|
|
 |
Please support Dharma Seed with a 2025 year-end gift.
Your donations allow us to offer these teachings online to all.
|
|
|
|
|
The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
|
|
|
| |
|
Dharma Talks
|
2021-10-06
The Seven Factors of Awakening
68:45
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
After a brief review of the last two sessions that Donald has offered on traditional teachings about awakening and contemporary maps of the path of awakening, we explore the core teaching of the Seven Factors of Awakening: mindfulness, investigation, resolve or energy, joy or rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. We look both individually at each of the seven, and also suggest a number of ways of practicing with this teaching, whether in a particular meditation session, in daily life, or over a sustained period of time. At the end, there is some discussion.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
2021-09-22
Anger: Responding, Not Reacting
53:21
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
Anger is natural, intelligent and necessary for surviving and flourishing. Yet when we are hooked by anger, it causes great personal and collective suffering. This talk explores how to transform patterns of reactivity by bringing a mindful and compassionate attention to the unmet needs that underlie angry reactivity. When we learn how to pause and connect honestly with our inner experience, we are then able to respond to others from our full intelligence and heart.
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
|
|
|
2021-09-16
The 7 Factors of Awakening--Part 1: Overview and Factor 1, Mindfulness
52:51
|
|
Tina Rasmussen
|
|
|
This free dharma talk is the first in a series on the "7 Factors of Awakening," which are factors that what we nurture and develop on the path of awakening, as well as being descriptors of the awakened state. Tina gives a series of three talks on the "7 Factors," providing practical descriptions of how to cultivate and recognize these factors in our practice, and in daily life.
|
|
Insight Meditation Tucson
|
|
|
2021-08-23
Loving Witness
45:27
|
|
Jack Kornfield
|
|
|
In any moment you can become the loving witness—it’s why we sit in meditation. We learn to sit with both heartbreak and love—with whatever arises. We become the loving witness of it all. What channel do you turn to amidst the joy and sorrows? With mindful loving awareness we can see it all anew. When we see with amazement, with loving awareness, we also see with the heart.
As Mary Oliver writes:
“And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood….
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular….
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement….”
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
2021-08-10
Opening the mind door
41:07
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
We can’t always feel good but we can get enough stability to stop running, and instead meet what’s unpleasant. Meditation is the opportunity to safely become insecure – set aside the defenses and strategies, remain present and stable, and open. When you’ve accepted its presence with mindfulness, fear no longer propels the citta because it’s been integrated.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-08-09
Guided Meditation – Breathing
52:29
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
The aim of mindfulness of breathing is to steady, refresh and bless the mind. When the heart becomes clean and happy, it naturally widens and sends out good energies and actions into the world. So when you cultivate through heart, you benefit both your own mind and the lives of others.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-08-09
No person, no problem
33:11
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Citta’s tendency is to grasp onto phenomena, seeking stability in the ever-changing nature of things. Citta can also respond to phenomena with mindfulness — an open attention that allows things to do what they do and move through. When the constant seeking abates, a pleasant abiding place remains. This is where true stability is found.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-08-08
Balance internal and external
2:56
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Use the experience of deepening attention in your practice, to really see what’s around you. You can practice mindfulness when you move around off the cushion. Often we live in the cocoon of an assumed environment that is not really what’s there. Take a fresh look. Pay attention.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-08-08
Open into the given
27:58
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Mindfulness is the heart's awareness. It can help us be embodied,present, and show up for life. The embodied sense is warm, cohesive and is sustained through the rhythmic flow of breathing. The sense of ‘I am’ sits in the center of that embodied sensitivity. This sense is a given and cannot be created; but mostly its ignored because we're too busy ‘doing’ to receive it.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-08-06
Moving out of meditation
6:22
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
A practice of lingering and noticing what has passed has an open and steadying effect. This is an aspect of mindfulness: to not rush onto the next thing but notice what’s there. This is where samadhi arises. Give yourself a set period of time while meditating, then make the movement out of meditation free and aimless.
