|
|
 |
Please support Dharma Seed with a 2025 year-end gift.
Your donations allow us to offer these teachings online to all.
|
|
|
|
|
The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
|
|
|
| |
|
Dharma Talks
|
2018-05-23
Seeing Basic Goodness – Part 2
54:13
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we’re ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness – in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or “other.” Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms.
"Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to you.
Now attempt to look at each of them as if you were seeing them for the first time, not allowing yourself to be influenced by your past knowledge or experience of them, whether good or bad.
Look for things in them that you may have missed because of familiarity, for familiarity breeds staleness, blindness and boredom. You cannot love what you cannot see afresh. You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew."
Anthony de Mello
from “The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello”
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
|
|
|
2018-05-22
Milestones on the Path to Freedom: Assessing Progress in Practice Wisely
42:14
|
|
Dawn Neal
|
|
|
Dawn Neal gave the last talk in a speaker series titled "Goals in Meditation." Dawn offered a perspective on how to relate to assessments of practice in day-to-day practice, as well as over the arc of a practioner's journey. Beautiful experiences in practice, including great sits, concentration states, and even insight, can be celebrated, and assessed in ways that can nourish confidence in the Dharma and increase spiritual maturity. The same milestones can also become impediments -- dead-weight on the spiritual journey -- if clung to or identified with in an unhelpful way.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
In
collection:
Goals in Meditation
|
|
|
2018-05-10
"Clear Comprehension Part 2"
59:30
|
|
James Baraz
|
|
|
In the Satipatthana Sutta (MN#10), the Buddha's discourse on mindfulness, the Buddha instructs us to contemplate mindfully, ardent and clearly comprehending each of the four foundations. "Clear comprehension" also translated as "clearly knowing" includes four areas of context for our mindfulness practice. In Part 1 we explored the first two elements of Clear Comprehension: "Clear Comprehension of Purpose" and "Clear Comprehension of Suitability of Action". In this talk we discuss the second two aspects: "Clear Comprehension in the Domain of Meditation" and "Clear Comprehension of Reality". With metta, James
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
:
IMCB Regular Talks
|
|
|
2018-05-09
Eating Addiction: How Meditation Helps Free Us
54:01
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
Buddhist psychology views clinging as the source of suffering, and one of the great domains of clinging is compulsive overeating. For most of us the causes and conditions for compulsive overeating existed before we were born, during our early childhood, and in our surrounding society. We begin to release shame and self-aversion by realizing we are not alone in this suffering; and eating addiction is not “our fault.” The talk includes an exploration of how, through RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and self-compassion to compulsive eating, giving us more choice in our behavior. Ultimately we discover that this deep prison of suffering can become a portal to realizing the freedom our true nature.
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
|
|
|
2018-05-08
Cooling the Fire
43:32
|
|
Andrea Fella
|
|
|
Andrea Fella gave the third talk in a speaker series titled "Goals in Meditation." Andrea pointed out that the Pali word that the Buddha used to describe his awakening is "nibbana." This word literally means "cooling." In other words, awakening is not about gaining something; rather it's about cooling the fire of greed, hatred, and delusion in our minds. indeed, we can experience nibbana in this life time, when we let go of greed, hatred, and delusion.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
In
collection:
Goals in Meditation
|
|
|
2018-05-03
Meditation: The Silence That’s Listening
27:15
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life – allowing whatever is here to be just as it is. In the foreground, we notice the dance of sensations, thoughts, emotions…rising up and falling away. And in the background, a wakeful, receptive presence – the silence that is listening. When we let go of all doing and relax back into this alert stillness, we sense our true nature…our home.
In words from the Tibetan tradition: “Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating, allowing awareness.”
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
2018 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
|
|
|
2018-04-24
Commitment to Enlightenment
30:23
|
|
Shaila Catherine
|
|
|
In this talk, Shaila Catherine explores the purpose of meditation practice. By knowing the goal of the Buddhist path, we can avoid becoming satisfied with deceptive attainments such as mere joy, calmness, and concentration. These pleasant states are not the aim of the liberating path. If we become attached to these temporary states and initial attainments, they become impediments on the path and can prevent the realization of the ultimate goal of awakening.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
In
collection:
Goals in Meditation
|
|
|
2018-04-24
Goals in Meditation
3:05:54
|
|
| with
Andrea Fella,
Dawn Neal,
Kim Allen,
Shaila Catherine,
Tony Bernhard
|
|
We invited several local teachers to share both the personal aims that guide their practice and their understanding of the goals of the Buddhist Path. We asked them the following questions:
What is the goal of Buddhist practice?
What do you personally hope to achieve through your practice?
What is a reasonable way to assess our progress – how can we tell if we are on track?
How can we work skillfully with goals in the context of mindfulness-based practices that emphasize present moment awareness?
This series will explore both the ultimate and relative goals of Buddhist practice. It will address the benefits and limitations of having goals, and explore some related practice issues: comparing, expectations, craving for attainments, inspiration, and the potential for discouragement.
Join us for an illuminating look into some aspects of your practice you may never have considered!
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
