Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia has been offering instruction in Theravada Buddhist teachings and practices since 1990. She is a student of the Western forest sangha, the disciples of Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Chah, and is a Lay Buddhist Minister in association with Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in California. She has served as resident teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, taught many months at IMS's Forest Refuge, and served as a Core Faculty member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. She co-authored Older and Wiser: Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness, and Death and has written numerous articles for the Insight Journal of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
This talk examines sakkāyaditthi or self-view—the subtle way that we relate to experience from the vantage point of self. Through training and insight, sakkāyaditthi is eradicated at the first stage of awakening.
This talk is about sīlabbataparāmāsa—a subtle clinging to rites, rituals, precepts, and practices. We train in order to see and overcome this heady attachment to our practices (dāna, sīla, bhāvanā, mettā bhāvanā).
This talk is about sīlabbataparāmāsa—a subtle clinging to rites, rituals, precepts, and practices. We train in order to see and overcome this heady attachment to our practices (dāna, sīla, bhāvanā, mettā bhāvanā).
Going for refuge mirrors the process of waking up. We settle enough to know what we are experiencing (Buddha); we learn to let things be the way are (Dhamma); and we experience directly the happiness and release that comes from skillful behavior (Sangha).
This talk addresses several potential difficulties in practice – attaching to ideas about mindfulness and concentration, thinking that nothing is happening in practice, feeling half here and half not, and the tendency to “do” the practice.
The Buddha defines three kinds of conceit—conceit itself (māna), the inferiority complex (omāna), and arrogance (atimāna). Conceit is a player in giving rise to a sense of self and perpetuating it though ignorance. This talk offers practical guidance to help meditators see conceit and uproot it through understanding and insight.
This talk outlines the Buddha’s teaching on the three forms of craving—craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, and craving for non-becoming. Taraniya encourages the practitioner to use the retreat environment to observe craving in what may seem like minor or insignificant moments. These moments hold potential for major insights.
Given the conflicts, wars, and divisiveness over the past year, many people ask, “How do we practice with all of this?” Taraniya offers reflections on opening to difficulty, making practical adjustments in our lives to support inner balance, and increasing our capacity to manage mindstates through understanding and wisdom.
Here we look at fourth satipatthana and its specific instructions on what to see and how to see it—the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of awakening, and the four noble truths—with an eye to realizing how this practice helps us overcome self-view.
This talk examines popular strategies for behavior change such as willing ourselves into compliance and analyzing our history. And it contrasts these "old ways" with the strategies of Buddhist practices.
The Buddha never denied or affirmed the existence of a self. He merely noted that when we relate to the body, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness with attachment, we suffer. Non-identification with the body and mind frees us.
Making full use of perception of the new year to skillfully look back to where we have been and forward to where we are going. .. and at the same time, collapsing time to the present moment.
This talk looks at how we tend to form views based on likes and dislikes... and how we extend our views to form value laden statements about the world, the people in it and even ourselves. We move away from the direct experience into a world of fabrication and delusion. Our ideas become more real than the experience they represent.
This talk examines how the mind names or assigns qualities or characteristics to the things we contact. How it relates and draws associations to similar things we have known...and what it is like to attach to that.
What goes on in the mind when we remember things we have sensed, felt or thought in the past. It is through this activity of perception, and our attachment to it, that we have a very real sense of the past.
Perception is the function or activity of the mind through which we receive, sort and interpret sensory date. While it serves a very useful purpose... much of this activity is both unconscious and distorted. It is in our interest to see it meditatively and learn to relate to it skillfully.
This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Buddha for refuge. The classical refuge in the Buddha involves refuge in the historic Buddha, while the subtle refuge occurs whenever we rest in the simple knowing of experience.
This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Dhamma for refuge. The classical refuge in Dhamma involves refuge in the teachings of the Buddha as set forth in the Pāli Canon. The subtle refuge involves taking refuge in things as they really are … understanding the subtle truths underlying all experience.
This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Sangha for refuge. The classical refuge in Sangha involves going forth into monastic life and/or turning to elders for guidance along the way. The subtle refuge involves knowing directly the happiness that comes from keeping impeccable silā.
Using a simple example of stress in every day life, this talk examines the Buddha’s teaching on the first noble truth – particularly, “having to associate with things we don’t like, be separated from things we like, and not get what we want.” It considers the insights that accompany opening to this truth.
