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Dharma Talks
in English
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2025-03-16
Q&A
43:58
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Questions are précised. 00:36 Q1. Can you please clarify the difference between awareness and presence; 09:04 Q2 I became a monk but left due to overwhelming negative meditation experiences which are still continuing. Can you suggest something please? 15:24 Q3 In the evening I think I would like to get up early so there’s more time for practice; 19:42 Q4 I’ve been a Buddhist for 35 years but only recently have started to open up the heart. I’ve never been able to cry, only anger and depression. Since my mother died I cry a lot, even through the day. What can I do?22:43 Q5 I’m on two and a half solitary retreat. I use body practices but I am experiencing migraines. What can you suggest; 27:42 Q6 I live by myself after being asked to leave by house mates with no explanation. In my new place the neighbours pick fights with me and yell at my door. My previous housemates said I was psychotic. I am depressed. How do I not loose heart? 42:18 Q7 How can one embrace this human existence and remain unattached to any identity?
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Dhamma Stream Online Sessions
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2024-12-26
Are Ghosts, Angels and Devas real?
56:22
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Ajahn Achalo
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03:01 Q1) Do you believe in Devas, and other subtle bodied beings in higher, lower and parallel realms?
03:12 Q2) When did you first start to believe in these things and why?
22:32 the next three questions flow together:
Q3) Do you believe that belief in such things is central to the Buddhist world view and to Buddhist practice?
Q4) What are the benefits if one can take this aspect of cosmology on board?
Q5) What are the possible drawbacks if one does not?
41:03 Q6) Are there potential dangers in believing in such things?
44:28 Q7) Can you tell us some stories from personal experience, or things that you have heard first hand from your own teachers and friends, which might help us to be more open to the possibilities?
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Online
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2024-12-18
Revolutionary Love: A Conversation with Tara Brach & Valarie Kaur
58:07
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Tara Brach
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In a divided, reactive, and violent world, how do we embrace love and joy? How do we genuinely include our opponents in our hearts? What gives us the courage to bring our whole being into serving and savoring? And what is our vision for a new world?
In this fresh and profoundly relevant conversation, Tara Brach and Valarie Kaur explore the challenges and potential of these turbulent times. Valarie, a Sikh activist, filmmaker, civil rights lawyer, and author, shares insights from her powerful books, including See No Stranger and her recent works, World of Wonder and Sage Warrior. Together, Tara and Valarie reflect on:
How Revolutionary Love can be a guide in times of division and despair.
Valarie’s ancestral teachings on surviving apocalyptic times with courage.
The role of joy, music, and community in building resilience and connection.
Forgiveness, reconciliation, and transforming anger into meaningful action.
Visioning a new world while staying rooted in hope, presence, and love.
Learn more about Valarie and the Revolutionary Love project at www.revolutionarylove.org . Valarie’s latest books can be found on her website at https://valariekaur.com/books/.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-12-11
Understanding and Practicing with Anger
63:35
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue to explore the intersection of our more inner practice and our practice with the larger world, including the U.S. post-election world. Our starting point is seeing how widespread and predominant the emotions of anger and fear are in our society. We look particularly at the nature of anger and how to practice with it, especially in terms of our own anger but also in terms of the anger of others.
Anger, it has been said, is the most confusing emotion in Western civilization, seen often over the last 2500 years sometimes as both entirely as negative and sometimes as a quality that manifests, for example, in the Jewish prophets, Jesus, and God. There's a confusion also among Western Buddhists, who may have conditioning related to aversion to anger combined with following problematic translations of terms like dosa (entirely negative in the Buddhist context) as "anger" (not entirely negative in the contemporary Western context).
Based on these explorations of the nature of anger, we look at how to practice with anger individually, especially through mindful investigation of anger and how anger can lead either to reactivity and the formation of reactive views of self and/or other, or to skillful action. We also explore practicing with the anger of others through empathy practice.
The talk is followed by discussion and sharing, including of the experiences of practicing with anger from several people. The meditation before the talk includes a guided exploration of an experience of anger in the last third of the meditation period (the meditation is also on Dharma Seed).
