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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2020-07-22
Deepening Our Daily Life Practice in the Pandemic 2
67:09
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin with a brief review of the previous week's talk and discussion, in which we explored a number of ways to deepen (1) our formal practice; (2) our informal (daily life) practice; and (3) our service, work, and/or activism as practice. This exploration points to a broadened sense of practice.
We then examine in some depth three inter-related foundational areas for deepening practice in all three areas: (1) developing mindfulness of the body; (2) working to transform reactivity (here as a translation of "dukkha"), including as it manifests in challenging or difficult experiences; and (3) pausing and setting intentions. Our discussion particularly goes into being skillful with challenging experiences.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2020-07-18
The Open and Unrestricted Heart
41:09
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Attention is generally driven by self-interest, to seek what is pleasant. The possibilities of what one receives are then restricted by the “self program”. Unrestricted means changing the baseline from that of the person to something impersonal that can yet be subjectively experienced – clarity, lovingkindness, letting go. Mindfulness of body acts as a platform for steady open awareness.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Unrestricted Awareness
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2020-07-18
Practise Like the Barley Reaper
25:32
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Ayya Medhanandi
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In a dialogue between King Milinda and Venerable Nagasena, we hear the Buddha’s instruction on mental training and how to apply our allies of mindfulness, restraint and wisdom. Devoted to the training, we can overcome ignorance, take hold of the mind and cut off the defilements just as the barley reaper cuts his barley. Our mission is to lean towards Nibbāna, not believing the self-making stories, and gradually, patiently, wrestle free from ignorance, waking up right in the middle of any storm we may face.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2020-07-16
Buddhist Practice and the Transformation of Racism 2: -Meditation and Inner Work
1:19:17
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Donald Rothberg
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In this second talk in the series, we first review the main "wisdom" perspectives presented last week, that give us some orientation toward understanding and transforming racism. Then we explore the second area of training: meditation and inner work, identifying four main themes and practices, the first three of which are supported significantly by working in small groups: (1) understanding and working with "implicit bias"; (2) cultivating mindfulness of our racial conditioning and the experiences which arise in investigating race and racism; (3) heart practices like compassion and empathy; and (4) the importance of continuing to access, as best we can, deeper experiences of our being.
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Insight Meditation Tucson
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Buddhist Practice and the Transformation of Racism
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2020-07-10
How Not to Be a Hot Mess
63:15
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James Baraz,
Craig Hase,
Devon Hase,
Eve Decker
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Devon and Craig Hase join James in sharing about their new book How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life. The book offers a playful exploration of living a life of Integrity based on the teachings of the Buddha.
Devon and Craig lead meditation retreats throughout North America and Europe. Devon teaches at the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock. Craig spent six years in a Zen monastery and teaches mindfulness meditation, and dharma full time.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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IMCB Regular Talks
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2020-06-24
Buddhist Practice and the Transformation of Racism 2
65:20
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Donald Rothberg
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Traditional Buddhist training occurs through development in wisdom, ethics, and meditation. We use this model to help us to understand Buddhist practice that aims to transform racism. We start by reviewing briefly the first three perspectives offered in the previous week, which fall under training in wisdom. Then we look at how ethical practice and in particular the practice of non-harming can be the basis for action, based on an understanding of ethical practice as guiding both one's personal behavior and one's responses to harm in one's communities and society. Lastly, we explore meditative training and how in particular mindfulness and compassion play central roles in the transformation of racism.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2020-06-10
Meditation: Meeting Anger with Awareness
15:15
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Tara Brach
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When anger is held in mindfulness, it can energize us to respond wisely to challenging situations. This meditation guides us in meeting personal or societal anger with RAIN – recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.
[NOTE: this meditation was given at the end of Tara’s Anger and Transformation talk on 2020-06-10. A brief context is given, then the meditation begins at 4:56.]
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2020-05-23
Wondrous Feeling
42:58
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Dhammadīpā
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Exploring how mindfulness and investigation of feeling tone is woven into many frameworks of practice given by the Buddha - the 5 aggregates, the 4 foundations of mindfulness, the 12 fold chain of causation, the 4 Noble Truths.
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Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery
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2020-03-11
Letting Go - Release - Freedom (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
60:35
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Eugene Cash
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Satipatthana - Four Foundations of Mindfulness offers us specific meditation practices with the body, breath, in four postures, in all activities, with the elements, with death, vedana, the heart/mind and the dharmas including hindrances and the seven factors of awakenings. Each of these practices includes a through line: One abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. The not clinging to body, heart, mind or any experience is both the foundation of the Buddha's teaching and the doorway to freedom. It's the experience of coming into alignment with ' he way things are.'
