This dhamma talk and Q&A was offered on April 5, 2025 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!”

Dharma reflection: the story of Chiyono’s enlightenment poem; poetry, fearlessness, and flexibility of perception.

It's hard to keep up with all the disorienting changes we are processing each day. We can easily get lost in confusion trying to make sense of it all. As a result, we can draw conclusions based in despair and fear, thinking that we know where this is heading. We can find strength from Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn teaching: "Keep Don't Know Mind." In this "Don't Know Mind" we let go of knowing how things will turn out. This frees us from the tyranny of our mind-created stories and allows us to see many possibilities.

There is a transcendent Reality – inaccessible to the thought world – but to be known with right mindfulness and its accompanying powers of mind, patiently developed and polished day by day. These skills we learn provide tremendous traction to cultivate the mind, like gardeners watering the seeds of awakening. At the root of this uplifting spiritual training is the fundamental premise of our mortality. But are you ready to sit at the altar of the sublime and to have your illusions shattered? Like the hollow reed that becomes a flute, empty yourself of fear and be the pure love you seek.

It seems like many are feeling either a low-level anxiety or fear these days. Fear about their safety, about disasters like fire or floods, about what the future holds. While this is natural and understandable, when our minds get hijacked by fearful thoughts, it is almost impossible to have a wise or appropriate response. In this talk we explore practicing and skillfully working with fear so that it can transform into courage, compassion and wisdom.

This dhamma talk and Q&A was offered on January 4, 2025 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00 - DHAMMA TALK 15:23 - INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE BUDDHA AND Q&A

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).

"In this particular flavor of global divisiveness, We need options of how to hold all that feels too big for us. And with these practices of the heart, we are given the opportunity to not succumb to hatred and ill - will. And so what I know to offer in difficult times, is love, in the midst of fear, in the midst of dominance "

Going beyond the constructs of the mind, trusting the heart, and upholding the Humane in Times of Destruction.

At this time, US citizens are going through a major adjustment to a new reality after the election. A large part of the population is happy at the outcome. And another large part is confused by that fact. A whole host of feelings are likely to arise--disorientation, confusion, fear, numbing out to name a few. In order to respond wisely to the moment, we first need to be present for and honor our experience. A key question to ask oneself is "What do I need right now?" We will explore this in the context of our Dharma practice.

Pure present moment awareness reveals what we are not; and thereby, what we truly are. Investigate and question all thoughts you see circling in the mind – fearful or fanciful, liked or not. Know their clever disguises: impermanence everywhere! Not what we are, but empty, ephemeral in nature, they orbit like space debris – crowding the heart mandala of consciousness. Let go and rejoice when states of wanting, judgement, restlessness, fear, unhappiness and all the many faces of 'self' dissolve in the silence of pure awareness. This is true refuge – here and now. All else withers in the furnace of eternity.

This week has been a test for anyone who values kindness, compassion, and equanimity. It's understandable to get lost in fear, confusion and despair. This is when spiritual practice is needed most. How can we use our practice to develop a balance of mind in unpredictable circumstances, and relate to those who have very different perspectives from ours without getting caught in "othering"?

During times of great collective stress, it’s common to get gripped by waves of anxiety and fear. This guided meditation, an adaptation of the Tibetan tonglen practice, helps us reconnect with our spiritual heart, the sea of love and light that can hold even the most painful waves in our lives.

What haunts you, and what helps you face fear?

This Thursday is Halloween night. It's definitely scary times so I thought we could explore working with fear. Join us online.

In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding—to ourselves, each other and our world– with courageous, wise hearts.

Mindfulness of Death practice supports us facing fear of death, living with intention and aligned with our values, avoiding common regrets at the end of life.

In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding – to ourselves, each other and our world – with courageous, wise hearts.

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.

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.

True refuge is not a place or destination. It is a radical shift in attitude and orientation-from me to we, from reactivity to response-ability and from fear to love.