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2024-11-06
Becoming Bodhisattvas in a Troubled World
51:37
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Tara Brach
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Thich Nhat Hanh said “no mud, no lotus.” How might anger, hatred and delusion—the mud of these times– give rise to a growing compassion and wisdom in our world? In this talk, we look directly at the angst surrounding the US elections and explore several powerful teachings and practices that can serve as the catalyst for profound transformation and an evolving of wisdom and love in our collective consciousness.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-10-19
Anger, Forgiveness, and Gratitude
18:00
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Ayyā Anuruddhā
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How can we remain calm and inwardly strong when we feel anger or fear, greed or grief? Meditate with new eyes – keen, open, attentive, and dare to forgive even difficult feelings or troubling conditions. Stay present, stop and witness fear's end, because stopping to see is just like turning on a light. There is more clarity to know fear as impermanent, and to observe the nuance of the fear of fear itself. It's not my fear or my anger but unpleasant sensation. So we depersonalize and pour gratitude into the new moment with the quintessential balm of peace – forgiveness.
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Madison Insight Meditation Group
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Noble Mind, Fearless Heart
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2024-10-15
At Home With the Wise
24:05
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Ayya Medhanandi
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What frees us from fear, anger, sorrow, chaos and all the many other sufferings of the mind? Beneath the rubble and ruin we may feel, in the silent depths of our own heart, there is a treasure. It may be hidden but it is there. And we can know it. Sitting in the still, pure presence of conscious awareness, turn away from thinking, worry, all those mental habits and the heartaches of life. Moment by moment, dive deeply into each breath – not to change anything but to know, to understand what is there. Bow to the silence and let go fleeting worldly pleasures. Just see the heart's intuitive dimension revealed. Listen, know Reality and rejoice.
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Madison Insight Meditation Group
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Noble Mind, Fearless Heart
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2024-07-13
The Crux of Delusion
1:10:44
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Ayya Santussika
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At 55 minutes, a participant offered some comments but asked that their audio be removed. Ayya's answer remains.
Here is a summary of what the participant said:
They reflected on Ajahn Anan's teaching of developing the Paramis over lifetimes to be ready to fully receive / understand the Dhamma and fully let go.
They go on to express surprise, and some frustration, that they can be so inspired by Dhamma one evening and then so lost in anger the next morning.
They also share that this session with the KBV community and the teachings instantly took them back out of the anger.
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Karuna Buddhist Vihara
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2024-04-15
There Is An Oasis
22:45
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Too long we have been caught in the grip of anxiety, anger, and clinging that lead nowhere. But there is an oasis in the depths of our native humanity. To understand what is true, we must empty all that is untrue. This is ultimate care of the mind: disentangling the knots in the heart that obstruct the moral-ethical fabric of our true nature. So we set our inner compass beyond all these blinding mental habits to witness that inner radiance. In the mirror of pure emptiness we reflect that silent knowing the truth of what we are.
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Portland Friends of the Dhamma
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2023-11-18
Give Peace A Chance
18:29
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Ayya Medhanandi
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With selfless awareness, we practise good-will, radiating loving-kindness inwardly and to all beings, even to those who are indifferent or hostile, or to those who cause harm. This is the Buddha's instruction to us in the Metta Sutta. Can we unequivocally wish all beings freedom from harm? Can we forgive enough to convert thoughts of fear, anger or enmity into benevolence? It takes courage to enter a dark space without a light. So we try as much as we can because unconditional compassion and kindness in this world give peace, healing and reconciliation a chance.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for Strangers
20:00
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Devon Hase
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Loving-kindness, or metta meditation, is a classical Buddhist technique for cultivating the warm qualities of the heart-mind. Please enjoy this twenty-minute guided meditation using phrases, images, and felt sense in wishing kindness for strangers.
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Various
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2023-05-19
A Bow To Silence
33:28
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The spiritual path may be exceedingly long and demands nothing less than the most supreme culminating effort. But our patience and faith are radical. In every moment of pure attention, insight into impermanence and awareness of Truth shatter our delusion. Though monstrous dangers and fears assail us, we sever the shackles of worldly views and attachments with the sword of wisdom – courageous to the last frontier of illumination, Nibbana itself.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2022-12-31
Shave Your Heart
13:57
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Can we resolutely walk the moral high road and discover Dhamma treasures in the fertile ground of the heart? Good-will or heroic metta, will serve as our anti-inflammatory, quelling the fires of greed, anger, fear, and blame along with every other uncharitable mind state. ‘Shaving’ the heart with kindness and compassion, we ascend the mountain until there is no more mountain and no ‘one’ to climb it.
