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The greatest gift is the
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Dharma Talks
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2025-07-30
Non-Harming: Core Teachings and How to Practice
64:42
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin by remembering the three core methods of training given by the Buddha (wisdom, meditation, and "ethics"), and their interrelationship. We reflect on how ethics has often been marginalized in Western Buddhism (and at times in Asian Buddhism). We then look in depth at the first lay ethical precept, non-harming, first in terms of the core teachings of the Buddha, and its centrality in the earlier Indian traditions of the Vedas. We examine some of the more "outer" dimensions of practicing non-harming, seeing how, with mindfulness and strong intentions, we can bring non-harming into our daily lives, including in our speech and communication. We then look at the more "inner" dimensions of practicing non-harming, looking in particular at how harming ourselves or others typically comes out of our own pain, so that practicing with pain (and the teaching of the Two Arrows) is central. The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-07-24
Patience
13:24
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Shaila Catherine
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In this brief reflection, Shaila Catherine speaks about the role of patience in meditation practice. We need patience to endure conditions that we cannot control, such as heat and cold, mosquito bites, and unpleasant or wanted perceptions. We need patience to continue to cultivate mindfulness without judging our degree of success. We need patience to trust the spiritual faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom to gradually mature. We need patience to observe the flow of lived experiences, simply meeting each moment with the interest to know what is being known, and the quality of mind that is knowing it. Patience is worth developing.
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge
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Forest Refuge - Shaila's talks
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2025-07-23
Honoring the Life and Work of Joanna Macy
66:54
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Donald Rothberg
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This talk occurs five days after Joanna's death at age 96, and two days after Donald attended a wake for Joanna at her home, saying good-bye to her.
Donald first met Joanna Macy in 1977, while still a student. When he moved to Berkeley, California in 1988, he helped start a neighborhood daily meditation group of ten households, including that of Joanna and her husband Fran. So he got to know Joanna and Fran as friends and neighbors. In 1991, he first trained in her approach, later called "The Work That Reconnects" and offered this work in different venues. Over the years, they have stayed friends and colleagues, and sometimes taught together.
In this talk, Donald gives a sense of the trajectory of Joanna's life and work, showing photos of Joanna spanning her life-time and interspersing stories of training with Joanna and using her practices and perspectives in his own teaching. He focuses in the second part of the talk on the four aspects of the "spiral" of her teaching: (1) starting with gratitude, (2) honoring our pain for the world, (3) seeing with new eyes, and (4) going forth into the world. We close with a brief account of Joanna's wake from two days before the talk, and a video recording from the wake of group singing about the "Great Turning." The talk is followed by discussion and closing intentions.
For the slides shown during the talk, see document 318, below.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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Attached Files:
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Slide Show on the Life and Work of Joanna Macy
by Donald Rothberg
(PDF)
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2025-07-23
Guided Meditation Inspired by Joanna Macy's Work
38:17
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin with a period of settling, developing greater samadhi or concentration, and then move to mindfulness practice, including giving some attention to noticing moderate or a little greater levels of pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tone. When we notice pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tones, is there any tendency toward grasping or pushing away, in habitual or automatic ways? We then explore gratitude as a practice, simply reflecting on ways that we are grateful, first for aspects of our own lives, and then for aspects of the wider world. This is followed by opening with mindfulness to some difficult or painful aspects of our world, whether close to home or farther away, inspired to see and be with what is painful through wisdom and care. We end with a return to mindfulness practice for a short time. (This guided meditation is related to the talk that follows, honoring the life and work of Joanna Macy.)
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-07-11
Body Metta Awareness
67:12
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Devon Hase
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Reflections and Guided Meditation on Metta for the Body moving into boundless loving awareness.
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Various
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2025-07-07
Talk: Bringing Our Practice to the Current Difficult Times: An Eightfold Path
66:51
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Donald Rothberg
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For the Buddha, practice was understood as involving three trainings, in wisdom, meditation, and ethics (sila). Ethics, typically under-emphasized in much of Western Buddhism, with sometimes clear negative consequences, had as its horizon helping others. The Buddha said: “Wander forth . . . for the welfare of the multitude, for the happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the world.” The later emphasis on the bodhisattva develops this emphasis further.
In this talk, we suggest a contemporary “Eightfold Path” for understanding and responding to the current difficult times in the society and world. It’s outlined in terms of three wisdom guidelines, two meditation guidelines, and three ethics guidelines.
The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-07-02
Talk: The Big Picture 3: Introduction to Ethical Practice
63:19
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Donald Rothberg
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After a brief review of the first two talks in this series, we explore the nature of ethical practice, one of the three core inter-related areas of training for the Buddha, along with training in meditation and in wisdom. We see how ethical practice has often been understood historically as having a social dimension, both in the teachings of the Buddha and later, as in the edicts of King Ashoka. We also explore some of the ways that ethical practice has been marginalized in Western Buddhist practice, with significant consequences. Then we look at the commonality of ethical guidelines in cross-religious context, with Donald telling some personal stories. Finally, we outline several ways to carry out ethical practice and then open up to discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-06-25
The Big Picture 2: Nine Ways of Deepening Daily Life Practice
65:55
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue our series of meditations and talks exploring the foundations of contemporary Buddhist practice. We begin by reviewing last week's talk on the basic model of Buddhist meditation, identifying three aspects of practice. These three are (1) developing samadhi or concentration; (2) cultivating three modes of liberating insight--into impermanence, dukkha or reactivity, and not-self; and (3) opening to awakened awareness. Then we focus on a crucial, central, and not always developed dimension of contemporary practice, especially for the vast majority of Western Buddhist practitioners who do not live in monastic contexts--bringing practice to everyday life. We identify nine ways of deepening daily life practice (see the attached document, #314). The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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Attached Files:
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Nine Ways of Deepening Daily Life Practice
by Donald Rothberg
(PDF)
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2025-06-18
The Big Picture 1
64:23
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Donald Rothberg
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The talk begins to give the "big picture" about the nature of our practice, and how we come, in a way suitable to our times and places, to manifest wisdom, love and compassion, and skillful responses in our lives, increasingly more of the time. We reflect first on some of the challenges of our times, and how Buddhism, as it has moved to different cultures, has always taken new forms.
A main part of the big picture, which is our main focus today, is a model of how meditation develops. We articulate a model involving three main forms of practice (that we can find in multiple Buddhist traditions): Developing samadhi (concentration), opening to liberating insight, and opening to awakened awareness. We explore each of the three and their relationship to each other. The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-06-14
No Exaggeration
1:23:43
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Nathan Glyde
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A meditation, reflection, and (just the) responses to questions on the theme of wise perception: knowing this is a dependently originating appearance. And expanding wise and skilful (right) speech to include not exaggerating or simplifying! Perhaps these alongside other ideas, will support our practice to deepen, and widen to help liberate peace into the world.
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Gaia House
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Online Dharma Hall - June 2025
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