This talk explores various paradoxes, and covers the inner territory of fear and control, inflationary and deflationary self-importance, the illusion of decision-making, and responsibility vs responsiveness in how we interact with the complexities of the world.

This meditation guides us through a relaxing body scan and then explores how we can allow the breath to calm our body and bring peace to our heart.

This dhamma talk, guided meditation, and Q&A was offered on August 03, 2024 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!”

If we are suffering, we are believing an interpretation of reality that is limiting and untrue. At these times we are imprisoned in a painful looping of fear-driven thoughts and feelings. This talk explores the ways our practices of mindfulness, compassion and loving presence can guide us from addictive thinking to perceiving life with a wise heart.

In describing our human predicament and dis-ease, D.H. Lawrence says we are like a great tree with our roots in the air. We need to replant ourselves—in our bodies, hearts and spirit – to live from embodied presence. These two talks are guides to replanting ourselves. In Part 1, we explore how we are so often dissociated from the life of our body, and the pathways home. Part 2 looks at the challenges of pain, fear and trauma, and how we can gradually and skillfully reconnect with a wholeness of being.

In describing our human predicament and dis-ease, D.H. Lawrence says we are like a great tree with our roots in the air. We need to replant ourselves—in our bodies, hearts and spirit. These two talks are guides to replanting ourselves. In Part 1, we explore how we are so often dissociated from the life of our body, and the pathways home. Part 2 looks at the challenges of pain, fear and trauma, and how we can gradually and skillfully reconnect with a wholeness of being.

We humans share this journey of birth, old age, sickness and death. Sometimes we succumb to fear or sorrow; sometimes we are exhausted or disoriented as if lost on a perilous path. Seeing this universality of suffering and knowing its causes, we ask: "What will set us free?" With the lens of refined moral aptitude, in silent witness, we stop to listen and directly know for ourselves the inner joy and peace of true harmlessness. Patiently, our noble guides of benevolent compassion and wise reflection steer the heart to its liberation – awakening to Unconditional Love.

This talk is about a recent near death experience and the choice to live, exploring how and why dharma practice is essential to facing death without fear.

Working with fear and anxiety

Q1: You seem to be talking about citta as a persisting permanent thing not as arising every split second. Any comments? 11:34 Q2: How can I deal with not fully maintaining Buddhist standards after the retreat? 17:27 Q3: You said: Keep warming what can be warmed and the things that can't release yet ... it's not ready. Could you elaborate more on this please? 24:08 Q4: You wrote a book called Unseating the Inner Tyrant. The critic consumes a lot of energy. How do you restore that energy after a rage? Is there a shorter path to finding balance? 32:59 Q5: There's a lot of fear in my citta. How come? 34:46 Q6: I was afraid of coming to this retreat, and now I'm afraid of going out. 38:16 Q7: What is the relationship between tanha, craving, as the fundamental cause of dukkha and the three root kelasa, defilements, based on the scriptures and or their experience for interpretation? 47:51 Q 8: What is the effect of serious illness physical and psychological on the citta? Can they limit or make it impossible to take care of the citta?

Q1 If I remember it well citta follows moving, shifting energy. How can we feel moving energy? Is it the feeling of the breath or sound? What is non-moving energy? 08:37 Q2 what's the difference between virya, translated as energy, and citta energy? 12:12 Q3 You don't seem to use the word awareness which is often used to denote the knowing of something. Is there a connection between the felt energy and awareness? 28:28 Q4 How do you reconcile the fire of an animated heart with Buddhism's perfume of disengagement and dispassion? 32:36 Q5 how can sensation and the sequence that leads to it be described in a subtle energy approach? 43:43 Q6 What's the difference between vedana and emotion? 44:48 Q7 Sadness, sorrow, fear, joy. Are the emotions or more fixed states? 49:20 Q8 Observing the breath seems quite important, but as soon as I focus on the breath it gets forced and heavy. Do you have any advice on observing the natural breath without interfering? 52:17 Q9 What does it mean when you say the breathing is a messenger? What is the message?