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Portland Friends of the Dhamma
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2022-12-31
Courageous Friendship
27:01
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Generosity and virtue are at the heart of waking up. We give nothing less than our full devotion to the practice, day by day, training in present moment awareness and purifying ourselves. Secluded from dangerous mental states, we endure patiently, courageously. As the wisdom of the ancients dawns within us, we are blessed by that sacred gift of the Path – a noble mind.
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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2022-12-31
A Friend That Will Never Fail Us
27:00
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Ayya Medhanandi
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With the Buddha as our guide, we walk in his footsteps. If we fall away from the path, we return to it as soon as we can. Just as you steer your car back on the road should it veer off. The mind may be on fire with wanting, fear, grief or anger. Then feel the heat. Know its origin and see its ending – not owning nor feeding it, let it subside. Here and now, awareness and wisdom deepen. We are waking up. And we discover – that true friend resides within our own heart.
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Portland Friends of the Dhamma
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2022-12-08
Q&A
48:40
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Ajahn Amaro
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Questions précised - 00:10 Q1 When we take refuge, what are we taking refuge from? 00:48 Q2 The path is to end suffering. Why don’t we look at suffering and enquire what it is. Perhaps we will see it is our own creation and this may be easier than the longer way. 05:30 Q3 Is all sadness, all anger suffering or is suffering the feeling of being pulled down … into an ocean for example? 07:37 Q4 I am a retired solider and I don’t this this kind of self-actualization, “who am I”, I don’t think we can ask in our profession. What advice can you give? 17:25 Q5 In Mahayana very often liberation is spoken of as a state of painlessness, fearlessness and “one taste”. What does the Pali tradition say about this apparent 24-7 blissful state? 24:32 Q6 What does it say in the Pali canon about Ananda giving Buddha this food? How is it interpreted in the Southern tradition? 27:30 Q7 You mentioned Ajahn Sumedho dealing with anger. When we deal with intense emotions is it a good way to exercise patience endurance and use whatever practice works so you can skilfully navigate the situation? 29:56 Q8 I need a little clarity about consciousness beyond the simple meaning of awareness. Particularly in jhana practice, how does one understand infinite consciousness? 31:59 Q9 Regarding meditating on compassion, we are advised to expand it to all living beings. Do you have any advice? I find it difficult to engage with people I have never met. 36:32 Q10 Could you elaborate about the liberative relationships you spoke of? Put simply, my kids and grandchildren are overseas and I miss them. How can I deal with this better?
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Deer Park Institute
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Sakkāydițțhi — ‘Self-View’, the First Obstacle to Enlightenment
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2022-10-22
And Then Your Heart Will Shine
19:02
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Ayya Medhanandi
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How can we tread the path of nonviolence that rises above anger, blame, and mistrust? Try choosing compassion, kindness and forgiveness. For inner peace is nowhere to be found if not within your own heart. Even in the throes of tempestuous life situations, draw out courage from that as water from a deep well within. By the power of refuge in what upholds Truth, you navigate through the most fearsome obstacle even if it seems impossible. And then your heart will truly shine.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2022-10-19
Beyond the Controlling Self – Part 2
51:00
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Tara Brach
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It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls. These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2022-10-12
Beyond the Controlling Self – Part 1
53:01
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Tara Brach
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It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls.
These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2022-06-23
Q&A
57:38
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Ajahn Sucitto
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(précis) 00:00 Q1 When an emotion or unpleasant feeling like anger or fear arises, should we carry on meditating on the breath or should we reflect and analyze? 28:02 Q2 Can you explain more about cleansing and transmuting afflictive emorions in one's heart? 45:19 Q3 Is it possible that pleasant sensations can help us live a more serene life even if they are impermanent? 48:28 Q4 Regarding the group form, why do we simply have to listen and only share in the small groups? ((précis) 00:00 Q1 Lorsqu'une émotion ou un sentiment désagréable comme la colère ou la peur surgit, doit-on continuer à méditer sur la respiration ou doit-on réfléchir et analyser ? 28:02 Q2 Pouvez-vous en dire plus sur la purification et la transmutation des émotions afflictives dans le cœur? 45:19 Q3 Est-il possible que des sensations agréables puissent nous aider à vivre une vie plus sereine même si elles sont éphémères ? 48:28 Q4 Concernant la forme de groupe, pourquoi devons-nous simplement écouter et ne partager qu'en petits groupes?)
