Class

For this retreat on wise speech, mindfulness, and non-violent communication, we begin with examining the place of wise (or "right") speech in the Eightfold Path, and how it is linked to training and development in wisdom, ethics, and meditation. We then reflect on the importance for this path of speech, and the four ethical guidelines for speech given by the Buddha: (1) truthfulness, (2) helpfulness, (3) warmth/kindness, and (4) appropriateness.

An end of retreat talk: Practice and principles to bring our insights and practice into our lives. Includes wise intention, renunciation, loving kindness and balanced effort and mindfulness.

The tranquility and concentration factors of enlightenment are the natural outcome of mindfulness and wise attention. With a concentrated mind, one can see things as they really are. This is the path of awakening.

The bedrock teaching of all Buddhist traditions are discovered through mindfulness practice.

One of our most important resources in mediation is basic well-being. We get distracted away from it. Mindfulness of body supports us to stay in touch with this sense of goodness.

We use methods in mindfulness meditation to develop a number of highly valued qualities of mind including concentration, experiential inquiry, kindness, shared joy, and equanimity. At the same time we maintain from the beginning a basic attitude of radical acceptance; we respect self-acceptance as an element of each of the methods. Wait a minute. Is this coherent? Is it a joke? If we are practicing a method to improve the mind, can we really practice radical acceptance at the same time? Put abstractly it can be made to seem paradoxical. Yet the paradox can be resolved. And more important than conceptual resolution is the fact that in practice we find that the methods are transformative when practiced skillfully in a framework of radical acceptance.

A talk for young adults (and others) on mindfulness, how it works, its benefits, what makes it hard, and some of the science of mindfulness.

How to work with thoughts and emotions.

Often we experience ourselves as a complex interweaving of layers of habits, beliefs and emotions. Investigating the obvious aspects of the outer layer, and being aware of our attitude about that layer, the layers gradually dissolve. The pairing of the wisdom of acceptance with the clarity of mindfulness guides us through our moment to moment experience towards freedome.

(Given on Asalha Puja, commemorating the occasion when the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths.) A lot of our practice is about squaring up to the first noble truth of suffering rather than wriggling away from it. Mindfulness of body provides a channel to open up to suffering, where it can be experienced in terms of energies rather than thoughts and emotions.

This talk discusses the current research in mindfulness, including the areas of physical health, attention, mental health, self-compassion, and brain research.

When awareness mingles with sensations in the body, it is like returning home after a long journey. So why is it so hard to rest in the immediacy of our experience called 'body'?

How I came to practice – intro; followed by an exploration of the nature of mind, a description of the qualities of mindfulness as a toll for investigation and liberation.

How relaxation and curiosity support our journey to see the truth of how things are.

What are the joys and fruits of the practice of Vipassana/mindfulness? This talk elaborates the peace, joy, freedom that arises from meditation; especially in regard to seeing clearly the nature of thought, papanca and disengaging from the delusions of mind.

This talk also includes Mahesi Caplan

This talk also includes Mahesi Caplan

Wise Mindfulness

How training the mind in following precepts, such as the rules regarding the use of four monastic requisites - food, robes, shelter, and medicines, can win us greater patience, faith, gratitude, calm, courage, and mindfulness. Such ways of renunciation test our commitment to the path and teach us how to forgive and let go even our fears so that we harvest the riches of joy, compassion and inner peace.

On self-aversion, on the distinction between mindfulness and insight and on the development of samadi.

The five indriya: faith, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment merge in the Deathless where they correctly balance each other.