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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2024-02-28
Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence
22:18
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Tara Brach
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We spend great swaths of time in a trance that removes us from awareness of our body and senses. This meditation reconnects us by scanning through the body, including sounds and then resting in the field of awareness and aliveness. We practice relaxing and gently arriving again when thoughts carry us away; learning the pathway home to living presence.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-28
Part 1: Healing Depression with Meditation
63:34
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Tara Brach
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Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness.
These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-28
Transforming the Judgmental Mind 2
64:50
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin by reviewing some and expanding last week's introduction to practicing to transform the judgmental mind, including clarifying our language and the way that in English "judgment" can ambiguously mean either an expression of the judgmental mind or a non-judgmental discernment. We identify examples of the judgmental mind, and point to how it can be understood in terms of the sequence of contact to grasping (and pushing away) in the Buddha's teaching on Dependent Origination, how negative judgments (in the sense of the judgmental mind) typically come out of unacknowledged or unprocessed pain. We also point to how our practice with the judgmental mind, as it goes deeper, begins to identify "limiting beliefs," often from childhood, that generate our most chronic judgments. We end the talk with naming a number of ways to practice with the judgmental mind. The talk is followed with discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2024-02-28
Guided Meditation Exploring the Judgmental Mind
37:15
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Donald Rothberg
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After a period of settling and general mindfulness practice, we invite noticing and being with any expressions of the judgmental mind (here called "judgments") if they occur. In the second part of the guided meditation, there is also a more direct investigation of a selected judgment, exploring it at the levels of body, emotions, and thought, and seeing whether any underlying painful or difficult experience can be noticed. We close with a brief three-part self-compassion practice (from Kristin Neff).
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2024-02-25
Q&A
16:02
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 This person says that they are very sensitive and that things like traffic signs, noises, imperfections and the bustle of reality disturbs them. Do you have any advice? Q2 01:23 Could you comment on aging, sickness and death. Most of my friends and myself are in their late 70s or 80s and want to be more skilled in working with different stages and pain so as to be as prepared as possible for the dying phase.
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Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat
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Cultivating the Empty Field
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2024-02-24
Q&A
43:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 Yesterday I had this thought that there is no shame in suffering. I'm wondering what is noble about the noble about the suffering in the first noble truth. Q2 06:17 Could you differentiate between awareness and consciousness? Q3 16:18 Please speak about bowing. Q4 20:39 Do you start and end your day with any reflections or recollections or practices? Q5 28:03 What is happening when right view and release become partially obscured again after right view has been attained? Why is it becoming obscured? Is cultivation of the empty field the main practice then and purification? Q6 33:32 It's taken several retreats to uncover this tremendous sense of guilt. When it arises it makes sense to avoid reconstructing the stories. the habit is to shut down the feeling. It appears as a pain in the chest. It shifts to holding back tears. Is this karma rather than the person?
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Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat
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Cultivating the Empty Field
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2024-02-23
Q&A
51:13
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 Is chi a teaching of the buddha? How does it affect dhamma practice? Q2 12:25 How do you know when the body is telling you something? Q3 20:25 When sitting if truly inspired thoughts arise, do we treat them the same as we would any other thoughts? Letting them go? Is there no value in storing them for later contemplation? Q4 24:31 Attention and intention, which comes first? How does restraint work in relation to these two for well-being? Q5 36:15 I've heard teachers translate upekkha in other words other ways other than equanimity. Equipoise or perspective, clear perspective. Do you have any insights you can share please? Q6 40:26 I investigate the causes of my suffering. Sometimes I get the impression that some of it may have been handed over through body memories by past generations. Sort of unfinished business. Can you comment on this? Q7 43:04 Can you comment on the importance of rituals and symbols, and one's ancestral language and healing tools. How can they be used to transform whatever I may be carrying from my ancestors? Q8 48:43 Can you speak more about the power of craving?
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Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat
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Cultivating the Empty Field
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2024-02-21
Meditation: A Welcoming Heartspace
18:00
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Tara Brach
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Our pathway to peace and happiness is through opening, with tenderness, to our moment-to-moment experience. This meditation guides us first to be awake in our body and senses, and then to include the changing flow of life in a spacious, kind heart. We close with a short verse from poet Dorothy Hunt – “Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-21
“Getting Over Yourself” – A Conversation between Tara Brach and Stephen Josephs
64:48
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Tara Brach
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Executive coach and author Stephen Josephs has worked with many top business leaders, guiding them in transcending the egoic conditioning that limit their impact on other people, and on societal change.
In this conversation we look at what he’s learned about inner freedom and awakening from his own trauma, from 60 years of spiritual practice, from models of adult development, and from the poetry of Lao Tzu.
Stephen and Tara have been close friends for over 50 years, and she considers him her first inspiration for a dedicated practice of meditation. His website is stephenjosephs.com.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-21
Transforming the Judgmental Mind 1
68:12
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Donald Rothberg
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We frame the session in terms of there being three main inter-related aims of our practice: (1) developing wisdom and insight, (2) cultivating the kind heart and compassion, and (3) acting skillfully and ethically in all the parts of our life. In this context, it's interesting that having insight can still be connected with reactivity; it's possible to be both "right" and see something clearly, and be obnoxious.
We look at one major way in which insight can be enmeshed with reactivity--what I call "the judgmental mind." We first clarify how "judgment" in English is ambiguous, sometimes meaning judgmental, sometimes meaning discerning without reactivity. The judgmental mind combines typically some kind of noticing, insight, observation, etc. with reactivity, and the key to transforming the judgmental mind is to work through the reactivity, using multiple tools.
The last part of the talk outlines our major tools for transforming the judgmental mind, and invites next week's practice. We then have a discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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