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Terre d'Éveil Vipassana
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Energy as a means of liberation and well-being
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2022-04-27
Practicing with Fear 1
65:30
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Donald Rothberg
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After a brief review of last week's exploration of the relationship of Buddhist practice to Passover, Easter, and Ramadan, we explore a theme that is part of those holidays, and central to our practice--how we work with fear and anxiety. We look at the centrality of such practice, and the different types of fear, distinguishing the unskillful aspects (such as confusion, reactivity, and the continual repetition of negative narratives) from the at times skillful aspects (such as recognizing danger). We then suggest ways of bringing mindfulness to fear, as well as ways of understanding and responding to fear.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2022-04-12
Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind
29:30
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Shaila Catherine
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On the occasion of the publication of her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind, Shaila Catherine shares a progressive series of strategies to overcome the hindrances of restlessness, obsessive thinking, and rumination; dispel thoughts of anger, hatred, and anxiety; and curb habitual distractions. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators can calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, comprehend the nature of the mind, experience emptiness, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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2022-01-14
Metta and Forgiveness
61:05
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Donald Rothberg
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We first explore several important themes in metta practice: (1) how metta practice can be seen as a training in learning to “lead” with the heart; (2) ways of working with difficult experiences, such as anger, fear, and the presence of the judgmental mind, that can arise in the “purification” process connected with metta practice; (3) how metta practice opens us to our radiant depths; and (4) the nature of metta practice with the “difficult person” and its connection with forgiveness practice. Then we explore the nature of forgiveness—clarifying what it is and isn’t; distinguishing between forgiveness as an outer, interpersonal and social process, giving several examples, including from the Heiltsuk indigenous tradition and South Africa, and forgiveness as an inner practice; and identifying some of dynamics of inner forgiveness practice.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Metta Retreat: Cultivating the Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
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2021-12-12
A Compass to Freedom
16:14
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Compassion is our worthy compass. Radiating compassionate empathy towards our own suffering and the suffering of the world, the mind is tranquil, protected from danger, and at peace. We have courage enough to evict fear and take our proper seat in the pure presence of the heart.
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Portland Friends of the Dhamma
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Full Catastrophe Compassion
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2021-11-25
The suffering that leads to the end of suffering
37:23
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Ajahn Achalo
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A talk spurred by two questions: 00:49 Q1: How can we find meaning and purpose in the worldly life if we have aspirations to live a monastic life but have to be in the worldly life for family? 22:23 Q2: Since I began meditating, I have become very emotional. I am very quickly moved to tears and I start crying, either when seeing something ordinary and negative, like people arguing in the street or something painful, when I witness the suffering of people, children or animals. I sometimes start crying when reading or hearing a dhamma talk. In my chest, negative emotions like anger and frustration feel even heavier and more dense than before. Is this normal? What can I do to deal skillfully with these emotional states? I am deeply grateful!
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Anandagiri Forest Monastery
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2021-11-13
Anger, Grief, Afflictive Emotions
48:17
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Anger, grief and fear are primary reflexes that have the potential of taking us back to our safe, sympathetic intimate environment. To the extent that we have lost connection to the capacity of our autonomic nervous system to discharge stress, emotional energies freeze and don’t get resolved. This leave residues that sour and cripple the heart. So we practice cultivating our intimate environment; it's from here we can meet and transmute these afflictive emotions with pure presence.
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New York Insight Meditation Center
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2021-09-22
Anger: Responding, Not Reacting
53:21
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Tara Brach
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Anger is natural, intelligent and necessary for surviving and flourishing. Yet when we are hooked by anger, it causes great personal and collective suffering. This talk explores how to transform patterns of reactivity by bringing a mindful and compassionate attention to the unmet needs that underlie angry reactivity. When we learn how to pause and connect honestly with our inner experience, we are then able to respond to others from our full intelligence and heart.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2021-08-28
Pain, Forgiveness, and Freedom
25:22
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Ayya Medhanandi
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We have the gift of a priceless inheritance, a BPS – Buddha's Positioning System. It's a map to freedom from hatred by way of undaunted love and compassion. It sets our feet on the hero’s path to the oasis of Truth. With the power of forgiveness, we pass unscathed through what seem like the fiercest storms and sufferings of life: ill-winds, dangers, traumas, and exhaustion. But we are vigilant, guided in awareness and wisdom. Refuge in the Dhamma is our compass, and spiritual friends shine as jewels within our hearts. We are pilgrims of peace and awakening – to the last breath.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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Growing in Nobility
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2021-08-26
So Help Me Dhamma
31:54
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Ayya Medhanandi
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As long as delusion prevails, we are in danger and our happiness is very limited. Beyond its veil, immeasurable riches await us. Four ways to focus our samadhi power help us to clear away the interior cobwebs and tame our mental turbulence into a beautiful mind. With an intention of absolute kindness, we see and know the causes of our suffering and the pathway out of it, steering our attention to pure presence and the crowning moment of the heart’s freedom.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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2021-07-26
Buddhist Studies: Mindfulness of the Mind, Week 5 - Talk
49:57
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Mark Nunberg
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The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.
