Participant questions are précised and read into the file. The reading does not communicate the emotion that was frequently beautifully present: 00:08 Q1: I started listening to your recordings maybe in 2020 and it just really resonates with me the way you explain the citta. I just have never heard it described in quite the way you do, it all makes sense. So just to say thank you for this. 01:11 Q2: Could you speak about the bowing - what you are doing and how to do it. 05:56 Q3: I don’t have words to express my heart but thanks. The silence this morning … there’s something about it … The process is so intriguing, so beautiful, so thank you all everybody. 06:22 Q4 I so appreciate your clarity. You have helped me to understand things that I touched into years ago. And I went down cul-de-sacs not understanding. I am so grateful to have come into contact with you. 08:32 Q5 It’s been a difficult year for me and with your teaching I feel like an instrument that has been retuned. I feel I can play now or sing. 08:49 Q6 I want to say I am very grateful to be here and it seems that I have probably done some wholesome actions along the way. Sometimes when I look at my life I look at the difficult things that have happened to me and now I see I need to also look at the beautiful things. 09:21 Q7 For the last 10 years I have been struggling with daily practice and now I see better that practice is not just for half an hour but it’s 24/7 and I have to do my best. 11:15 Q8 You’ve talked about practicing with the paramis. I don’t know what they are. Is there a text you could recommend on this? 11:59 Q9 I just wanted to thank you and everyone for the silent presence and especially to thank you for how you led us into silence. 12:17 Q10 I just want to add that the QiGong was really special and added a lot. Thank you for that. 12:35 Q11 Who is your teacher in QiGong?

This talk unfolds teachings on sila, Buddhist ethics. It will explore the precepts as the heart of the Path, and share how we can use them to stay awake in daily life.

00:42 Q1 How can one protect one’s axis/ centre after a retreat is over? 11:55 In daily life my system gets stuck in a previous experience with someone. Although they have left, the turmoil is still there and I feel stuck.

The family retreat 2023 at Spirit Rock focused on the Eightfold Path. This talk was on Samadhi-- or Wise Cultivation through Mindfulness and Meditation and was specifically geared to parents. How can parents practice mindfulness right in the heat of in daily life? Can we practice when we’re getting kids ready for school or putting them to bed, or fighting with our teen or when we're worried about them? Mindfulness can offer incredible tools to support parents in staying present, connected, awake, and in right relationship with our children, partners, and self.

Benefits of developing understanding. Various qualities that charachterize wisdom and mindfulness in daily life.

Questions précised – 00:06 Q1 What’s the importance of the lotus posture for practice? As a beginner I can’t sit like that but also I don’t feel good using a chair 05:34 Q2 Is awakening possible for a lay practitioner of mindfulness meditation such as I practice, or is this just a lost cause? 19:57 Q3 I have been doing sitting meditation almost daily for almost 30 years. There are good days when my attention is stable and I feel unified. But more frequently my experience becomes stagnant and I don’t know where to turn my attention and I feel bored, inadequate. 27:47 Q4 It’s so limiting to identify with a self. Why, when we have perfection in us is it so difficulty to see the truth? 38:42 Q5 Sometimes I see light around people or objects and sometimes things seem transparent with light. Can you say something about this? 39:38 Q6 I’m concerned about my daughter with obsessive compulsive disorder. What can you recommend? 42:15 Q7 Is it possible to overdue investigation? Sometimes it feels that investigating frozen states seems more like prodding rather than compassion. 43:18 Q8 How can I feel connected to people who don’t share the same values and vision of life? I feel lonely and angry when I’m with them.

In this talk we explore the core tools that we can use when we are struggling with difficult emotions, whether on retreat or in daily life. These tools are Mindfulness (of course): we learn how to be present with our emotions, practice RAIN, and meet our difficult thoughts and emotions with a fearless heart. The second tool is Wisdom: how can we "enlist the wisdom mind" to help us when we are lost in a challenging emotion.The third is Love: how we bring self-compassion and kindness to ourselves and our difficulties when we most need it. Lastly, Awareness Itself: Recognize the part of us that is stable, free, and luminous even in the midst of difficult emotions. Includes real-life examples.

We start with an emphasis on the importance of daily life practice, and on some of the ways that it is sometimes seen as secondary in insight meditation, when we center formal practice and retreats. We then explore eight different ways to deepen daily life practice, inviting the listener to see which one or two ways most resonate as part of one's "next steps" in deepening daily life practice. The talk is followed by a period of reflection and then by discussion.