Feeling and Internal Dialogue

Attentional Control, Emotion Regulation and Nonidentifcation

We look at the different doorways that we enter the dharma through and reflect on what would be a stretch for us personally.

Audio recording of Monday Night Meditation class with Matthew Brensilver on May 9th, 2016

Audio recording of the Monday night class on April 18, 2016 with Matthew Brensilver.

Along with Marv talking about Resources, Dawn about Sangha groups and "T" about precepts/closing.

Matthew, Marv and Joanna answer questions

Reflections on the first noble truth, love and relationship.

Dharma conversations I wanted to be having when I was an adolescent.

On the development of ethical alignment, inner safety, relaxing the vigilance of self-clinging and feeling like our life is complete even though we die.

Attitudes that support retreat practice. Developing in looking and the refuge of looking

This talk was given as a part of the series "Where Rubber Meets the Road: A Series on Mindful Living." A real place for us to check our practice is in our relationships. After all, we are deeply relational beings. Sometimes, our deepest grooves in our minds are only stimulated in relationships. Defilements and habits of mind, such as greed, anger, and delusion, arise in ways that they don't in other situations. In other words, forces of suffering that are latent in other situations can arise in the context of close relationships. Fortunately, this is actually not bad news. Rather, it offers us opportunity to practice, to see ourselves more clearly, to become more free, and to see how we can untangle the love from clinging.

This series of talks provides insight and practical advice as to how to take the wonderful and serene mind that we develop during our meditation practice into our daily lives, into our relationships with others. Sometimes, the deepest grooves in our minds are only stimulated in our relationships to others. Defilements and habits of the mind, such as greed, anger and delusion, arise in ways that they don't in other situations. Fortunately, these daily life encounters offer us opportunities to practice, to see ourselves more clearly, and to become more free. This is the liberating power of awareness and mindfulness.

Developing skill and open-heartedness in the midst of intense feeling.

We are all philosophers of happiness. Retreat practice provides the opportunity to examine our strategies and model of the good life. We often find that we have a redemptive hope in clinging. This talk highlights how we cling and explores a path of letting go.

This talk examines ways that the dharma can support two key developmental tasks of adolescence: exploring the nature of happiness and developing a healthy sense of self without getting stuck in it.