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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2015-09-22
The sweet essence - Part 2
62:34
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Patrick Kearney
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In the second part of Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, Mahā Kaccāna unpacks the process of delusion and drivenness to reveal the not-constructed (asaṅkhata), nibbāna itself. He does this by showing that what we take to be the solid ground (ṭhāna) upon which we build ourselves and our world turns out to be no thing at all. That beneath this web of concepts there lies a realm beyond concept, beyond language, yet so intimate that it is always available to us. It is available, now.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-22
On dukkha & dukkha nana
1:25:19
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Patrick Kearney
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We explore how the ordinary experience of dukkha becomes dukkha ñāṇa, understanding of the universal characteristic (samañña lakkhaṇa) of dukkha. We look at the how the perception of impermanence (anicca-saññā) creates anxiety when the heart intuits the groundless of experience, and how the unfolding of this anxiety is mapped by the dukkha ñāṇas of classical Theravāda Buddhism. Finally, we see how the experience of dukkha gives way to that of not-self (anattā), when the heart stabilises through the maturity of mindfulness (sati) and equanimity (upekkhā).
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-19
Precious Human Birth
48:06
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Amma Thanasanti
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First talk of the retreat. The range of human experience includes choices based on greed, hatred and confusion or non green, non hatred and non confusion. There are many fortunate conditions that give someone faculties to hear to Dhamma, contemplate, practice a gradual path of awakening. Yet there are times when the path changes suddenly and we can feel groundless. Both the gradual and sudden aspects of the path are part of what we develop and realize as part of understanding the preciousness of our human birth.
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Shakti Vihara
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Portal to Pure Presence
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2015-09-17
Four Stages in the Transformation of the Judgmental Mind
61:42
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Donald Rothberg
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We first cover an overview of the two main inter-related ways that transformation of the judgmental mind occurs: (1) mindfulness and investigation of judgments; and (2) cultivating awakened states, particularly through "heart practices." In this talk, we examine four stages of the first way: investigating and transforming judgments by first noticing them and becoming more mindful of them in terms of the body, core narratives, emotional energy, etc., and then going beneath the surface of judgments, revealing and transforming the underlying habitual tendencies and core limiting beliefs, often initially unconscious.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Transforming the Judgmental Mind
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2015-09-17
Preparing the fire
66:12
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Patrick Kearney
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Tonight we follow the Buddha from Isipatana, just north of Bārāṇasī, to Uruvelā, on the near side to the Nerañjarā river. At Bārāṇasī he converts some of the commercial elite of the city, and when he has 60 arahant students sends them off on missionary journeys. The Buddha himself goes on a targeted mission to convert a community of dreadlocks-wearing (jaṭila) ascetics to his teaching. He does so by “shirt-fronting” Uruvelā-Kassapa, the senior leader of this community, with his shamanic powers, in order to prepare the way for his third teaching.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-14
What is Mindfulness?
55:38
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Sally Armstrong
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Mindfulness is becoming very popular in many areas of modern life: as a stress reduction, in schools, prisons, hospitals, in the workplace and so on. But what is mindfulness, and what was the Buddha talking about when he encouraged us to practice it? Right mindfulness, or Samma Sati, develops wisdom and understanding, decreasing unwholesome states of mind, increasing wholesome ones and leading us to more freedom and clarity.
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
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Three-Month Retreat - Part 1
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2015-09-12
The four truths
1:16:26
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Patrick Kearney
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Having opened the hearts of his five companions with his teaching of the middle way, the Buddha now teaches the four truths of the noble ones (cattāro ariya-saccāni). These are: dukkha; its arising; its cessation; and the path leading to its cessation. This discourse centres on dukkha and craving (taṇhā), because the Buddha is concerned here with what coloured his own practice before his awakening – his sense of drivenness, of trying to get in the future something missing now.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-12
Reflections on Sujātā
22:23
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Ayya Tathaloka
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It was Sujata who offered rice milk to the Buddha after his extreme austerities which included living on one grain of rice a day. Sujata, a laywoman, is remembered and commemorated in the Theravada tradition as ‘The First Disciple of the Buddha,’ there even directly before his awakening.
Talk given at Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery’s International Bhikkhuni Day celebration in 2015.
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Dhammadharini
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2015-09-09
Equanimity: Equally Close To All Things
48:22
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Shaila Catherine
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Equanimity allows us to remain present and awake with the fact of things—equally close to the things we like and the things we dislike. Shaila Catherine describes the importance of developing equanimity in two arenas: 1) in response to pleasant and painful feelings, and 2) regarding the future results of our actions. Equanimity develops in meditation and in life. We can use unexpected events that we cannot control to develop equanimity. Our job is not to judge our experiences, but to be present and respond wisely. Equanimity is a beautiful mental factor that can feel like freedom, but if "I" and "mine" still operate, there is still work to be done. This talk includes many practical suggestions for cultivating equanimity.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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2015-09-08
The fourth satipatthana
69:05
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Patrick Kearney
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Tonight we explore the fourth satipaṭṭhāna, that of tracking dharma or dharmas (dhammānupassanā). Tracking dharma (singular) involves learning the conceptual framework that gives meaning to the experiences we undergo. We learn to read our experience. When experience means something, then it can transform our life. Tracking the dharmas (plural) entails learning to perceive our experienced world as no more than a flow of phenomena, that arise and cease dependent on conditions. This represents the maturity of insight into not-self (anattā).
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-05
The “Thinning” of the Self: Exploring and Practicing Anattā (“Not-Self”) 1: Introduction and Overview
45:58
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Donald Rothberg
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The teaching of anattā (“not-self”) points to one of the three fundamental areas of liberating insight taught by the Buddha (along with the teachings on impermanence and on suffering or dukkha). Yet anattā can very challenging and confusing for contemporary practitioners. Is there “no self” (as anattā is sometimes translated)? How do we make sense of our feelings of individuality, identity, ancestry, and vocation? How do we address our own personal experiences of woundedness, trauma, and oppression? Are these all simply to be “transcended”? How is a sense of self actually in many ways important for contemporary spiritual development, and how is working with our own individual conditioning, whether psychological or social in origin, central to our liberation? How do we integrate attending to such conditioning with opening as well to the power and energy of experiences beyond the habitual sense of self?
In this daylong, we will explore these vital questions primarily in a practical way. Using the metaphors of “thinning the self” and working with a “thick” sense of self, we will cover three aspects of practice: (1) cultivating, in several ways, the “thinning” of the self, both in meditation and in everyday life, including working with the Five Skandhas or “aggregates” of experience; (2) tracking and working with different manifestations of a “thick” sense of self, both as appearing in experience and as hidden to awareness; and (3) opening to experiencing beyond a fixed sense of self, as awareness, compassion, and responsiveness deepen.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2015-09-05
Awareing
1:15:12
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Patrick Kearney
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Here we learn to structure our attention more loosely, to enable us to see the object of awareness within the broader context of our attentional field. When we hold an object too closely we may miss the context within which it is held, including the one who is attending to it. When we learn to hold the object more loosely, we can appreciate the context within which it is held, and understanding (sampajañña, paññā) emerges within this context.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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