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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2025-10-22
Q&A
43:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 In sitting meditation I have much less distraction but I feel a sense of torpor. Where does this come from and how can I deal with it? 07:10 Q2 I spend the majority of my life trying to ignore my difficult emotions. Since I began meditation I’ve tried to welcome them all but they take a lot of space. Will it be like this the rest of my life? [A similar one:] I find myself in a deep groove of negativity which is hard to shift. After a couple of decades of practice I am embarrassed by this and find myself more and more isolated from family and friends. [A similar one:] I was bullied as a young teenager which destroyed my self-esteem. How can I secure my heart? 17:20 Q3 Can you explain the difference between citta and consciousness? [A similar one:] How can citta be experienced best? Is it only through phenomena? Can citta be satisfied by internal content and does this help to ease the thirst for sensual gratification? 28:18 Q4 I find it very difficult to do chanting because of difficulty with my throat feeling clogged. 30:20 Q5 My son has had long covid for 4 years and started getting panic attacks. Can you comment please. 33:30 Q5 My question is about violence – not just corporeal violence but also including gossip, jealousy etc. Can you speak to these please?
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Moulin de Chaves
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The Mind Writes, the Heart Sings
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2025-10-22
Bringing Our Practice to Challenging Conversations and Communications, Including with Those with Different Views and Perspectives 2
64:23
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue the exploration from last week, beginning with Donald sharing a few of his experiences of being able to learn and practice when there have been differences of views and even conflicts. Then there is a review of some what we explored last week, including the importance in a functioning democracy of navigating differences of views, some of the factors making that harder in current times, and some of the practice supports for conversations when there are different views—both inner and outer (especially related to wise speech practice). We go further into exploring inner practices helpful when there are differences, including working with reactivity and difficult emotions, exploring views and options, and then the integrated inner and outer practice of cultivating empathy as a practice. The talk is followed by discussion, including several people sharing their own explorations with challenging conversations in the last week.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-10-21
Q&A
41:07
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 I couldn't keep up with this morning's talk. Could you talk about the meaning of kalyana? Q2 04:20 What can we doing instead of getting rid of stuff that bothers us? 09:49 Q3 my inner tyrant has been very active. What is it and how can I deal with it? 14:32 Q4 What does "sitting with emotions" mean more concretely? It feels a bit abstract. 22:26 Q5 Is there something like embodied thinking? In other words, how to reflect upon my meditation when words are sankaras? 25:33 Q6 How to create a more permanent sense feeling of safety in the body? 29:28 Q7 My mother has dementia and refuses to acknowledge her situation. She recently fell and broke her hip. My father is struggling to maintain himself, trying to do the best he can. I'm deeply touched by this situation. How can I best integrate this into my practice? 40:20 Q8 Sometimes in QiGong practice I feel a little nauseous. Can you comment please?
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Moulin de Chaves
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The Mind Writes, the Heart Sings
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2025-10-20
Q&A
35:30
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 How can I differentiate whether it's the ghost that's speaking or the thing that I should work harder on. I feel that if I work a little harder I can be a little better. How should I know it's time to stop ... and where to go? Q2 16:18 if done with love can accomplishment make the heart sing? Q3 17:50 How do I stop longing for emotional connection with a partner and of one of my children? I practice with letting go of the wanting but sometimes the longing arises and it's painful. Q4 25:38 Can you explain again the flow of the air on the in-breath. Q5 33:01 could you say something more about walking. When I'm doing it I'm stiff, rigid and can't get the swing.
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Moulin de Chaves
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The Mind Writes, the Heart Sings
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2025-10-15
Embodying the Four Noble Truths
54:16
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Tim Geil
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The Four Noble Truths offer the fundamental roadmap for our practice. Our daily lives offer countless opportunities to integrate and embody our understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Bringing compassion to the dukkha of our lives helps them transform into wisdom and understanding. In this way, we learn to embody the Four Noble Truths.
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Cambridge Insight Meditation Center
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2025-10-15
Bringing Our Practice to Challenging Conversations and Communications, Including with Those with Different Views and Perspectives 1
62:35
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Donald Rothberg
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How do we bring our practice to challenging conversations and discussions, including there are major differences in views and positions, whether on spiritual or social-politlcal or daily life matters? This is both a perennial practice question and a particularly important one in the current times. We begin our first of two explorations inviting the participants to explore both their most successful and their most difficult or painful discussions across differences, asking about the qualities present with both.
