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Dharma Talks
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2017-10-17
Mahakaccana: Clarifying the Most Cryptic Teachings
42:18
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Shaila Catherine
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Shaila Catherine concluded our lecture series on the Great Disciples, with a talk about the Venerable Mahakaccana. He was a monk famous for explaining difficult and perplexing teachings. The Buddha sometimes gave brief teachings that left the listeners confused. Sometimes the disciples did not ask the Buddha questions to clarify their doubt. Instead they sought out another monk to elucidate the matter and explain the detailed meaning. The Pali Canon preserves several insightful discourses in which initial enigmatic teachings by the Buddha are systematically explained by Venerable Mahakaccana. He addresses profound topics including the construction of I-making and mine-making, craving, conceit, views, mindfulness of sense perceptions, obsession with thoughts of past and future, and overcoming desire and lust. His methods of exposition became the basis of early commentary, and Mahakaccana became known as the first Buddhist commentator.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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In
collection:
The Great Disciples: People and Personalities in the Buddha's Community
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2017-10-15
Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness
59:41
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Sally Armstrong
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The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (usually translated as the Foundations of Mindfulness) offers a complete description of the practice of mindfulness, beginning with the direct awareness of the breath and the body, progressing through mindfulness of vedana or feeling tone, to the more subtle object of the Third Foundation, mindfulness of mind states. The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness represents the culmination of this series of practices, and can be seen as a direct pointing, again and again, to the possibility of freedom through direct awareness of where we get caught, and how to turn the mind towards liberation. This talk is an overview of the practices of the Fourth Foundation, which can be seen as both the last in the sequence of practices, and as a progression in itself. It also covers how the Fourth Foundation can be skillfully interwoven into our practice of the other foundations.
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
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Three-Month Retreat - Part 1
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2017-10-14
Workshop: The Discipline and Freedom of Wise Speech
2:42:52
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Mark Nunberg,
Wynn Fricke
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The Buddha has much to say about wise speech as a cause for living with integrity and building wholesome community, and as a direct opening to what the Buddha calls the bliss of blamelessness. In this workshop we will look at the Buddha’s teachings on wise speech in terms of all the relationships we navigate in our lives. We will explore the radical question, what does speech look like when it is not being motivated by greed, anger or delusion?
The Living the Practice Workshop Series is designed for people who have an ongoing mindfulness practice and want to integrate the practice more thoroughly into all aspects of life.
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Common Ground Meditation Center
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2017-10-08
Third foundation of mindfulness
59:49
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Sally Armstrong
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In the third foundation of mindfulness, the Buddha instructs us to bring awareness and clear seeing to the contents of the mind. In a nonjudgmental way, we are invited to be aware of whether the mind is affected by lust, ill will or delusion, and also when the mind is not affected by these states. Included in this practice are various experiences of concentration, expansion, and contraction in the mind. The section ends by including awareness of the liberated mind, even if this is only a temporary experience. The thrust of this section is to notice both the wholesome and the unwholesome qualities of the mind and by that very noticing increase the wholesome and decrease the unwholesome.
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
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Three-Month Retreat - Part 1
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2017-10-01
Second foundation of mindfulness
59:51
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Sally Armstrong
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Vedana, or the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant that arises with each sense contact, was considered important enough by the Buddha to be a foundation of mindfulness, one of the five aggregates, and central to the teaching on dependent origination. It is also at the heart of the Dart Sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, where the Buddha talks about the two common responses to suffering: to bemoan and lament the fact that suffering is happening, but often to try to avoid the unpleasant by chasing after the pleasant. This talk looks at these different teachings to help us understand the importance of bringing mindfulness to vedana in our practice and in our lives.
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
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Three-Month Retreat - Part 1
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2017-09-17
The First Foundation of Mindfulness
61:11
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Sally Armstrong
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In the Satipatthana Sutta on the foundations of mindfulness, the first area of practice is the body. The Buddha gives us many different practices and ways to investigate the body. This talk explores these practices, beginning with the breath, but going on to other practices that we don't often teach, such as the four elements, the 32 parts of the body, and corpse contemplations. Each of these practices can be a powerful doorway to wise seeing and freedom. This talk is the first of a series of four on each foundation of mindfulness.
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
:
Three-Month Retreat - Part 1
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2017-08-29
The Role of Feelings and Emotions in Decision Making
41:22
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Shaila Catherine
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Shaila Catherine gave the fifth talk in a speaker series titled "Living Wisely in the World: Caring for Mind, Family, Society, and Planet." She pointed out that feelings and emotions can be rather seductive, especially when we are not mindful of them, because they can unconsciously propel us into action. When feelings are pleasant, the response very often moves the mind towards craving and grasping. When feelings are unpleasant, the response is often aversion. Therefore, feelings should be investigated and understood, instead of being the basis upon which impulsive decisions are made.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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In
collection:
Living Wisely in the World: Caring for Mind, Family, Society, and Planet
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