In the talk, Donald reflects on having just completed, four days before the talk, four weeks of practice at Spirit Rock. He particularly focuses on three themes from the retreat, exploring each theme in terms of both its retreat context and its daily life context. The first is the theme of listening deeply to one's own "intuition" and what "calls." The second is the theme of developing samadhi (usually translated as "concentration"--the unified mind and heart and body) and in particular practicing the eight jhanas as taught by the Buddha. The third is the theme of bringing the retreat learning and explorations into daily life, and how in particular to cultivate the first two themes in the daily life context. The talk is followed by discussion.

This guided meditation gives more detail on developing samadhi than the guided meditation from a week ago. First, after a brief overview of the nature of samadhi (usually translated as "concentration"), instructions are given for a practice session developing samadhi, including on posture, gaze, possible objects of focus, and skillful effort. Midway through the session, some further guidance is given on "intensifying," which helps both to deepen samadhi and to cut through background thinking as well as foreground thinking.

This talks focuses on one of the three areas of practice discussed a week before, on developing samadhi (or concentration), the theme of Donald's four weeks of practice in March. We begin by more generally discussing the nature of samadhi, including short account of the etymology in Pali, and the Tibetan sense of samadhi as "staying," as developing in the nine stages of the "Elephant Path." We look at the place and importance of developing samadhi in our practice and its relationship to insight practice; developing samadhi is one of the eight factors of the Noble Eightfold Path and appears in many of the Buddha's core teachings. We discuss some ways to practice developing samadhi, and then focus especially on several challenges of such practice and how to work with such challenges. The talk is followed by discussion, including further exploration of the relationship of cultivating samadhi and insight practice, the nature of skillful effort, and the joy that can arise in the development of samadhi.

After about 25 minutes of lightly guided practice, to settle with concentration and/or mindfulness practice, we explore in several ways some of the emotions and thoughts that have been present related to the current state of the society and world. We first relive a recent experience and then bring mindfulness to the somatic, emotional, and mental dimensions of experience. We then work with Kristen Neff's three-step self-compassion practice, leading to developing intentions for how to practice with such experiences in the future.

We first explore in general the relationship of core teachings and practices to the social and political dimensions of our lives. We see that Buddhist practice in the West has commonly emphasized meditation and inner practices, often neglecting or marginalizing the ethical training that traditionally is one of the three dimensions of training, even though the Buddha did often give social commentary (e.g., on the caste system) and at times social interpretations of the ethical precepts ("Let one not destroy life nor cause others to destroy life and, also, not approve of others’ killing. . . . Let one not cause to steal, nor approve of others’ stealing.'). We explore a vision of individual and collective awakening, inspired in part by more contemporary traditions of socially engaged Buddhism initially developed by pioneers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Sulak Sivaraksa, A.T. Ariyaratne, Dr. Ambedkar, Joanna Macy, and Robert Aitken. Then we give some attention to how to connect inner and outer practices, particularly focusing, as we did in the guided meditation, on practicing with challenging emotions and thoughts, and clarifying ways to act in the world. The talk is followed by discussion and ends with the setting of intentions.