We outline first some current social conditions that make discussions with differences more challenging, while acknowledging that such discussions are at the heart of a healthy democracy. Then we explore several supports for skillful conversations when there are differences, including shared agreements (among individuals or in a group or organization), wise speech practice, the vision of the "beloved community" or universal metta, and a commitment to align means and ends.
The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-10-11
Ordinary Love
40:20
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Devon Hase
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In this evening talk, devon hase reflects on metta as a simple act of caring — the willingness to stay close to our own experience, even when it feels plain or uncertain. Through stories of early practice, pilgrimage, and everyday kindness, she shows how love reveals itself in ordinary moments, asking nothing special of us beyond our presence.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Remembering Each Other Always (LB1C25)
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2025-10-09
Navigating the Truth of Suffering
44:34
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James Baraz
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Suffering is the Buddha's 1st Noble Truth. Sometimes it can feel like it's all too much, especially in these days of extreme unpredictability. Legitimate reactions of anger, confusion and discouragement can lead to feeling of hopelessness or resigned acceptance. How can we use the practice to not only skillfully hold those feelings, but to transform them into wholesome uplifting responses such as courage, trust and compassionate action?
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2025-10-07
Dukkha in the Wider World: What Contributes to Engagement?
31:57
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Victor von der Heyde
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Overview of the last 12 months, Conditions that help engagement:
1. contentment and appreciation; Dr Luke Kemp, his study on civilizational collapse and the value of happiness; contentment and burnout;
2. Anger as being pivotal, types of anger; recent world changes related to anger; tempus nullius; risks and care in relation to anger; Aristotle on the value of anger; Mahakala as a helpful image;
3. An inclusive way of looking; Mother Theresa and one’s family circle; Analyo Bhikkhu and the question of what can one do;
4. Equanimity: perspective of John Gray on the myth of progress in the field of ethics and politics - with examples; Philip Blom on a view of homo sapiens and the comedy of homo sapiens seeing itself as the ruler of nature;
5. A sense of duty and the soulful quality that can come with that;
6. Stories and images: Ursula Le Guin and the Ones who Walk Away from Omelas - with an interpretation; James Hillman and Michael Ventura; Kuan Yin as an image and how she is seen by some in a large Buddhist charity.
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Australian Insight Meditation Network
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Insight and Imaginal Practice
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2025-10-06
Imaginal Practice 3
20:48
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Victor von der Heyde
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Julie Nelson and the romantic belief in knowledge from a perspective-free viewpoint; the interaction of eros, heart-mind-soul and the conceptual framework; the characteristic of soulfulness; Jack Kornfield on an approach to images in psychedelic experience: how that differs from imaginal practice; working with characteristics that may not be present; other characteristics: the lattice, grace, trust, reverence, humility, values, beauty, duty, fulness of intention, participation; imaginal views of oneself; WH Auden and Henry Corbin; caution on talking about images with others; the six devas on Lantau Island, what they represent, and how they could be related to.
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Australian Insight Meditation Network
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Insight and Imaginal Practice
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2025-10-06
A steady plane in a see-saw world
44:09
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Within the world of praise and blame gain and loss, one’s balance grows. This plane of accomplishment neither binds to, nor rejects social and personal systems and customs, but uses them with kindness and integrity. As the heart sustains this, layers of one’s unconscious grasping are revealed and released.
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Cittaviveka
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Cittaviveka 2025 Vassa
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2025-10-05
Imaginal Practice 2
27:54
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Victor von der Heyde
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Unlimited possibilities for images with a range of examples, including God and gods, wild images, images based on people, the sense of being called, image with no figure, embodying an image, felt sense and image of spirit of place; putting aside questions about the reality status of images; Eucharistic imagination; fully and partially imaginal images; Iain McGilchrist on left brain right brain, and the world not being given before it’s experienced;
Rob Burbea’s list of elements or characteristics and the characteristics: two-ness, unfathomable quality, participation, loving and being loved; different orientations of imaginal and insight practices.
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Australian Insight Meditation Network
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Insight and Imaginal Practice
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2025-10-05
Goodwill is food for the heart
45:15
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Ajahn Sucitto
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When handled contemplatively, the energy of goodwill feeds, repairs and strengthens the heart. It can govern our speech and convert our mental attitudes from those of the competitive world. It can also be taken in to clear the residues that these worldly habits have established; anxiety, performance drive and self-criticism.
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Cittaviveka
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Cittaviveka 2025 Vassa
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