This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.
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Common Ground Meditation Center
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Buddhist Studies Course: Mindfulness of the Mind
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2021-07-26
Buddhist Studies: Mindfulness of the Mind, Week 5 - Meditation
34:20
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Mark Nunberg
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The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.
This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.
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Common Ground Meditation Center
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Buddhist Studies Course: Mindfulness of the Mind
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2021-06-01
Day 3 Q&A2
47:34
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Relationship between manas and citta; excessive sexual images; what is the subtle body; breath as prana/breath of life; heart qualities that shift perception to vitality; opening energy centers; does energy discharge in standing meditation; working with psychological and emotional pain; resentment and anger arise when practicing at home; unlearning addiction to the clock.
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Cittaviveka
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Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
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2021-05-01
Q&A1
47:28
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Help with hard-wired anger; how to think about ground, space and rhythm in a non-conceptual way; citta seems like a toddler; how to disengage from deep patterns of negativity; how to respond to boredom; is it recommended to thoroughly achieve samatha before moving on to vipassana; how to respond to deep pain in the heart; question about impermanence.
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London Insight Meditation
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-04-06
Refraining from Intoxication
22:44
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Shaila Catherine
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This talk explores the fifth precept: the commitment to refrain from intoxicating the mind through the use of alcohol, drugs, or addictive desires. Originally this precept highlighted the dangers of home-brewed alcohol, but can be expanded to address the many ways we may seek to excite, dull, distort, or intoxicate our minds. By working with this precept, we not only strengthen our capacity for restraint, but importantly, we investigate how the force of craving may be affecting our decisions and actions.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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2021-01-06
The Three Refuges – Gateways to Awakening
1:10:26
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Tara Brach
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We all seek refuge, a sense of safety or homecoming amidst the uncertainties of life. Our way of finding refuge can either imprison or free us. This talk explores the false refuges that entrap us in feeling separate and endangered, and the refuges of Awareness (Buddha,) Truth (Dharma) and Love (Sangha) that reveal our true nature. This evening gathering includes a ceremony with candles, reflection and music.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2020-10-16
This Is Where the Mind is Liberated
30:02
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Human beings have that special ability to deeply see and fathom things as they truly are. But we are so impatient. We resist letting go. Clinging, we harm unknowingly and stray from truth, gaining no peace. How can we recover and free ourselves from fear, anger, and mental distress? Purify the mind and directly know the larger truth of impermanence. See blessings where there was darkness. And in the heart’s core, touch the Unconditioned.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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Day of Mindfulness
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2020-09-23
Deepening Our Practice in the Pandemic 7: The Foundations of Wise Speech 4: Becoming More Skillful with Difficult Speech Situations 2
1:10:06
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Donald Rothberg
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After a brief review of the foundations of wise speech and the eight guidelines for skillful speech when there are difficult or challenging situations, we explore the connection of inner practices with such situations. We look at two dimensions of such practice: (1) looking at and transforming conditioning that makes it hard to engage in such situations, such as related to negative views about conflict and anger, and discerning when there is spiritual bypassing in relationship to difficulties; and (2) bringing mindfulness, inquiry, and investigation to difficult emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, etc.,and to thoughts and narratives (especially generated by the judgmental mind). We will continue this exploration, including of difficult body states, next time..
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2020-08-21
In the Stream of the Noble Ones
32:00
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Think of yourself as a spiritual warrior. What is the danger at hand? What is our true protection? Where is safety? Be ever aware. Staying close to the Dhamma, we will inevitably grow close to the Buddha. We shall uphold virtue foremost through wholesome friendships, purify intention, action, and speech, at rest or work or during mental cultivation, and embody the noble wisdom and compassion of the Buddha by setting our feet in his very footprints.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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Chapin Mill Retreat
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2020-08-01
Three Jewels-Making Your Practice Sparkle!
