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Dharma Talks
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2009-04-04
Batik Buddha
38:54
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Ayya Medhanandi reflects on the meaning of the different mudras or hand gestures used by the Buddha himself when he gave teachings. Each represents an important quality for us to practise and develop such as fearlessness or compassion. You can see these mudras that she describes on the batik cloth that was gifted to the Ottawa Buddhist Society at https://ottawabuddhistsociety.com/about-the-obs/latvian-buddha-batik/
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2009-04-04
Spring Fever Pt 1.
40:31
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Ajahn Amaro
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We often relate to arisings and beginnings as intrinsically and wholly good (think kids and puppies, spring flowers...), but surely there's more to the story, for everything in nature tends to create its opposite.
This will be a day of reflections and practices on the themes of interest and enthusiasm, and their painful shadow, the obsessive quality of becoming.
Most usefully we will explore the ways that the heart can be freed from such obsessive addictions so the cycles of nature can be integrated harmoniously.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Spring Fever
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2009-04-01
Awakening Through Conflict
1:20:40
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Tara Brach
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The wisdom of the Buddha can guide us not only in discovering inner freedom, but in healing that which divides us from each other. While conflict is inevitable--we are wired toward flight and flight when our needs are not met--it is possible to have our patterns of interpersonal reactivity be the very grounds for awakening. This talk draws on the work of Non Violent Comunications (Marshal Rosenberg) and explores how mindful communications are an interpersonal meditation that gives rise to compassion and understanding.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2009-03-28
Boundaries and Space
35:07
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Space seems like the opposite of boundaries, but space is there because of boundaries. So in order to give yourself some space internally you have to create boundaries in the mind. Know what to set aside, and moderate what you pick up in terms of future, past, self and other people. Those are the four areas that turbulences occur around. You don’t have to be trapped and meshed up with this.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-27
Unsupporting Consciousness
24:42
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Ajahn Sucitto
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In meditation we can come to recognize what the mind leans upon and why – and how everything it leans on falls apart. The most stable and secure abiding is unsupported consciousness – the removal of all props – ‘this is peaceful, this is sublime.’ It leads to cessation, a place of rest.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-26
Kind Awareness
54:44
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James Baraz
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This is a three part series of talks on James’ basic meditation instructions: “Receive the moment with a relaxed, interested and kind awareness.
What does a kind awareness mean? How can we meet each moment—including moments of fear or physical discomfort—with this attitude? This is a key issue for deepening our practice.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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IMCB Regular Talks
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2009-03-24
Getting Impermanence
29:37
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The Buddha’s last words were: ‘All sankhārā are impermanent; make an effort with diligence.’ Is there a place where self, other, past, future don’t happen? That’s what we meditate for. It takes us under the froth to the root of where the turbulence is coming from. These formative patterns have energy, but through bearing presence, they gradually lose their intensity and dissolve.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-22
Absolute Honesty
28:48
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Ajahn Sucitto
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People talk about absolute truth, but what about absolute honesty? Honesty about craving and clinging. Craving and clinging focus on pleasure, but through following that we get addicted. To get off that, the recommendation is to cultivate enlightenment factors for support. Develop an inner axis, use one’s collectedness as a prop.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-21
Volition and The Rut of i am
46:09
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Generally, mind becomes tangled with concerns for the future, planning, wanting things to be completed, finished. But nothing is solid or definite; it’s never quite right. This is the First Noble Truth. In meditation we take attention off the topic to how am I handling the topic: how am I affected, does this lead to more suffering or less? Open, soften, let it travel through.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-20
Unencumbered
19:12
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Fire is our teacher - the fire of pain, the fire of persevering through difficulty and the fire of going beyond what we think we are capable of. For we are greater that we know and our journey is one of learning to trust what is right and true. When the heart’s compassion, wisdom, and generosity mature, there is no space for fear. All the dross of the world melts away in the silence of pure presence. Here is the absolute sanctity of awareness, unencumbered, and joyous in the knowledge of pure love itself.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society (Sisters of St. Joseph Convent)
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2009-03-19
Ice Melts
40:57
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Ayya Medhanandi
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We can know freedom from suffering when the light of dhamma (or truth) arises. This illumination will melt the impurities formed by unwholesome mind states. Oh, what a freedom! A talk given during a 10 day Ottawa Buddhist Society retreat at the Sisters of St. Joseph Convent, Pembroke, Ontario, Canada in 2009.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2009-03-19
Ice Melts
28:52
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Within us is the seed of awakening. And yet we are so blind. Can we free ourselves by seeing through clouds of delusion, greed and hatefulness? Do we have the resolve and patience to begin and the humility and forgiveness to keep going in hard times? Vigilance in ethical practice, unremitting mindfulness, inner stillness, and sharp discernment melt ignorance and purify the mind. Not only that – joyous and aware, we radiate a fearless unequivocal compassion. When the sun rises, darkness disappears. Just so, we emerge from our blindness, at peace with all conditions
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2009-03-18
Fierce Gifts
36:07
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Ayya Medhanandi
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When life presents fearsome obstacles, be your own spiritual ally and turn those obstacles into windows that open to the depths of the heart. There, cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, radiant joy and the wisdom of discernment, behold the fierce gifts of the Dhamma that defy delusion and rescue us from the mire of every perceived burden.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2009-03-18
Fading and Dispassion
47:07
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Cultivation is both about doing and not doing. Sometimes it’s about restraining and letting the roots of old habits die out. This requires the ability to step back and witness, and to stand firm against emotional pressure. When we can remain as the witness, there is the immediate fruit of freedom in that moment, and the long-term fruit of changing the tendency.
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Cittaviveka
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Winter Retreat
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2009-03-17
Niagara Falls
13:45
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Ayya Medhanandi
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How can we sharpen awareness of thoughts that gush forth in the mind like Niagara Falls? Observe them gently, not clinging and with diligent focus. Our present moment awareness and unstoppable attention, when sustained inwardly, have the transformative power of a Niagara to cleanse the heart of all impurities. Therein is the path to freedom.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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Pembroke Retreat
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2009-03-16
Barefoot and Empty-handed
40:41
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Developing awakened wisdom is an organic process, the unbinding of all problems that leads to indestructible peace and harmlessness. We undertake and persevere through training the mind so that we can renounce our attachments and stop the interior whirling of the world. No longer caught in its duality, we rest in knowing the liberating truth of this moment, cessation of suffering and a transcendent healing that takes us to the Deathless.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2009-03-16
Stay Tuned - Radiant Mind Untainted By Ego
26:45
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Ayya Medhanandi
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We hear in the Udana, Verses of Uplift, about the Venerable Meghiya’s wish to practise in the beautiful Mango Grove before his mind was mature enough. Even when we are on retreat and conditions for practice seem perfect, hindrances plague the mind and overcome it with impurities. So we hold fast to the Buddha’s instructions to know for ourselves the radiance of mind that is untainted by ego.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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