When we can’t forgive ourselves, we remain imprisoned and separate from our world. This talk explores forgiving as a process of relaxing open the clenched fist of self-blame. As forgiving becomes deep and full, we discover the freedom of a spacious, awake and loving heart.

This recording includes a quote read by trainee teacher Gareth Fysh-Foskett.

Die vier Verkehrtheiten verdrehen und verzerren unsere Wahrnehmung der Welt und führen zu Leiden und Konflikten. Durch die Praxis von Satipatthana können wir sie auflösen und eine neue, befreiende Art der Wahrnehmung entdecken.

Short Reflection & Guided Meditation | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene | Online Wednesday-Mornings

Teaching and guided meditation on the practice of Karuna, or Compassion.

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?

A Dhamma session is special, a form that is unlike the form in which most people live. But as we return to the helter-skelter of city life, it offers certain things to bear in mind.

Exploring our relationship to the living moment. Openings, reactions and illuminations with the magic and mystery of Being Here.

Cultivating the wholesome and abandoning the unwholesome in meditation and as a factor of the path.

Afternoon sit with Instruction (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Meditation is part of the eight-fold path. We see there are no such things as objects just many, many subjects – and they all experience themselves as subjects.

This recording also includes Kirsten Kratz

Instructions and teaching on the second foundation of mindfulness, which is Vedana (feeling tone, or hedonic valence). A description from the Satipatthana, guided meditation, and ending reflections.

Teachings on the five hindrances and how to hold them with equanimity. Making friends with our beautiful monsters.

A discussion of the Buddhist teachings on morality, in an examination of how these fit into and relate to meditation practice

Gleichmut ist das letzte der vier Brahmaviharas. Eine wunderbare Qualität von Gleichgewicht, Stabilität und Nicht-Reaktivität, die uns hilft, friedliche Beziehungen zu leben, Konflikte beizulegen und auch angesichts herausfordernder Umstände ruhig zu bleiben.

An examination of the operating system that gets set up with life and the program “I am a separate being.”

Dependent arising is accompanied by dependent ceasing. Is mindfulness enough? The dhammas involved are potent and need persistent attention to a multiplicity of factors.

The temple is built through contemplating, understanding and clearing the ground. The construction is through a process called recollection: to bring up a topic, linger on it and see what the resonances are.

Questions are précised and read into the file: 00:10 Q1 Is there a Buddhist perspective on the soul and how that might relate to citta. 09:08 Q2 I am wondering about the teachings of the trikayas in terms of the territory of the soul or the devas. 11:38 Q3 You were saying there is no me and no not me; there is no soul. But then, what gets passed on? 20:42 Q4 When I think about what gets passed on I tend to think more of the role of genetics. To me, Buddhism doesn’t seem to give enough weight to the social or family element in our development. 22:39 Q5 Regarding the concept of qi (chi), does that life force come with intelligence imbued in it? 23:02 Q6 I so appreciated your comments about the beauty of freedom the Buddha had was to choose to teach out of compassion. So his enlightenment was not the end point but it was the responsive space that resulted that was so beautiful. 33:01 Q7 Can you elaborate please? Is the most basic link in the dependent origination is the I am singularity? Is there an asava independent of the I am?34:26 Q8 Earlier you talked about the four areas of crystallization of clinging: sense pleasures, becoming and principles / ethics. What was the fourth?

Guided meditation

The Brahmaviharas are all full-hearted intentions towards good will; heart energies that carry the same code / language. They are not about liking.

Questions are précised and read into the file: 00:25 Q1 I’m wondering if you have thought about animal sankara formations and what they might be like? 04:27 Q2 Can the environment change your citta? 07:23 Q3 Can you talk more about calming the formations? It seems such a huge subject. 08:44 Q4 You say we have to turn towards our regrets and not suppress them. But these have to do with the past and we have to turn to them. I think I am confused. 25:07 Q5 Can you say more about existence and non-existence?

Evening Dharma Talk (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Unser Geist ist die Quelle von Leiden und Glück, deshalb kommt seiner Kultivierung eine grosse Bedeutung zu. Indem wir bewusst heilsame Geistesqualitäten kultivieren, gehen wir in die Richtung von mehr innerem Glück und Frieden. Bhavana - die Kultivierung des Geistes - hat drei Formen: Die Entwicklung ethischen Verhaltens, die Entwicklung heilsamer Geistesqualitäten und die Entwicklung von Weisheit.

The weekly practice groups are designed to be a cornerstone for one's practice by providing ongoing instruction and teachings that will help illuminate the simple but challenging practice of mindfulness. The Buddha taught that mindfulness is the way to go beyond habits of distraction and grasping. To walk this path of wisdom and compassion, we need the support of a community that shares this intention. Each session includes a guided meditation, dharma talk, and discussion. Both experienced and beginning meditators are welcome.

The weekly practice groups are designed to be a cornerstone for one's practice by providing ongoing instruction and teachings that will help illuminate the simple but challenging practice of mindfulness. The Buddha taught that mindfulness is the way to go beyond habits of distraction and grasping. To walk this path of wisdom and compassion, we need the support of a community that shares this intention. Each session includes a guided meditation, dharma talk, and discussion. Both experienced and beginning meditators are welcome.

Afternoon Sit with Instructions

Questions are précised and read into the file: 00:38 Q1 Buddhist cosmology I find terribly overwhelming. If I just focus on what is helping me, will I be missing out on much? 02:07 Q2 I really value your teaching that it all comes back to clinging. 02:55 Q3 Yesterday you mentioned a shift that can be sensed before the tone of pleasant or unpleasant actually arises. Can you say anything more about this shift before the vedana quality actually appears? 04:23 Q4 This seems so interwoven. I guess it's a tangled skein. 12:17 Q5 You mentioned that it was helpful to point the citta towards kaya sankara rather than the vaci sankara. Is that what allows the development of equanimity? 16:52 Q6 I am confused. Are the heart and the citta two different things? 19:44 Q7 About the taints/ asava, is this a linear sequence? 28:15 Q8 Isn't part of the beauty of what you've done with samadhi as well is that to enter samadhi you've experienced non-fabrication of the 5 hindrances. 30:13 Q9 When I practice the jhanas I find I get to a certain point where I can't get further into calmness. Is that where I should start to investigate? 35:13 Q10 I have a resistance to being grounded. It seems I prefer the fizzy state. 42:37 Q11 In relating to signs and to being able to set signs aside, what role does beauty play in the dhamma? 44:58 Q12 Could it mean that it reduces the energy in unhelpful sankaras? Q13 There might be a time when I'm experiencing an upset and I would just put myself in front of a tree and the experience of viewing, considering the tree gives time for the capacity to identify with something wholesome and helpful.

Compassion is how we walk this path of peace. "Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless. Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth." DHP 5 — Trans: Thānisarro Bhikku