The human realm is ever fraught with greed and delusion, conflicted and loud in its extremes. These violations are just that – destroyers of our spiritual verve. As pilgrims of peace, we disarm them in the interior silence of the heart. Courageous, we stand our moral ground, resolved to hold the bar. Our faith, generosity and discernment rescue us from the flames of sensory fears and infatuations. There is giving up and letting go but the Buddha’s promise is true. Where kindness and compassion prevail, the heart knows unshakeable peace.

Are we present here and now? How much do we obsess in thought? Is the mind filled with worry – wavering from anxiety to fear?  Here and now, we examine and ascend to peaceful states. When we’re dreaming, wake up. Know that we’re asleep. Know that we’re not present. Know the mind that is upset, angry or boiling and cool it. Use the Buddha’s tools to repair and return our attention to present moment awareness. Mindfully knowing, seeing clearly with blameless joy and wise insight, we lighten our burden. We are cultivating the garden of the mind.

We have strong conditioning to identify as a separate self, and to feel all the fears and attachments that arise from not realizing our true belonging. This talk includes teachings and several experiential reflections that help us wake up from the trance of separation. As we grow familiar with the awareness and love that is our shared true nature, we naturally live from that loving, and experience a growing freedom and joy. [Spring Retreat, April 2024 – Art of Living Retreat Center]

Just as presence is the heart of meditation, so deep listening is at the center of all conscious, loving relationships. This talk explores how our wants and fears block listening, ways we can deepen our capacity for listening, and the healing that unfolds when we truly feel heard by another. What happens when you’re really listening?

Bhavana, cultivation, is associated with bringing into being fruitful states and dwelling in them. Without this ground, citta- heart - goes out, focuses on conditioned phenomena. The natural result will be uncertainty, anxiety, fear. Practices for clearing fear at its root are described: contemplation of death, mindfulness of body and breathing, generosity, virtue.

Throughout history, hatred, human violence and horrific sufferings have plagued the world. Truth is never diminished by these worldly conditions. So we feed the mind with what supports inner peace and awakening and not with thoughts of depression, disappointment, despair, or fear. What we most fear is unconditional love. That's not consent for nor approval of hateful conduct but rather a call to bear compassion – the most difficult love of all. Like the sun that gives warmth to all beings, the awakened mind does not differentiate. It does not choose one over another. It just gives light

This talk explores the Buddha's sense of fear and dread over the human condition, his process of seeing its origin, and the wisdom that gives rise to peace.

If we can recognize thoughts as thoughts, it becomes possible to open from virtual to living reality. This meditation guides us in awakening the senses and discovering the freedom – the awake space of Being that is beyond the confines of thoughts. “Relaxing back into the space between thoughts. Relaxing with what’s right here…” The poet Rumi writes, “Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking, live in silence, flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”

How do we process and respond to increasing societal oppression and violence? What helps us transform the energies of fear, hatred and delusion? This talk offers ways we can draw on our spiritual path to steady our heart and engage with presence, wisdom and care.

With so many strategies and messages about how to practice, how do we know the "right" way to practice? The Buddha said ultimately you should "be a lamp onto yourself." This comes down to trusting the wisdom inside. How can we discern the wisdom voice from the voices rooted in fear and confusion? This talk includes the 5 strategies offered by the Buddha to work skillfully with distracting thoughts.

The Journey of Awakening is a process of discovering all the beautiful qualities that are uniquely expressed through you--the Buddha within that you take refuge in. It also involves understanding all the habits of mind that get in the way--including our fears, resistance, and identification with our experience. This talk describes the importance of opening to all of these places we usually hide from and the beneficial qualities that support that journey.

Reflections on Embracing the Dark and Inviting the Light. Stories of fear, delusion, clear understanding and the not knowing that leads to release, freedom and love.