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Dharma Talks
2024-11-27
Heart Meditation: Taking in the Goodness
24:12
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Tara Brach
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Taking in the Goodness: Rumi said, “Whenever some kindness comes to you, turn that way – toward the source of kindness.” This meditation guides us to look for the source of loving and to turn in that direction. It begins with a lovingkindness practice that spreads the image of a smile into the body, then continues with a practice of seeing the goodness of ourselves and others.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. - Thomas Merton
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-07-10
Meditation: A Listening Presence (20 min.)
19:59
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Tara Brach
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The receptivity of listening awakens us to the living stream of life. This meditation guides us in listening to sounds, and then listening to and feeling the aliveness of our bodies and the movement of the breath. We close with a simple offering of lovingkindness to our inner life and our world.
“Resting with the breath as a raft might rest and move with the waves…” ~ Tara
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-07-08
Connecting Wisdom and the Awakened Heart
62:29
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Donald Rothberg
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A central way to describe our practice is to say that we aim to touch and deepen in wisdom and in the awakened heart (particularly through cultivating the “divine abodes”: lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity), and to live and act increasingly from wisdom and the awakened heart. This is like the well-known image of the teachings and practices being like the bird with two wings—wisdom and compassion (the latter signifying the different qualities of the awakened heart). In the talk, we cover five areas exploring particularly how we connect wisdom and the awakened heart: (1) the aspiration to grow in wisdom and the awakened heart and the nature of wisdom and the awakened heart; (2) our social conditioning (including gender conditioning) about wisdom and the heart and how they can be separate in our lives or one or both may be relatively undeveloped; (3) some ways that they seem separate even in Buddhist teachings and practices, particularly in how metta has sometimes been understood; (4) how to have from different teachings of the Buddha a deeper sense of wisdom and the awakened heart as connected and integrated; and (5) how we might integrate the two in our practices, particularly focusing on the practices we explored in the guided meditation. The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday Night Live with Donald Rothberg
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2024-06-03
How to Meditate--The 4 Practices Rooted in Tradition and Confirmed by Neuroscience
56:20
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Tina Rasmussen
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How to Meditate--The 4 Practices Rooted in Tradition and Confirmed by Neuroscience.
In this talk, Tina gives concise overview instructions and guidance on how to begin meditating, suitable for beginners and experienced meditators alike. She talks about general guidelines that apply to every type of meditation. Then she gives an overview of the 4 practice categories being studied in neuroscience, which are also reflected in the Buddhist tradion. Then she gives instructions on how to practice each type of meditation, with a short period of practice. To go directly to those sections, please see the following time markers:
-Heart Practices--Bodhicitta and the Bramaviharas (lovingkindness, compassion, joy/gratitude, and equanimity): 15:45
-Focused Attention--Samatha (concentration and serenity), Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing): 31:03
-Open Monitoring--Vipassana (insight meditation): 39:26
-Self-Transcending--Dzogchen (Rigpa): 49:37
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Luminous Mind Sangha
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2024-04-24
Cherishing Each Other: A Conversation with Tara Brach and Father Gregory Boyle
68:00
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Tara Brach
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Many are familiar with the Dali Lama’s words “My religion is kindness.” In this conversation you will sense the gritty and real way that we struggling humans can learn to cherish one another. We talk about the relationship between boundaries and compassion; the unshakeable goodness at our core; how we belong to each other, and how judgments arise from delusion and blind us to the blessing of that belonging.
Father Greg Boyle is an American Catholic priest of the Jesuit order. He is the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program, author of several books, including Tattoos on the Heart; Barking to the Choir; and in 2023, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.
Father Greg’s life and work are a huge inspiration: he is dedicated to living from love and cultivating loving community with a marginalized population of ex inmates, gang members and their families. You can find out more about Father Greg and Homeboy Industries at: https://homeboyindustries.org/our-story/father-greg/
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-03-20
Meditation: Openhearted Presence
21:48
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Tara Brach
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This meditation guides us in embodying loving presence through a body scan, and then meeting whatever arises with a tender heart.
“Resting in the awareness that includes this changing life, regarding the changing waves with care, moment-to-moment. The moments of waking up out of thought are actually profoundly transformational. If you notice thinking and then plant the seeds of kindness, that becomes the habit of the heart.” ~Tara
We close with a beautiful blessing-poem from John O’Donohue, from Beauty – The Invisible Embrace.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-12-10
Q&A
49:03
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:00 Q1 When we're doing sitting meditation are we to be mindful of feelings inside the whole body as we breathe in and out? When anybody sensations or pain arises are we to contemplate them with loving kindness?
