Matthew Brensilver's Dharma Talks
Matthew Brensilver
Matthew Brensilver, MSW, PhD, serves on the Guiding Teachers Committee and Board of Directors at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was previously Program Director for Mindful Schools and for more than a decade, was a core teacher at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Each summer, he lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center on the intersections between mindfulness, science and mental health. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. He is the co-author of two books about meditation during adolescence.
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Select from Matthew Brensilver's
82
talks
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2020-03-09
Addressing Coronavirus with a Dharma View- Monday Night Dharma Talk
2016-05-09
Anxiety and Tranquility
2019-08-15
Attention, Wisdom, Grief and Love (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-28
Bringing Dharma Into Interpersonal and Communal Life (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2013-10-19
Clinging and the Path of Letting Go
2018-01-15
Closing Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2019-03-08
Compulsive Thinking, Concentration & Equanimity
2018-01-13
Day 1: Afternoon Practice Session (part 1) (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-13
Day 1: Afternoon Practice Session (part 2) (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-13
Day 1: Evening Practice Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-23
Day 1: Instructions and Guided Meditation (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-23
Day 1: Metta for Self (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-13
Day 1: Morning Practice Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2019-10-19
Day 2 Morning Guided Instructions (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-14
Day 2: Afternoon Practice Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-14
Day 2: Evening Practice Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-01-14
Day 2: Morning Practice Session
2017-05-25
Day 3 Instructions and Sitting (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-26
Day 4: Metta Sit with Guidance (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-27
Day 5: Instructions and Sitting
2019-10-23
Day 6 Morning Guided Instructions: Pervasiveness of Feeling (Retreat at Spirit …
2018-11-21
Day 6: Sitting with Instructions (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2019-12-17
Death and the Poignancy of Life
2014-08-18
Dharma and Anxiety
2012-12-29
Dharma and the Developmental Tasks of Adolescence
2018-06-14
Dharma Debate: Samvega versus Softening and Receiving (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2020-05-12
Dialectics of Practice - Opening and Protection (Online Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2014-10-27
Dukkha Either Hardens or Softens the Heart
2019-06-05
Equanimity and Samadhi
2018-06-16
Ethical Implications of Mindfulness (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2015-01-26
Feedback In The Context of Dharma Practice
2016-01-01
Going Home
2016-04-18
Grief, Love and Groundlessness
2014-08-18
Guided Meditation
2019-03-08
guided meditation
2019-06-21
Guided Meditation: Body and Space (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2019-06-02
Guided Meditation: Body Settling, Pleasure of the Breath
2018-06-14
Guided Meditation: Clinging and Space (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2020-10-06
Guided Meditation: Feelings and their elaborations
2019-06-04
Guided Meditation: How the world impacts the emotional body
2014-06-23
Guided Meditation: Mara's Trump Card
2020-10-03
Guided Meditation: Settling into the Body
2018-06-16
Guided Meditation: Turbulence and Peace (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2020-10-08
Guided Reflection & Meditation: Grief & Compassion
2016-12-30
Intensity, Clinging and Anatta in the teen years (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2017-05-24
Intentions for Practice and the Jewel of Curiosity (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2015-08-17
Learning from Retreats
2018-06-12
Metta Reflections: Opening to Life Requires Love (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2014-08-19
Mindfulness in Close Relationships
2014-10-20
Miranda July & The Dharma
2018-12-10
Monday Night Dharma Talk
2019-03-25
Monday Night Dharma Talk
2017-10-23
Monday Night Meditation Talk (Drop-in at Spirit Rock)
2014-11-03
Mortality and the Poignancy of Life
2018-01-12
Opening Night: Evening Practice Session (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2015-04-06
Psychotherapy and Dharma
2015-12-31
Q&A
2018-06-13
Samadhi (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2015-02-23
Self-Love and Selflessness - Part 1
2015-03-02
Self-Love and Selflessness - Part 2
2018-11-24
Sila as Our Practice in the World (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-10-22
Sila, Samadhi, Panna (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-11-23
Sitting with Instructions (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2014-09-08
Some Fruits of the Practice
2016-11-25
Spirit Rock-Attention, Love and Service
2016-11-20
Spirit Rock-Metta in the Post Obama Era
2016-11-22
Spirit Rock-Samadhi in the Context of Letting Go
2019-02-28
Technology as an Existential Threat to Mindfulness - Matthew Brensilver and Ran…
2015-12-30
The Intensity of Being a Teenager
2019-06-22
The Interpersonal Dimension of the Dharma (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2020-10-05
The Parami of Truthfulness
2019-06-18
The Story of Jumping Mouse (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2014-12-31
Things Nobody told Me When I was a Teen
2015-06-29
Thinking
2020-10-08
Tuere Sala and Matthew Brensilver in dialogue about wisdom
2014-10-30
Unpacking Some of the Fruits of Practice
2018-11-23
Untitled (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2018-11-23
Untitled (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2020-05-14
Vulnerability, Porousness, Equanimity & Love (Online Retreat at Spirit Rock)
2016-10-01
Where You At, Where You Going
2014-06-23
Working with Anger
2020-05-17
Your Face: The Gaze, Self-view, Intimacy and Letting Go (Online Retreat at Spir…
2019-12-17
Death and the Poignancy of Life
61:37
William James said that death was the ‘worm at the core’ of the human condition that turns us all into ‘melancholy metaphysicians.’ A century later, awareness of mortality is documented to affect our thinking and emotional lives in powerful ways. It figures prominently in Buddhist practice.
In what ways does consciousness of death distorts our view and lead us away from wisdom and compassion? Alternatively, how can we open to the truth of finitude such that our heart is softened? Can we intuit the freedom or love that might be released were we more deeply at peace with our mortality?
In this evening program, we’ll consider the way death can harden or soften our heart – and how dharma practice might lead us to a life that feels complete. All are welcome.
New York Insight Meditation Center
