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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2025-02-12
Cultivating Wise Speech: Its Importance in the Path of Everyday Awakening
63:33
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Donald Rothberg
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Wise speech is an integral part of the traditional Buddhist path of awakening and a powerful way to energize our daily life practice, but is often underdeveloped in Western Buddhist practice. We’ll look in a very practical way at three aspects of wise speech: (1) developing presence in the midst of communication; (2) working with the four guidelines for skillful speech developed by the Buddha; and (3) becoming more mindful of and skillful with thoughts and emotions occurring during communication. For each of the foundations, a number of ways of practicing are offered. The talk is followed by discussion.
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Insight San Diego
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2025-02-12
Patient relationship is the Sangha vehicle
45:08
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Ajahn Sucitto
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(The occasion of Magha Puja)
The Buddha established the Great Assembly (male/female monastic/lay) to preserve the ongoing transmission of Dhamma. Patiently bearing with conditions is the way to curtail negative engagement - and relate more wisely. Thus one acknowledges what arises as objects - and thus reveal the open knowing. With this, a purer relationship to what arises, rather than identifying with it, is established.
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Cittaviveka
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2025-02-12
Awakening in a World in Turmoil 2: Seeing the World with Dharma Eyes
65:07
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Donald Rothberg
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How do we see the world, especially and social world, from the perspective of awakening--with, we might say, "dharma eyes"? We explore this question in a time of great turmoil and concern in the world, particularly in the U.S. We start with several passages coming from an awakened mind and heart, including a passage from the Metta Sutta--how would one then look at the larger world? We explore how the Buddha himself looked at the world and social structures, particularly in terms of caste and gender. From our practice seeing greed, hatred, and delusion in ourselves, we learn how to see these qualities in others, and in the world. From our ethical training, we learn how to see when we are not following the ethical guidelines and when others are not, including on a larger social level. We also see how we can understand some of the larger social issues, particularly related to the climate crisis, racism, and gender, in terms of greed (especially), hatred, and delusion. We close, in this context, first with a pointing to ways of responding, using Joanna Macy's model of three ways that the "Great Turning" occurs, and then with a poem.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-02-09
Responding to Reality with Heart: Compassion and Equanimity
35:31
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Eugene Cash
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The world suffers. But most people have their eyes and ears closed. They do not see the unbroken stream of tears flowing through life; they do not hear the cry of distress continually pervading the world. Bound by selfishness, their hearts turn stiff and narrow... It is compassion that removes the heavy bar, opens the door to freedom and makes the narrow heart as wide as the world.
~Nyanaponika Thera
To support San Francisco Insight Meditation Community, please go here: sfinsight.org/donate
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San Francisco Insight Meditation Community
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2025-02-08
Stay in your boat
31:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Retreat is an occasion in which to repair, reset. In terms of life and meditation practice. In this process, mindfulness is accompanied by atapi - ardour, keeping things fresh - and various forms of clear comprehension (sampajano): to sense what is appropriate and fitting. Through referring to what arises in terms of objects one cultivates comprehension of purpose: to know objects as they are, and not self. This is comprehension in terms of non-delusion. There is also comprehension in terms of context (gocara), both internal and. external.
This cultivation brings stillness in the midst of conditions, and if we keep this going results build up. Through sustaining clear comprehension one realizes an openness that is stable, alert and all-encompassing
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Cittaviveka
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2025-02-08
Sīla as a Path of Meaningful Connection
30:37
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Devon Hase
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This talk explores sīla (moral conduct) as both foundation and ongoing practice in Buddhism. Devon emphasizes the paradox of sīla—it's both a starting point and something continuously cultivated in each moment. She discusses how integrity requires balancing self-compassion with engagement in the world, using the metaphor of mountain wildflowers that are both tender and strong. The talk highlights how sīla provides resilience during difficult times, allowing practitioners to remain connected to goodness while confronting suffering without bypassing or burning out.
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Refuge of Belonging
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2025-02-06
Right Intention
59:12
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Yuka Nakamura
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Our actions are often driven by unconscious or conflicting intentions. How can we align with wholesome intentions and cultivate wholesome mindstates? Based on the Dvedhāvitakkasutta the talk discusses the importance of renunciation, metta and compassion for the path and the transformation of the heart.
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Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
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2025-02-05
Awakening in a Time of Turmoil
67:08
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue to explore the nature of awakening. In the first 2/3 of the talk, we examine the traditional notion of awakening, as going beyond the habitual constructions of experience in all the parts of our lives. These constructions are rooted in reactivity (grasping and pushing away aspects of our experience), and a sense of self along with a world of objects known conceptually (through "signs"). We look also at the more positive sense of awakening to the "signless, boundless, and all luminous," to what the Thai Forest teacher Ajahn Mun calls the "primal mind." Then we ask about whether there are other dimensions to awakening needed for contemporary awakening, and examine in particular what awakening means in a time of turmoil. We take Thich Nhat Hanh as an exemplar--a practitioner dedicated to awakening practicing and teaching amidst the turmoil of war and exile. We outline a number of suggestions and guidelines for those practicing and awakening amidst the current turmoil.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-02-05
Guided Meditation: Exploring Some Further Ways We Construct Experience
35:51
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Donald Rothberg
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We start with basic instructions in developing (1) concentration and stability, and (2) mindfulness, and then practice developing these two qualities. With mindfulness practice, we notice the main patterns of thoughts, emotions, and bodily experience. In the second half of the session, we work with being aware of the feeling-tone (linked with the Second Foundation of Mindfulness), noticing moderate (or somewhat greater) pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tones, and what occurs after we notice them. We also attend for a short period of two minutes to the moment-to-moment feeling tones of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and then go back to basic mindfulness practice for the last part of the session.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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