33:36
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JD Doyle
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The Buddha’s teaching of the three jewels offers a way to radiate beauty in your life and in your community. The three jewels of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha are also referred to as refuges, as they offer us protection from the dangers of the world. These three interrelated jewels help orient us to live in harmony with each other and support us on the path to liberation. Practicing with these jewels, will sparkle and radiate goodwill and kindheartedness in all directions.
This day of practice will include periods of meditation, chanting, dhamma reflections, small group discussions, and Q&A.
All are welcome!
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Insight Santa Cruz
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2020-06-10
Meditation: Meeting Anger with Awareness
15:15
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Tara Brach
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When anger is held in mindfulness, it can energize us to respond wisely to challenging situations. This meditation guides us in meeting personal or societal anger with RAIN – recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.
[NOTE: this meditation was given at the end of Tara’s Anger and Transformation talk on 2020-06-10. A brief context is given, then the meditation begins at 4:56.]
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2020-06-10
Anger and Transformation
49:21
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Tara Brach
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The purpose of anger is to let us know there’s an obstacle to our wellbeing, and to energize us to act. While natural and necessary for survival and thriving, this powerful energy often possesses us and leads to suffering.
This talk explores how we can use the RAIN meditation in our personal and societal life, to meet anger with a mindful, compassionate presence. Freed from the identification with a limited, separate reactive self, we can listen to the message of anger, draw on the purity of its energy, and respond from our natural intelligence, creativity and care.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2020-06-05
Bowing On Two Knees: Covid Compassion and Nonviolence
19:27
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Ayya Medhanandi
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When change and unrest foment around us, we must guard the mind and protect it from disruptive emotions such as fear or anger that may lead us to speak or act unskillfully. In this pandemic of moral decay and heightened fear, seeing how we are not in control, we care both for ourselves and others, morally and spiritually. To bring reform or healing in the world, we speak or act from an inner quiet, not boiling with anger or resentment, but from a heart tempered with patience, compassion, wisdom and peace. A talk given online during Covid-19 and global anti-racism protests.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2020-03-04
From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha Mind 16: Working with Our Psychological Conditioning 3
62:28
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin by pointing to how combining traditional Buddhist training with transforming psychological and social conditioning and unresolved material suggests the contours of a contemporary path of awakening. We then identify some of the main areas of the contemporary “shadow,” of unconscious, unresolved conditioning and developmental wounds, such as anger, fear, death, shame, conflict, trauma, grief, sexuality, and so on. We then give a “map” of four stages in the transformation of the shadow (particularly in a meditative context), starting with finding ways to access the shadow, then learning to be with and explore the shadow, then transforming the shadow, and then integrating the shadow work with daily life.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2019-11-16
We Are Here To Forgive
42:16
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Digging deep through life's trials and pains with unfaltering compassion, discover the way beyond harming, the way beyond anger. At last, can we forgive all the monsters of the mind, letting them go, setting them free? Living harmlessly, fearless in the good and devoted to this radical healing, the face of enlightenment appears in the trenches of our own suffering.
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Satipaññā Insight Meditation Toronto
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SIMT Fall Monastic Retreat
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2019-09-18
Practicing with Conflict 4
1:12:15
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Donald Rothberg
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In our fourth exploration of how to practice with conflict, we examine four practice resources, inviting listeners to keep in mind, as we explore the resources, a conflict (whether an inner conflict, an interpersonal conflict, or a larger social conflict); conflict is understood as a difference of, or tension between, positions or values or needs. The first resource is that of the tools of our inner practice: mindfulness practice, heart practices such as compassion, lovingkindness, and forgiveness, and ways to work with difficult emotions and thoughts such as anger, fear, sadness, frustration, the judgmental mind, etc. The second resource is that of the "win-win" or "both-and" model of conflict transformation, in which the aim is to move from an "either-or" or "win-lose" framework toward the "win-win" way of meeting the underlying values or needs of both sides; at times, we may need to move away from the "win-lose" framework through "avoidance" (time outs, cease-fires, etc.) or compromise, on the way, if possible, to "win-win." The third resource is that of empathy, taken as a practice central to working with conflicts of any kind. The fourth resource is that of working with attachments to fixed views that typically arise in conflict situations of any kind, especially through through mindfulness, inquiry, empathy, and heart practices.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2019-09-04
Befriending Irene
58:29
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Tara Brach
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While Tara is away, this talk is from 2011 after Hurricane Irene hit us with fury. Dorian is now leaving its destruction behind, just as we work with our stormy weather within.
