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.

What "wise effort" is, how it fits into the eightfold path, and what characterizes it. The road, Sati (mindfulness) plays in supporting wholesome states, and undercutting the unwholesome.

Following the noble eightfold path is caring enough to truly live. This talk also touches on the three kinds of dukkha, and the three kinds of craving.

Wise view and wise thought, and ethical conduct are elucidated as guides for living a life with wisdom and compassion

By developing the noble eightfold path we can abandon mental defilements (fetters) and realize peace, happiness, and ultimate freedom (Nibbana)

Exploring ways that effort can become unbalanced, some antidotes, and the Buddhas four-part definition of right effort in the noble eightfold path.

This talk discusses wise intention, the second step on the eightfold path, and why it is essential to liberation

Strong in restraint, courageous in wisdom, we use the compass of right view to steer us on the Noble Eightfold Path, while right intention sustains the healing actions of mind that let go unwholesome thoughts and endless fabrications. We learn to live and respond to life compassionately, responsibly, mindfully, with integrity and noble presence of mind. Healing from above and below, from the outside and internally, we listen to the unspoken silence of the heart that resounds in the galaxies. Keenly aware, supremely blessed, we rejoice in the totality of unbounded compassion.