Developing a clear understanding of the teachings and learning to fully inhabit the body have been core parts of my Dhamma practice. These areas, as well a strong emphasis on the heart, inform and shape my teaching. The few years I spent training as an Anagarika in the Thai Forest monasteries broadened my understanding of the Buddha's teachings and instilled a profound respect for the Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni Sangha. All along the way, I've been particularly interested in how other modalities like Nonviolent Communication and Somatics can support our growth in awakening.
In this guided meditation with instructions, we begin with connecting with the felt sense of metta, then explore offering phrases for a benefactor, mentor, or good friend.
In this talk from the first night of a weeklong silent retreat, Oren Jay Sofer explores mettā (lovingkindness) as both refuge and strength. Framing the Buddhist path as a practice of wise relationship, he offers several ways to cultivate mettā, inviting us to consider what it means to relate to life with warmth, steadiness, and care—even in a world of change and uncertainty.
How do we meet suffering—our own and the world’s—without being overwhelmed? Compassion invites us to turn toward pain with an open heart and respond, while equanimity offers balance and perspective. The two work together, allowing us to engage wholeheartedly, without attachment to outcomes, responding with wisdom and care in the face of uncertainty, loss, and change.
This talk introduces formal instructions for metta practice in the traditional form of phrases and categories. After sharing about the spirit and principles behind the practice, we engage in a guided meditation first receiving metta from a benefactor, then offering metta to a benefactor, and finally offering metta to oneself.
This talk explores core questions of lovingkindness practice: What is "metta"? What is its relevance in our lives and our world? How does it function to transform our hearts and world? And how do we strengthen metta?
The pace of change is speeding up and much of the news we receive is alarming. More than ever, we need the inner reflections and meditations that help us connect with our capacities for clarity, bravery and openheartedness. This is what Tara explores with Oren Jay Sofer, in his book entitled: Your Heart Was Made For This: Contemplative Practices to Meet a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love (2023.)
Oren teaches mindfulness, meditation and non violent communication, and his prior book is bestselling Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication (2018.) Learn more about Oren Jay Sofer and order books at: https://www.orenjaysofer.com
Please Note: At timestamp 57:41, Oren mistakenly attributes an article to George Lakey. The author of this article is Robert Reich.
Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed an uplifting transition to 2024. I'm delighted to invite you to join me in welcoming author and Dharma teacher Oren Jay Sofer for an evening of online practice and exploration based on his new book, Your Heart Was Made For This: Contemplative Practices to Meet a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. What does the contemplative path have to offer our aching hearts in a rapidly changing world beset with challenge? What can our practice offer beyond personal benefits?
Nature flows through a cycle of rhythms, but modern life disconnects us from the natural rhythms of our world. When activity (physical or mental) is not balanced with rest, we burn out. Join Oren for an evening of meditation as we learn about what supports and hinders our ability to rest, and how rest can be the hidden key to unlocking your meditation practice.
How do we meet the challenges of our times? This talk reflects on how we can shape and train the heart-mind to have access to qualities that enrich our potential and resilience.
Building on Samatha practice, we begin to include physical sensations and sound in our practice. This meditation also offers pointers on working with unpleasant sensations.
As the path unfolds, mindfulness and concentration lead naturally to the development of wisdom. Wisdom understands the difference between what is skillful and unskillful, perceives things as they are and knows suffering and its end.
(Day 1) Compassion is the open heart's response to suffering and a profound resource for meeting life. By attending to our experience closely we can develop compassion for ourselves and the world with the care and strength of an old friend.
As we walk the Buddha's path, difficulties and challenges are part of the journey. It takes support and a heart of joy to meet the hard places. This talk explores some of the common challenges and three key supports on the path to Awakening.
Open Q&A session, includes such topics as: handling restless thoughts; working with persistent worry; relating wisely to creative thoughts; opening the pain and suffering in the world.
Without a full heart the practice becomes rote, dry, and uninspired. Without the sacred, we lose our way in the world and misplace our heart's faith in things like money, success, and pleasure. The path invites us to tap into a deeper aspect of the heart/mind and live with a quality of reverence.
Open Q&A covering topics such as: calming the body after an angry outburst and repairing the relational connection; meditating on the 'sound of silence'; using multiple anchors; working with the mind jumping from one thing to another.
The quality of resolve—strong determination, committment—is guided by wisdom and supported by patience to transform the heart and carry the mind to release.
Resolve or determination is a steady firmness that is both flexible and strong. This meditation explores how to bring this quality into our meditation.
Every generation feels like the world is ending or changing dramatically. When the world comes crashing down, how do we stay grounded and not lose our inner compass? This talk, given online via the Boston Meditation Center, explores three practical aspects of the Buddhist path for handling uncertainty with resilience.
Patience is said to lead the way to enlightenment. Why? Dhamma practice goes against the grain of ordinary life and against the acquiring tendencies of the mind. This talk explores the value of patience and how to we turn the mind towards the spacious flexibility of patience.
Exploring our relationship with the body as a resource for practice and a doorway to liberation. Link to poem read at the end: https://www.orenjaysofer.com/blog/trust
In this guided meditation we explore how to find a conducive "tone" or inner orientation for meditation—one of warmth, friendliness, and interest, like being with a good friend. Begins with a short reflection.
