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 served as resident teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts from 1996 through 1999. Taraniya teaches at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and at Dhamma centers in the United States.
This talk defines what constitutes the five spiritual faculties and what it takes to develop them. It offers a hands-on understanding of how faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, when developed, lead to freedom.
This talk address the experience of wisdom as understanding the noble truths and the law of karma which results in a mind/heart that has replaced greed, hatred, and cruelty with non-attachment, kindness and compassion.
This talk address several potential pitfalls in practice – notions about concentration and mindfulness, thinking that nothing is happening in practice, feeling half here and half not, and “doing” the practice.
With so much emphasis on dukkha, on overcoming the five hindrances, etc., our practice can at times seem bleak. We can balance this and lighten the heart by knowing where and how to find the joy in practice.
