Images and similes that support the cultivation of equanimity.

Graduated Discourse 1

There’s no wrong way to do metta or lovingkindness. Sometimes the practice of cultivating lovingkindness is simply to radiate love without words. Sometimes it’s to begin by holding yourself with kindness. Lovingkindness can be an antidote to anxiety and fear. We become more gracious with the difficulties of life as we open the heart.

The inner practice of liberation is not an individual matter. One of the deepest realizations that comes when we meditate, as we pay attention, as we live a life of care and loving awareness, is the growing sense of interdependence. There is no separation between our body and the body of the earth. The minerals of the soil make up our wheat and our bones, the storm clouds become our drinks and our blood, the oxygen from the trees and forests is the air we breathe. The human community is equally interconnected. If we meet together in harmony and respect, care for the vulnerable among us, tend to the environment, and respect our citizens and neighbors, we will thrive and prosper.

This talk matches key suttas is related to samadhi development and to poems and stories of people trying to apply these teachings

Wholesome and Unwholesome.

It is natural and right to take reality as independently real, but every perception is the best guess of what reality is. We know a prediction, rather than a fact. This invites a freedom to shape our self and world towards an ethical liberation.

Skilfull with the Unpleasant

Towards wholesome ways of relating. Skilful with the hindrances.

The three functions of insight in the imperfections of insight

Meditation talk on reducing a sense of self. Guided meditation on sense of self and gentle awareness of mood. Dhamma talk on hopelessness. Losing hope/living without hope, and how we can commit without a sense of emotional investment to something in the future. Differences between hope, faith (sadha) and enthusiasm (chanda).

Law of karma, right speech, dependent origination, compassion.

On the role of concentration in the Buddhist path to awakening. Discusses what distinguishes "wise concentration" from other types

The meditation starts with breathing mindfully to collect and calm the body and mind. Then we open our attention to include the changing flow in a spacious natural presence.

Most of us unconsciously identify as a separate, threatened, deficient self. This talk shines a light on this conditioning and explores the ways that mindfulness, compassion and self-inquiry reveal the freedom of our true nature.