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Patrick Kearney's Dharma Talks
Patrick Kearney
Patrick has practised mindfulness meditation (satipaṭṭhāna vipassanā) since 1977. At that time there was little or no Buddhist meditation training available in Australia, so he spent years travelling in Asia and the USA working with teachers from different Buddhist traditions to learn the craft of meditation practice. Most of his training has been in the insight meditation lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma, which included several years as a Buddhist monk. His main teachers were Sayādaw U Paṇḍita and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen where his teachers have been Robert Aitken Rōshi and Paul Maloney Rōshi.
2015-09-14 The not-self characteristic - Part 1 1:11:45
After teaching the first Buddhist meditation retreat to the five ascetics, the Buddha introduces the topic of not-self (anattā) with Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta. Tonight we look at the Buddha’s perspective on how we create a self by clinging to five categories or “bundles” (khandha) of experience. The key moves are: “This is mine;” “I am this;” and “This is my self.”
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-15 The not-self characteristic - Part 2 58:57
We continue with Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, here focusing on the turning point represented by disenchantment (nibbidā). This creates a process of the fading of obsession, liberation and the exhaustion of birth. The Buddha expresses as a state of intimacy, conveyed by the statement, “There is no more of this!”
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-05 Awareing 1:15:12
Here we learn to structure our attention more loosely, to enable us to see the object of awareness within the broader context of our attentional field. When we hold an object too closely we may miss the context within which it is held, including the one who is attending to it. When we learn to hold the object more loosely, we can appreciate the context within which it is held, and understanding (sampajañña, paññā) emerges within this context.
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-05 The insight chorus - Part 1 - Impermanence & emptiness 67:17
We look at the first three sentences of the chorus of Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, where the Buddha explains the arising of insight (vipassanā). We examine “tracking body as body internally and externally,” where the assumed boundary between self and other begins to dissolve. Then we look at how the practitioner opens into the perception of impermanence – “tracking the nature of arising and ceasing as body.” Finally, we examine the entry into emptiness, where the practitioner is mindful that “body is,” for understanding (ñāṇa) and continuous mindfulness (paṭisati).
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-06 Restraining the senses 69:59
We continue our exploration of how we can structure attention by practising indriya saṃvāra, or sense restraint. This practice represents a radical relaxation in which we rest our awareness and simply receive sense data without doing anything, without getting entangled in the data. This practice makes us sensitive to how difficult it is to stop “doing.”
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-06 The insight chorus - Part 2 - Independence 57:09
This evening we unpack the sentence in which the Buddha presents the maturity of the practice: “And she lives independently, not clinging to anything in the world.” What does it mean to “live independently?” And where does clinging (upādāna) fit into this?
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-07 The three satipatthanas 1:18:37
We survey the first three of the four satipaṭṭhānas, here translated as “foundations of mindfulness” or “domains of mindfulness” – the places where we station our mindfulness. These are body (kāya), feeling (vedanā) and heart/mind (citta). We see these domains represent a linear progression from less to greater ethical sensitivity; and we also see how feeling holds the practice together.
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-08 The fourth satipatthana 69:05
Tonight we explore the fourth satipaṭṭhāna, that of tracking dharma or dharmas (dhammānupassanā). Tracking dharma (singular) involves learning the conceptual framework that gives meaning to the experiences we undergo. We learn to read our experience. When experience means something, then it can transform our life. Tracking the dharmas (plural) entails learning to perceive our experienced world as no more than a flow of phenomena, that arise and cease dependent on conditions. This represents the maturity of insight into not-self (anattā).
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-01 Tracking feeling 65:47
This morning we look at what the Buddha means by vedanā, or “feeling.” We begin with a meditation experiment and go on to explore what the role of affect in the Buddha’s teaching, and in our practice.
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
2015-09-01 On vedana 68:34
Here we explore the Buddha’s concept of vedanā, or feeling, more thoroughly. We see the intimate link between contact (phassa), the immediacy of experience, and feeling. All experience is already accompanied by feeling; or, we can say that we are already moved by this experience. We are moved toward holding by pleasant feeling (sukha vedanā), toward rejection by painful feeling (dukkha vedanā), or toward delusion by neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling (a-dukkha-(m)a-sukha vedanā). Feeling presents us with a world that we have already assessed as requiring response, and have already responded to.
Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney

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