|
|
Sunyata Buddhist Centre
:
Open Stability
|
|
|
2021-07-28
Deepening Daily Life Practice 3: Practicing with the Eight Worldly Winds
68:43
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
We begin with a review of the last two sessions related to deepening daily life practice, including identifying some of the challenges of contemporary daily life practice and some basic ways of deepening such practice, the importance for such practice of mindfulness of the body, and the centrality of practicing with reactivity (based on looking closely at the sequence from contact to grasping or pushing away). We then, for the rest of the session, explore the teaching of the Eight Worldly Winds (pleasure or pain, gain or loss, fame or disrepute, and praise or blame) as a way of looking out for eight specific experiences that are likely to lead to reactivity. In all of this, we focus on how we might learn from and respond skillfully to such challenging situations rather than simply react in a largely unconscious and habitual way. The talk is followed by a discussion.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
2021-07-26
Buddhist Studies: Mindfulness of the Mind, Week 5 - Talk
49:57
|
|
Mark Nunberg
|
|
|
The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.
This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.
|
|
Common Ground Meditation Center
:
Buddhist Studies Course: Mindfulness of the Mind
|
|
|
2021-07-26
Buddhist Studies: Mindfulness of the Mind, Week 5 - Meditation
34:20
|
|
Mark Nunberg
|
|
|
The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.
This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.
|
|
Common Ground Meditation Center
:
Buddhist Studies Course: Mindfulness of the Mind
|
|
|
2021-07-22
Guided Meditation - Right View Supports Right Mindfulness
50:40
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
When mindfulness is based on right view, there is understanding of skillful and unskillful mind-states and the effects they give rise to. Otherwise mindfulness is merely attention. Right mindfulness, established firmly in the body, has the quality of steadiness and stillness, witnessing and non-involvement with phenomena. Mindfulness is about returning to body and breathing – ground, space, center.
|
|
Cittaviveka
|
|
|
2021-07-19
Meditation: Listening with the Heart | Monday Night
23:59
|
|
Jack Kornfield
|
|
|
Direct mindful loving awareness to the mind. The mind secretes thoughts, stories and memories. You are the loving awareness that feels the stream of the mind, that knows it—all the busyness, hopes, and ideas. Listen now to the wisdom mind. It has a message for you. It has wisdom that you need just now. Now let the field of loving awareness open, so the heart knows you can listen to the world around you with tender care. By listening with a compassionate heart and a wisdom mind, your understanding can grow.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
|
|
|
2021-07-07
Deepening Daily Life Practice 2: Practicing with Reactivity
69:27
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
We begin with a review of last week's opening exploration of deepening daily life practice, naming some of the challenges of daily life practice, some initial ways of deepening such practice, and the centrality for such practice of mindfulness of the body. We then, for the rest of the session, explore how we can practice with reactivity when it arises, in its two forms--grasping after the pleasant and pushing away what is taken as unpleasant. We ground such practice in the Buddha's teaching in the model of Dependent Origination of the sequence from contact to feeling-tone to wanting (or not wanting) to grasping (or pushing away). We then point to a number of ways of practicing with reactivity and some of the complexities of such practice, particularly the ways in which reactivity can be enmeshed with discernment. A discussion follows!
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
2021-06-30
Deepening Daily Life Practice 1
68:12
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
In an important sense, daily life practice is central and vital; it is where we live! Yet at times in the non-monastic Insight Meditation approach as it's developed in the West, such practice has been somewhat marginalized, with retreat practice and formal meditation practice at the center. We explore first the challenging context of daily life practice for many Western practitioners, including not just such a lack of sustained emphasis on daily life practice, but also the challenges of living in what is often a very busy, "mental" culture and society. We then look at a number of ways to bring more awareness into daily life, inviting the listener to see what one or two ways of practicing might be emphasized in the next period of time. We give a more in-depth focus on one very central way of bringing more awareness into daily life--developing mindfulness of the body. We offer a number of different practices that support such mindfulness of the body.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
|
|