Whether you face chronic anxiety or more violent storms of fear and anger, you can cultivate the wings of freedom–the mindfulness and compassion–that free you. This talk explores how the habit of being reactive causes us suffering and the ways these tools of meditation can be applied to the inner weather systems that most challenge us.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2019-08-14
Repair What Feels Broken – The Hardest Walk of All
37:45
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The path is a gradual one. Don’t go to the depths immediately. First develop the strength. Going slowly but deeply. Forgiveness, supported by patience endurance, acknowledging and seeing the breakage and repairing it regularly, repairing what has been broken or harmed, and freeing ourselves from the prison of our anger. How can we creatively counter the current of our addictions instead of gratifying it. If we do, we tap into the joy of the heart.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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For Our Long Lasting Benefit
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2019-08-11
Masquerade of the Hindrances - A Blameless Life
26:25
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Clearly see the danger of the hindrances in the mind and stop killing goodness. The story of Angulimala's life reveals the power of moral rehabilitation to end our harmful ways and urgently revert to the path of goodness, wholeness and purification. There’s no one to blame for our suffering. Instead, as spiritual warriors, we reset our moral compass, cross the floods of existence, and live blamelessly.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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For Our Long Lasting Benefit
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2019-08-10
How To Cross the Flood - Seven Enlightenment Practices
37:34
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The Buddha answers a deva who wants to know how to cross the flood of sensuality, the flood of existence, and all its dangers. Walk the Middle Way, he taught, not stopping and not over-struggling with obstacles. Use the seven enlightenment practices to train our minds so that we can make this dangerous and urgent crossing. No matter how long it takes, never give up.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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For Our Long Lasting Benefit
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2019-06-19
Q&A
2:07:10
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Ajahn Achalo
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Questions are précised. Q1 0:00 - Could you explain the meaning of mind? Q2 14:29 - When watching the breath, continuous attention is difficult due to the interference of thinking. How can we overcome this? Q3 28:14 - What are the basic techniques of meditation for a beginner Q4 39:12 - Before starting meditation should we practice yoga to train our mind? Q5 40:52 During breath awareness meditation, should we take the breath consciously, or see the natural process of breathing? Q6 42:00 Can you explain the process of metta meditation and how it helps to overcome anger, frustration and resentment. Q7: 46:00 What is mindfulness meditation? How is it practiced? Can we practice it while working in the office? Q8 52:36 I have acute pain in the knees and ankles when I sit. Are there any exercises that would help? Q9 56:12 When I meditate I usually feel sleepy. Why is this? Q10 1:00:19 When I meditate I see colours and lights, hear the sounds and feel fully aware of what is happening around me. What is this state? Q11 1:02:51 When I meditate my thought processes get very sharp, and more and more very good ideas seem to come into my mind. Hence, now I know I am fond of thinking rather than meditating. Please advise me. Q12 1:13:02 How can we shift from samatha to vipassana meditation? How long will it take a beginner to practice vipassana? Q13 1:20:50 How can we identify the improvements and development of mental states we've achieved as a result? Q14 1:26:50 During meditation I see a lot of incidents / situations mentally, which I have never experienced in day-to-day life. What is this? Q15 1:29:32 When I go to bed I usually try to pay attention to my breath. Is this good or will it negatively affect my sitting meditation? Q16 1:30:29 How long one should practice meditation to achieve samadhi? May I know a program or meditation schedule in order to achieve this state? Q 17 1:33:15 I joined a new company that meditates 15 minutes before work daily. Why I didn't get this opportunity before? Was it an effect of my kamma?
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Colombo
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2019-06-19
Intention and the Power of Thought
46:18
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Shaila Catherine
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How are we using our minds? Where do our thought incline? The Buddha's teachings focus on the practical application of intention and the power of thought, rather than ritual, as the potent force behind action. Working with thought, we see how habits and tendencies develop and form patterns known as kamma (karma). We must be honest with ourselves and see any conceit, agitation, anger, greed, or restlessness that might be lurking as tendencies of mind. We can learn to use our thought skillfully, and guard the mind with diligent mindfulness. Wholesome and unwholesome thoughts are explored. There is nothing to fear from wholesome thoughts such as intentions toward renunciation, letting go, loving kindness, compassion, and generosity, and yet a concentrated mind will bring deeper rest. The path of liberation and awakening includes the development of morality and virtue, and also calmness, concentration, and wisdom.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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