10:55 Q2 Is it okay to use the mantra Bhudo for sitting meditation?
11:58 Q3 Are there different realities of truth? For example historical, scientific, personal? Ultimate reality? Everything is what it should be, no good no bad.
17:07 Q4 How can the dhamma help two people in a relationship resolve an indiscretion of the moral code? How does the dhamma guide one to accept responsibility for actions that harm another?
20:23 Q5 Citta - is it a harmony between the brain and the heart? Does it include all levels of consciousness?
31:36 Q6 At the point of death what do we do when we're overwhelmed with pain? If the mind is too weak to maintain equanimity? What happens if one dies totally consumed by pain?
41:09 Q7 Could QiGong help me to be more balanced in body and mind?
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Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand
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Finding Your True Ground - Awareness as a Refuge
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2023-11-19
The Four Noble Truths in Action
23:07
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The Buddha realized a state of pure awakened consciousness. We try to emulate his moral excellence by turning inward to bring the mind to silence. In that stillness, we can relinquish habitual unwholesome and harmful thoughts, thus revealing the same universal moral essence within us – just as in all beings. It is our pathway to the heart’s peace and freedom from suffering. Here, when loving-kindness and compassion preside, the gates to the Deathless are open.
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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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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2023-10-25
Meditation: Awake and Alive
18:04
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Tara Brach
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This guided practice includes a body scan, and an opening to the awareness that includes all of life. From that wakeful openness we offer a relaxed attentiveness to the changing flow, and close with loving kindness to ourselves and our world.
…calling on the presence of your heart and offering whatever blessing or wish you’d like to offer to yourself… whatever prayer of care. Then in that heart-space including other beings in this world. Holding the world in your heart and sensing your prayer of care for all beings. ~ Tara (from the meditation)
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for All Beings
19:48
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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 all beings.
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Various
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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for a Difficult Person
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. When we cultivate the intention of kindness for the challenging people in our lives, we grow our capacity to hold everyone in unconditional love, even if we don't agree with their choices. Please enjoy this twenty-minute guided meditation using phrases, images, and felt sense in wishing kindness for a difficult person.
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Various
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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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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for a Friend
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 a friend.
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Various
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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for a Benefactor
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 a benefactor.
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Various
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2023-10-19
Metta Meditation on Loving-Kindness for Yourself
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 ourselves.
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Various
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2023-10-06
Lovingkindness - Meditation
33:08
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Mark Nunberg
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This practice group is for people interested in developing the heart by training in the four beautiful emotions of lovingkindness (metta), compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Each session includes instruction, a guided meditation, a short dharma talk, and time for questions and discussion. Both experienced and beginning meditators are welcome, no registration necessary. This practice group is led by Stacy McClendon and Mark Nunberg. Generally, the teachers lead on alternating months.
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Common Ground Meditation Center
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2023-10-06
Lovingkindness - Talk
55:53
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Mark Nunberg
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This practice group is for people interested in developing the heart by training in the four beautiful emotions of lovingkindness (metta), compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Each session includes instruction, a guided meditation, a short dharma talk, and time for questions and discussion. Both experienced and beginning meditators are welcome, no registration necessary. This practice group is led by Stacy McClendon and Mark Nunberg. Generally, the teachers lead on alternating months.
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Common Ground Meditation Center
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2023-06-14
Guided Meditation Related to Several Ways of Deepening Daily Life Practice
36:38
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Donald Rothberg
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We work with several modes of practice which can be developed in formal practice as well as in daily life (and that are discussed in the talk and discussion following this guided meditation). After a period of grounding in the body, we work with a heart practice (such as lovingkindness), a specific teaching (practicing with the sequence from contact to the feeling-tone of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, to wanting, and to grasping from the teaching of Dependent Origination is briefly given), and a "mixing" or "mingling" of formal meditation and a daily life activity.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2023-06-02
At the Shrine of Forgiveness
22:02
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Ayya Medhanandi
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It’s good to clear everything before we die, to leave no spiritual debts that may heavily impact our karma. Seeing the powerful healing of joy and kindness, I take up the practice of inner cleansing day by day, applying metta – loving-kindness practice – through the luminosity of forgiveness. This potent flame of reconciliation melts away any harmful residue or holding in the heart so that not a flutter or tremor of ill-will remains. Let us avail ourselves of its power. At the shrine of forgiveness, we light the light of joy and freedom within while fostering happiness for other beings. This is the fount of both medicine and cure – reconciliation and liberation of the heart.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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