Addictions of all levels of intensity arise from disconnection and are spiking globally. Humans are experiencing epidemic levels of loneliness, and this combined with engineered products and substances that are highly addictive leads to great suffering. In these two talks, we explore how we get hooked on behaviors that we know cause harm, and how mindfulness and self-compassion can serve our freedom. Key to this process is reconnecting with our inner life, and remembering we are in this together, awakening together.

00:18 Whenever I tell someone about my worries or problems I'll be told to think positive. Does positive thinking accord with the teaching of the buddha? 06:16 I've been practicing with the satipatana sutta, establishing mindfulness. Often I get confused with the words "externally and internally" parts of the awareness practice. Can you help please? 24:37 I'm working on opening, meeting and releasing with the sympathetic attitude. I've noticed some joy and yet in unexpected circumstances I've become defensive and angry and this leads to shame. What do you advise? 30:50 If I can't get to a center where there is a more authentically embodied practice, could I practice with traditions that are more disembodied? 33:20 You mentioned the Great Forty sutta (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN117.html) regarding the basis of samadhi. Surely it needs the five precepts to be steadfast in right view etc? 37:44 As individuals we have creative potential, skills etc. Do we invite that unique particularity to manifest in our lives?

Addictions of all levels of intensity arise from disconnection and are spiking globally. Humans are experiencing epidemic levels of loneliness, and this combined with engineered products and substances that are highly addictive leads to great suffering. In these two talks, we explore how we get hooked on behaviors that we know cause harm, and how mindfulness and self-compassion can serve our freedom. Key to this process is reconnecting with our inner life, and remembering we are in this together, awakening together.

When we have the courage to pause and meet fear with the mindfulness and compassion of RAIN, our awareness and wisdom awaken. This RAIN meditation will guide you in unhooking from anxiety and fear, offering a pathway to inner transformation and a fearless heart.

In this retreat, we will be looking at compassion through the lens of the 7 Factors of Awakening. We are calling it the 7 Factors of Compassion and we'll be exploring how a compassionate response to each of the factors supports awakening. Tonight I am exploring the intersection of compassion and mindfulness, investigation, and energy.

00:15 Can you clarify what is citta? And the asavas? 31:02 Q2 What is meant by nimitta? I’ve never experienced a light nimitta, but I experience calm and peace after I meditate. How can I go deeper into this? Q3 34:31 How can one speed up the process of becoming a stream enterer? 45:26 Q4 How do we practice mindfulness in daily life?

We explore the three kinds of feeling tone: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, and also, their underlying tendencies of grasping, aversion, and ignorance. Spanning feelings that arise from the body and mind as well as worldly and unworldly vedanā, we investigate how to create space between the feeling tone and the reactivity that usually follows it so that awareness of feeling can lead to awakening.

Discusses components of mindfulness, especially non-identification

Exploring mindfulness and balanced effort

When virtue is straight one’s view is straight, you establish mindfulness, realizing that what you do, think and say has significance. Exercising attention, awareness and intention, we develop a sense of embodiment, stabilizing attention on it.

The pathway to inhabiting our full presence is including, with mindfulness all parts of experience. This guided meditation explores how we can open, without resistance to the changing flow of sensations, feelings, thoughts and sounds, and discover the boundless awareness that is our true home.

How the cultivation of mindfulness and concentration, support, deliberation of heart and mind

A dhamma talk and Q&A to a Canadian dhamma group in Toronto 12 March 2023. Questions are précised: 30:12 Q1 - We all often slip in the practice. What is the best way to get back into it? 34:18 Q2 - How can we maintain mindfulness when we don't accomplish what you set out to do? How can we not let that frustration set us further back? 41:15 Q3 - I've noticed a real cultural difference between the East and the West in the sense of guilt and shame. Can you comment? 45:31 Q4 - During meditation what should I do to control my thoughts? More on this group here: https://www.theravadabuddhistcommunity.org/

Morning reflection on dukkha, and how to be skillful with thoughts

How the hindrances arise in metta practice, and how to meet them with mindfulness and antidotes. Especially focuses on the near and far neighbors of attached love and aversion.

With a wise expectation of the three kinds of vedanā, we steady our mindfulness to intimately connect with unpleasantness, pleasantness, and neutral experiences. This is the first step with vedanā. The second is to cool off the old habits of reactivity , and the third is seeing vedanā is not inherent in the objects of our attention. Vedanā arises due to contact with the 6 sense doors, and operates on its own independent conditinality. This is difficult to see in daily life, and a precious opportunity on silent retreat.

Key to all of our suffering and eventual freedom, mindfulness of vedanā disrupts our unconscious struggle to reject unpleasant experiences, crave pleasant experiences, and ignore neutral experiences. Since vedanā is a tone or aspect of every moment in the stream of our consciousness, it beocmes increasingly clear our agitation with life begins with reactivity to vedanā, and the training of a new kind of well being comes as we develop the ability to breath inside the stream with all three vedanās.

Exploration of the three anchors – mindfulness of sound, body sensation, and breathing

In this talk of a series of talks on developing metta or lovingkindness, we look at the question of how we connect and integrate metta with our development of clear seeing, with our mindfulness and wisdom. This is an important question, particularly given that most Western practitioners of insight meditation have separate practices in which they develop metta, on the one hand, and mindfulness and wisdom, on the other. Are they integrated? How? In the talk, we explore: (1) related strong cultural tendencies to separate mind and emotions, as in, for example, science, and much education; (2) how in the basic teachings of the Buddha, there seem to be separate practices; (3) how, both in the teachings of the Buddha and in later Buddhist traditions (as well as in other traditions), there is often a deeper vision of the unity of the awakened heart and mind; and (4) how we can practice to integrate metta, mindfulness, wisdom, and awareness.

We start with a short period of metta or some other heart practice, noticing how mindfulness brings us back to the practice when we are distracted. Then there is a longer period of mindfulness, hopefully infused some with metta, in the spirit of Sylvia Boorstein's wonderful invitation: “May I meet this moment fully. May I meet this moment as a friend.” We then have a second sequence of relatively brief metta practice followed by a longer period of mindfulness practice. The last part of the session is a guided practice of radiating metta, moving toward an integration of metta and a boundless awareness. b. Let it infuse mindfulness: Sylvia’s phrase. See how this is. c. Check periodically. Maybe do 2-3 minutes of metta. d. Radiating metta exploring a loving awareness.