healing Anxiety – How Meditation Frees Us 51:25
Tara Brach
Anxiety and the fear of failure is a pervasive suffering around the world. It is also increasing—along with the pace of life, over-consuming, addiction, noise, polarization and fears for our planet. How do we calm ourselves in a way that brings inner freedom and serves the healing of our larger world? These two talks explore the power of awareness in evolving ourselves beyond the anxiety that grips and confines our lives - includes working with sleep issues.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2018-11-28 Part 1 – Healing Anxiety – How Meditation Frees Us 54:38
Tara Brach
Anxiety and the fear of failure is a pervasive suffering around the world. It is also increasing—along with the pace of life, over-consuming, addiction, noise, polarization and fears for our planet. How do we calm ourselves in a way that brings inner freedom and serves the healing of our larger world? These two talks explore the power of awareness in evolving ourselves beyond the anxiety that grips and confines our lives.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2017-06-01 Q and A - June 2017 42:38
Kim Allen
Monthly session with Q&A. Topics include planning/anxiety, Buddhist personality types, and responding to the stress and pain of world events.
Insight Santa Cruz

2017-05-16 Body as Teacher 53:58
Heather Sundberg
Beginning with a story of about Heather's close encounter with a monkey in India, the talk offers theory and practice on the First Foundation of Mindfulness on 'calming the bodily formation' as well as 'settling the nervous system' which are important 'dharmas of modern times'. Practices support us to work with anxiety, fear shame, judgment and other difficult emotions and reactive patterns of body and mind.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Angela Center) Living Awareness Through Embodiment and Heart

2017-01-26 "What Are You Going To Do Now?" 48:18
James Baraz
The swirl of political events with the new US administration have contributed to a culture of apprehension and anxiety for many as they adjust to this new reality. The question many practitioners are asking is what is the place of Dharma in this unfolding of events. What is Dharma and not Dharma? What is our responsibility? How does the political environment inform our Dharma practice? How does our Dharma practice inform our engagement in the world? The talk includes Bhikkhu Bodhi's essay Let's Stand Together that appears in the journals Lion's Roar and Buddhadharma.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley IMCB Regular Talks

2017-01-05 What Channel Are You Tuned To? 50:52
James Baraz
(Note: This talk has some occasional sound distortion but it's worth it.) As the Buddha said, "We are what we think. With our thoughts we make the world." Our minds can go to the the greatest places of fear, anxiety and ill will or understanding, compassion and peace. When we're lost in confusion we have in us the capacity to remember the goodness and wisdom that our hearts long to connect with. This talk is about remembering that possibility and cultivating access to that Buddha right inside, especially when the outside world is giving us very different messages.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley IMCB Regular Talks

2016-12-07 Spiritual Reparenting 1:12:21
Tara Brach
When we are not sufficiently nurtured in childhood, we are inclined toward anxiety, depression, addiction and other forms of suffering. In a deep way, we do not feel at home with others, and are disconnected from our own body, heart and spirit. This talk explores how meditation offers "spiritual reparenting” as we learn to bring interest, understanding and love to our own inner vulnerability. This process of healing extends to our relationships with others and our larger society - by reaching out to widening circles with interest and care, we bring increasing harmony and peace to our world. "How do we love ourselves into healing?" From a place of caring, ask, "Where does it hurt?"
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2016-08-18 Holding the Lotus to the Rock 42:43
Ayya Medhanandi
Sariputta said (SN 21.1): “There is nothing in the world with whose change there would arise in me sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair.” It is hard to remember the Buddha’s teachings when the mind is beset with fear and anxiety. But we can escape from these bonds by disempowering the hindrances, calming the mind and seeing with greater wisdom. For this process to bear fruit, we have to fully trust the path alone and not put our trust in the world. A talk given at a 7 day SIMT retreat in the Chapin Mill Zen Retreat Centre, Batavia, Rochester, NY.
Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)

2016-07-02 The Anxiety of Impermanence and the Impermanence of Anxiety, part 1: Intro & meditation 28:32
Ajahn Pasanno
Exploring impermanence and how it can be contemplated in a way that leads to the end of suffering rather than as a cause of anxiety. Part 1: Intro talk and opening meditation.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2016-07-02 The Anxiety of Impermanence and the Impermanence of Anxiety, part 2: walking meditation instructions 12:26
Ajahn Pasanno
Walking meditation instructions.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2016-07-02 The Anxiety of Impermanence and the Impermanence of Anxiety, part 3: Q & A 1:12:50
Ajahn Pasanno
Q & A
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2016-07-02 The Anxiety of Impermanence and the Impermanence of Anxiety 62:00
Ajahn Pasanno
Exploring impermanence and how it can be contemplated in a way that leads to the end of suffering rather than as a cause of anxiety. Part 4: talk.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2016-05-26 Meeting & transforming deep-rooted tendencies 19:15
Ajahn Sucitto
Rather than fight anxiety, frustration/rage & sadness, we can transmute them through the embodied mind into alertness, strength and tender-hearted concern.
Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center Rewilding The Mind

2016-05-09 Anxiety and Tranquility 58:29
Matthew Brensilver
Audio recording of Monday Night Meditation class with Matthew Brensilver on May 9th, 2016
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2016-04-29 Proliferation of Planning 47:38
Shaila Catherine
Shaila Catherine gave this talk on planning tendencies of the mind. Papanca is a Pali term that means proliferation. A lot of our planning is not preparation for action. Rather, it's a form of dukkha: chronic planning may be a manifestation of anxiety, restlessness, worry, or obsessive thinking about "who I will be." Planning is fuel for self-becoming, self-grasping; restless planning perpetuates the fantasy of a future we think we can control or predict, but such future may never happen. Instead of habitually indulging in planning tendencies, we can train our attention to be mindful of life as it actually unfolds. We can thus learn to calm fantasies that distract the mind, let go of expectations, and gradually strengthen concentration to be more fully present. We can also curb the tendency to become lost in imagined scenarios of hope and fear about life's events.
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley

2015-11-21 Why Do Beings Live In Hate? 29:37
Ayya Medhanandi
Has there ever been a time when the world was not filled with fear and violence? Millenia ago just as now, humans have been bound in a cycle of delusion, fear, and harm. The way out is within us – learning to find the still-point in the mind, where fleeting conditions subside. Awake to the present, anxiety and clinging bow to an inner contentment and peace. We are on the Middle Way.
Satipaññā Insight Meditation Toronto

2015-09-22 On dukkha & dukkha nana 1:25:19
Patrick Kearney
We explore how the ordinary experience of dukkha becomes dukkha ñāṇa, understanding of the universal characteristic (samañña lakkhaṇa) of dukkha. We look at the how the perception of impermanence (anicca-saññā) creates anxiety when the heart intuits the groundless of experience, and how the unfolding of this anxiety is mapped by the dukkha ñāṇas of classical Theravāda Buddhism. Finally, we see how the experience of dukkha gives way to that of not-self (anattā), when the heart stabilises through the maturity of mindfulness (sati) and equanimity (upekkhā).
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney

2015-09-17 Working with Emotions in the Body 53:54
Christiane Wolf
Hands-on description on working with anxiety, a physician's take on the 32 parts of the body practice, all 4 satipatthanas grow from here.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Finding Freedom in the Body

2015-03-14 Workshop: Working with Anxiety 3:00:16
Mark Nunberg
Common Ground Meditation Center

2015-01-01 "This is harder than it looks": Raw & Naked Dhamma 39:33
Alexis Santos
The Dhamma unfolds through being real, vulnerable and honest. Reflections on working with anxiety and the unknown in real time.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center New Year's Insight Meditation Retreat

2014-08-18 Dharma and Anxiety 47:38
Matthew Brensilver
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2014-07-23 Practicing with Challenges 3 - Practicing with Difficult Thoughts and Emotions 2 62:01
Donald Rothberg
We review the basic approach of cultivating responsiveness and working with reactivity, looking more at (1) ways of coming back to balance, (2) cultivating mindfulness, and (3) developing other skillful means with challenging thoughts and emotions. Then we explore in more depth how to practice with fear and anxiety.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2014-04-17 Framed By Awareness 56:32
Ajahn Sucitto
Our mind /body is held in the grip of kamma, framed by anxiety, grief and other forms of dukkha. Mindfulness replaces this frame with clear, emphatic awareness.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center Holistic Awareness: Monastic Retreat

2014-01-14 Hardwiring Happiness 1:16:46
Rick Hanson
In his newest book, Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence, Dr. Rick Hanson explains how the mind shapes the brain: neurons that fire together, wire together. Positive experiences are the main source of the neural structures underlying motivation, self-worth, the executive functions, good mood, kindness, resilience, and other inner strengths. Unfortunately, most positive experiences are wasted on the brain because it evolved a negativity bias to help our ancestors survive. It’s like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones. To solve this problem, this talk will present the four simple HEAL steps of taking in the good, which turn passing experiences into lasting neural resources. We’ll explore how to use these methods to build confidence, focus attention, lower anxiety, and fundamentally, hardwire happiness into the brain.
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley Tuesday Talks

2012-11-06 A Precious Morning with Ajahn Amaro 1:54:05
Ajahn Amaro
Anxiety, Metta, Mindfulness, Doubt, Skillful Communication, Reunion
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

2012-09-25 Facing Our Biggest Fears 41:06
Ayya Santussika
This talk explores an ancient Tibetan method to confront your fear and turn it into an ally. She reviews the method from Lama Tsultrim book "Feeding your demons" in the context of the first three of the four noble truths. search words: four noble truths, feeding your demons, fear, anxiety, gratitude, change your brain
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley Tuesday Talks—2012

2012-08-22 Self and Not Self VI--Integration and Review 59:21
Donald Rothberg
We explore in this integrative sessions, how a "thick" sense of self appears in various ways, and how we open to experience with progressively "thinner" senses of self. We also look at how anxiety and disorientation may arise at each stage, and how to understand what skillful uses of self are.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2011-09-03 Falling into the Dharma and Enjoying the Ride 56:05
Sharda Rogell
We live on the edge of uncertainty. But do we have to live with anxiety about this fact? The Dharma shows us we are the dynamic change and becoming. This is our own nature. Can we trust this and let go into it?
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Labor Day Insight Meditation Retreat

2011-08-31 Befriending Irene 1:19:42
Tara Brach
Whether you face chronic anxiety or more violent storms of fear and anger, you can cultivate the wings of freedom--the mindfulness and compassion--that free you. This talk explores how the habit of being reactive causes us suffering and the ways these tools of meditation can be applied to the inner weather systems that most challenge us.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

2011-07-24 Mindfulness for Anxiety and Trauma 44:41
Amita Schmidt
Some basic strategies on using mindfulness to help with anxiety and trauma.
Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley

2011-06-01 Part 2: Stress and Meditation 1:15:52
Tara Brach
When we are suffering from stress, we are paying attention to our world in a narrow and rigid way. Through meditations that cultivate a wakeful and open attention, we can dramatically transform the feelings of anxiety and aloneness that underlie all stress.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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