The opening talk for the month of April explores themes of how our practice can be a resource during the pandemic, as well as key suggestions for orienting to practice while living or working at home.
How does silent retreat practice apply to our daily life? This talk explores how the Brahma Viharas and equanimity specifically can serve as essential support for meeting the challenges of our times.
How can our spiritual practice be a source of healing and guidance in troubled times?
The Buddhist path and its meditation practice offers a range of resources that can help us face challenges, personally and collectively.
How can our spiritual practice be a source of healing and guidance in troubled times?
The Buddhist path and its meditation practice offers a range of resources that can help us face challenges, personally and collectively.
The entire path can be understood as a cultivation of the ability to let go. In this talk, we explore this core quality of renunciation in Buddhist practice: What it is and what it isn't, what we let go of and how, what supports the maturing of renunciation. We include some specific suggestions for ways to practice renunciation in lay life as well.
For the practice to be effective we must integrate the proper understanding, known as "Right View." This talk explores right view in three ways: as a foundation for the practice through understanding our everyday life, as a view of all events as a natural unfolding of causes and conditions, and as the liberating understanding of the Four Noble Truths.
Faith (Saddha) is an essential quality on the path to awakening. This talk explores how we can understand this factor, cultivate it, and make use of it in our practice.
Meditation practice is a process of cultivating healthy, skillful qualities in the mind. This talk explores two essential factors for the practice: balanced energy, and wise effort through the lens of the “Four Great Efforts.” How we practice is often more important than what technique we use. What qualities are you bringing to bear on your experience as you practice?
Oren Jay Sofer presents the second talk in a speaker series on The Engaged Buddhist. Here he speaks on our practice off the cushion, pointing out that we spend the vast majority of our days communicating in one way or another. He describes three practices to improve our relationships with others: leading with presence, cultivating the intention to understand the other, and training our focus.
Meditation instructions are sometimes misinterpreted to imply that one should disengage from activity and suspend all judgment. Buddhist advice on “letting go” can be misunderstood to suggest that problems in the world can or should be ignored. Yet the Pali canon shows that the Buddha taught practical social and economic remedies, and urged monks to travel so they could benefit the largest number of people.
Thích Nhất Hạnh coined the term “engaged Buddhism” to describe efforts to respond to the suffering in his country during the Vietnam war, work he saw as part of meditation and mindfulness practice rather than something apart from it. In this series, some local “engaged Buddhists” will share how they personally apply Buddhist wisdom to engage with the suffering around us, in areas such as social action, prison ministry, and environmentalism.
(Part 2) This Monday Night Dharma Talk explores the role of energy on the path as well as in our daily lives. In what ways do we waste energy? How do we cultivate and sustain energy? And how we can learn how to steward energy more wisely?
(Part 1) This Monday Night Dharma Talk explores five foundations for spiritual practice: safety, groundedness, friendship, kindness and interest. Without these factors in place, it's difficult to engage in meditation.
Mindfulness practice provides a powerful support for clear, kind, and effective conversations. Join author and meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer for this exploration of how our contemplative practice provides a foundation for bringing more compassion, clarity, and connection into our speech and relationships. In these polarized times, how can we speak and listen in a way that is aligned with our values? How can we hear others with divergent views?
Oren will be offering teachings from his new book, Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.
Mindfulness practice provides a powerful support for clear, kind, and effective conversations. Join author and meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer for this exploration of how our contemplative practice provides a foundation for bringing more compassion, clarity, and connection into our speech and relationships. In these polarized times, how can we speak and listen in a way that is aligned with our values? How can we hear others with divergent views?
Oren will be offering teachings from his new book, Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.
Resistance to pain is natural. When pain is chronic, resistance makes the pain worse. The many forms and levels of resistance, and how to work with it.
Experiencing basic needs of satisfaction, meaning and connection for resiliency when living with chronic pain. Guided indirect practice for balancing nervous system with breath and hand movement.
Compassion as a way to meet pain and transform suffering into agency and freedom. How compassion works, what it is and is not, and how to develop self-compassion with chronic pain
When working with pain, balance is key. Choosing where to place your attention when experiencing chronic pain helps establish equanimity. How to work with indirect practices and skillful distractions. Guided indirect practices and group reflections.
When we slow down and look at our own mind things aren't always so pretty. We often find self-judgment, criticism, harshness. One way to understand this path is that we are learning to be a good friend to ourselves, and to others.
Springboard Meditation Sangha (St. Francis Renewal Center)
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The Way of Insight
As a Zen teacher of mine used to say,"Life... very serious joke." Things can get real heavy sometimes - in life, and in contemplative practice. This talk explores the importance of finding some levity and enjoyment in our formal spiritual practice through the lens of play. Enjoy!
(14 of 15) Closing talk: Equanimity with our choices and actions in life, and suggestions for developing equanimity in the day to day flow of our lives.
Oren Jay Sofer offered the talk this week at our IMCB Monastery. Oren is a a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, a Nonviolent Communication Trainer, and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for healing trauma. He is the founder of Next Step Dharma, and the author of the book, Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.