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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March Monthlong
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2020-03-02
Calm Clarity Compassion | Monday Night talk
1:10:51
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Jack Kornfield,
Paul Hawken
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How can we navigate through hard times? This is an excerpt of a talk Jack Kornfield gave with environmentalist Paul Hawken on March 2, 2020 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center on how to stay grounded and steady as we navigate the spread of the Coronavirus and other challenges.
The need for the Dharma is stronger than ever. We can choose to live in our fears, confusion, and worries, or to stay in the essence of our practice, center ourselves, and be the ones that demonstrate patience, compassion, mindfulness, and mutual care.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2020-02-24
Engaged Receptivity
51:29
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The essence of meditation is engaged receptivity. This is the skill of pausing for a minute and witnessing the flow of dhammas. It becomes fully established by strong mindfulness, so that ‘full knowing’ (sampajañña) gives the view of the causal web: that dhammas arise from causes and are not self.
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Emoyeni Retreat Centre
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Clearing and Renewal
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2020-02-23
Q&A
55:48
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Ajahn Sucitto
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What is mindfulness; What is investigation; Unusual images arising in meditation; Death and afterlife; How to deal with vulnerability of heart?
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Emoyeni Retreat Centre
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Clearing and Renewal
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2020-02-23
Mindfulness of Breathing
11:37
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Mindfulness of breathing is the gathering of attention around a process that is flowing and fluid. The steady and suffusive quality of breathing eases tensions in the heart and mind. The thinking process quietens down and external sights and sounds don’t impinge allowing the natural qualities of the heart become more apparent.
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Emoyeni Retreat Centre
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Clearing and Renewal
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2020-02-22
Whatever the Content, Establish the Container
35:19
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Mindfulness replaces self as the container and arbiter if experience. Self finds it difficult to be with the disagreeable, the crazy, the chaotic, the out of control. Self searches for success, and dreads failure. Mindfulness can handle real life: no success, no failure.
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Emoyeni Retreat Centre
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Clearing and Renewal
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2020-02-06
Mindfulness of Breathing
65:12
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Rather than being about the inhalation and exhalation of breath, mindfulness of breathing is about soothing the life force energy. As energy settles in the body, many disruptive emotive tendencies are cleared, leaving the heart available to meet experience in a balanced and sensitive way.
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Dharmagiri
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Firm Center, Open Heart
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2020-02-04
Mindfulness of the Body: A Guided Meditation with Sequential Touch Sensations
25:16
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Shaila Catherine
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In this guided meditation, Shaila Catherine introduces a practice of mindfulness of the body by observing a sequence of touch sensations. This meditation guides practitioners to gradually move attention through a series of bodily locations where the feet, buttocks, hands, lips, and eye lids touch. At each location we pause to experience the present sensations that are known at that place of touching. After exploring touch points, we broader the field of attention to the whole body sitting. By alternating the focus of attention between precise and clear points of contact, and broad, restful, receptive awareness of the whole body, the meditator nurtures a clear bright balanced mind that can meet the present moment as it is.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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In
collection:
Featured Guided Meditations
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2020-01-29
From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha Mind 13: Exploring Our Experience of Time 4
64:24
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Donald Rothberg
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We focus in this session on four ways of practicing that help us to transform our conditioning in relationship to time: (1) opening to the present moment, as in our core practice of mindfulness; (2) exploring impermanence reflectively and experientially in several ways; (3) accessing, at least briefly, a timeless awareness, and learning to live from this awareness more and more; and (4) noticing and examining our various forms of conditioning around time. The first three ways of practicing correspond to the guided practices in the earlier guided meditation. For the fourth, we look especially in this session at the powerful ways that our cultural and social conditioning operates, comparing some of the main aspects of conditioning in the mainstream U.S., with its emphasis on future planning, productivity, and busyness, among other orientations to time, with how some other cultures experience time.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2020-01-14
The Transformative Power of Metta Practice (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
56:21
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Donald Rothberg
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Guided by a recent translation of a poem about metta practice by an early Buddhist nun, from The First Free Women, we contemplate the simple yet radical and profound spirit of metta practice. The author tells us: "I have followed this Path of friendship to its end. And I can say with absolute certainty—it will lead you home.” We look at how metta cuts through fear, how it deepens concentration, how we work with the challenges of metta practice, how we navigate the “purification process” linked with metta practice, and how we integrate the kind heart, mindfulness, wisdom, and skillful action.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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January Metta Retreat
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