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Dharma Talks
2025-09-18 Longing for the Sacred 48:30
James Baraz
With so much violence and insensitivity all around us, we can lose touch with our love for what is sacred. All that is required is a heightened sensitivity to tune into what is always around us.
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley

2025-09-17 Healing and Liberation in Times of Activation and Entanglement 60:00
Mark Nunberg
We live in times when fear, greed and anxiety provoke our hearts & minds daily. Often, we relate to these triggers in ways that only amplify agitation and conflict in and around us. The Buddha’s teachings and practices help us uncover the stabilizing, tenderizing, and liberating force of wisdom and awareness. Wisdom and awareness is the necessary antidote for troubled hearts in troubled times.
Cambridge Insight Meditation Center

2025-09-17 Attention Models the Object, Mindfulness Models the Attention 45:43
Matthew Brensilver
Big Bear Retreat Center Love and Rest

2025-09-17 Giving In Rather Than Giving Up 55:24
Ayya Santacitta
Short Reflection & Guided Meditation | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene III | Online Wednesday-Mornings
Aloka Earth Room

2025-09-17 Sloth & Torpor and Restless & Worry (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 61:43
Dawn Mauricio
A talk exploring these two hindrances, our relationship to them, and ways to embrace them as parts of our path
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Clearing the Path: Opening the Heart and Mind

2025-09-17 Awakening from Ignorance: Going beyond the Main Habitual Constructions of Experience 2 63:38
Donald Rothberg
We begin with a review of how the Buddha saw "ignorance" of the basic nature of things (not so much of facts or information) as the basic problem of human life; we are as if asleep, caught in dream-like living, and need to "wake up." For the Buddha, we are especially ignorant about impermanence, dukkha (or reactivity--grabbing at the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant or painful and believing that this is the way to happiness), the nature of the self, and nirvana or awakening. We bring in a brief report of the experience of attending the previous week's EcoDharma retreat at Spirit Rock, emphasizing especially the pervasiveness of a sense of separation--from the earth, other living beings, and each other--and the connection of such sense of separation with our systemic problems. Indigenous teachers at the retreat particularly emphasized living without such separation. The second part of the talk, we focus on the teaching of not-self (anatta), and ways of practicing that deepens our understanding of not-self, as well as how we hold this understanding of pervasive human ignorance with compassion and kindness, including in our responses to the manifestations of ignorance. The talk is followed by discussion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2025-09-17 Guided Meditation Exploring the Constructions of Experience: Being with Impermanence, Choiceless Awareness, and Experiences with a "Thick" Sense of Self 39:09
Donald Rothberg
We begin with about 7-8 minutes of developing stability of attention and less distraction, through concentration practice or some other practice. We then explore several aspects of how we "construct" experience. We look at impermanence in several ways, noticing the arising, staying and changing, and passing away with (1) the breath, (2) body sensations, (3) sounds, and (4) the open flow of experience (about 3 minutes). Then there is a period of mindfulness practice with the additional instruction of looking out for a moderate or strong sense of self. We close with a short period of a heart practice such as lovingkindness or compassion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2025-09-17 Guided Meditation: Relaxing and Letting Feeling be Feeling 37:39
Matthew Brensilver
Big Bear Retreat Center Love and Rest

2025-09-16 Obstacles on the Path: Sense Desire & Aversion (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 55:51
Gullu Singh
Talk Synopsis: Clearing the Poisons – Greed and Aversion This talk explores how the Buddha’s teachings on dukkha and the three unwholesome roots—greed, aversion, and delusion—relate to the common mental obstacles that arise in meditation and daily life. Framed through the lens of the five hindrances, the talk looks closely at how these energies obscure attention and contribute to suffering. The talk includes a practical discussion of temperament—how some of us tend more toward craving, others toward irritation or confusion—and how understanding these patterns can support clarity and compassion. Rather than trying to get rid of these states, the emphasis is on recognizing and relating to them with awareness, in line with the Buddha’s instruction to know dukkha and its causes. Grounded in the Four Noble Truths, the talk points toward a path of practice that works with what's difficult—not as a problem to fix, but as a doorway to insight and freedom.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Clearing the Path: Opening the Heart and Mind

2025-09-16 Mindfulness of Breath and Body Guided Meditation (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 68:54
Dawn Mauricio
Morning instructions
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Clearing the Path: Opening the Heart and Mind

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