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Dharma Talks
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2025-04-09
Guided Meditation: Developing Samadhi (Concentration) 2
40:26
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Donald Rothberg
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This guided meditation gives more detail on developing samadhi than the guided meditation from a week ago. First, after a brief overview of the nature of samadhi (usually translated as "concentration"), instructions are given for a practice session developing samadhi, including on posture, gaze, possible objects of focus, and skillful effort. Midway through the session, some further guidance is given on "intensifying," which helps both to deepen samadhi and to cut through background thinking as well as foreground thinking.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-03-13
Don't Know Mind: Letting Go of Conclusions
50:09
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James Baraz
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It's hard to keep up with all the disorienting changes we are processing each day. We can easily get lost in confusion trying to make sense of it all. As a result, we can draw conclusions based in despair and fear, thinking that we know where this is heading. We can find strength from Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn teaching: "Keep Don't Know Mind." In this "Don't Know Mind" we let go of knowing how things will turn out. This frees us from the tyranny of our mind-created stories and allows us to see many possibilities.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2024-10-15
At Home With the Wise
24:05
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Ayya Medhanandi
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What frees us from fear, anger, sorrow, chaos and all the many other sufferings of the mind? Beneath the rubble and ruin we may feel, in the silent depths of our own heart, there is a treasure. It may be hidden but it is there. And we can know it. Sitting in the still, pure presence of conscious awareness, turn away from thinking, worry, all those mental habits and the heartaches of life. Moment by moment, dive deeply into each breath – not to change anything but to know, to understand what is there. Bow to the silence and let go fleeting worldly pleasures. Just see the heart's intuitive dimension revealed. Listen, know Reality and rejoice.
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Madison Insight Meditation Group
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Noble Mind, Fearless Heart
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2024-07-17
From Head to Heart
61:59
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Tara Brach
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If we are suffering, we are believing an interpretation of reality that is limiting and untrue. At these times we are imprisoned in a painful looping of fear-driven thoughts and feelings. This talk explores the ways our practices of mindfulness, compassion and loving presence can guide us from addictive thinking to perceiving life with a wise heart.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-05-28
Q&A
57:12
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 You mentioned vedana as the knowing of a feeling tone. I always thought that vedana occurs very fast and almost unconsciously How could one practice or investigate vedana a more deeply?
23:51 Q2 What is conscience from the Buddhist point of view?
28:21 Q3 How come the mind prefers to get involved with negative instead of positive stuff?
30:31 Q4 What actually do we need a mind for? In another words is there a quick and easy way to distinguish useful and harmful thinking?
40:24 Q5 Where do you see similarities and differences between dhamma practice and positive neuroplasticity? How can we cultivate more joy?
37:01 Q6 If I don't proceed according to the map, then how do I know if I'm doing something wrong or whether it just takes time?
54:16 Q7 Is it easier to stay grounded when speaking to others? It seems easier to say grounded when not speaking to others.
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Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
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Exploring Animate Reality
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2024-03-27
Meditation: Widening Rings of Being – Awakening the Senses
20:01
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Tara Brach
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If we can recognize thoughts as thoughts, it becomes possible to open from virtual to living reality. This meditation guides us in awakening the senses and discovering the freedom – the awake space of Being that is beyond the confines of thoughts.
“Relaxing back into the space between thoughts. Relaxing with what’s right here…”
The poet Rumi writes, “Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking, live in silence, flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-03-20
Meditation: Openhearted Presence
21:48
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Tara Brach
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This meditation guides us in embodying loving presence through a body scan, and then meeting whatever arises with a tender heart.
“Resting in the awareness that includes this changing life, regarding the changing waves with care, moment-to-moment. The moments of waking up out of thought are actually profoundly transformational. If you notice thinking and then plant the seeds of kindness, that becomes the habit of the heart.” ~Tara
We close with a beautiful blessing-poem from John O’Donohue, from Beauty – The Invisible Embrace.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-10-07
From dukka to liberation (with questions)
45:59
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Questions are précised and read into the file:14:10 Q1 Is there any significance to this figure of speech “there is a cause, it does not lack a cause” or is it just giving emphasis? 15:38 Q2 How do you withdraw emotional energy? 40:56 Q3 Regarding the role of being inspired, I was thinking about the Buddha’s own journey. His movement towards the path was the fourth messenger, the samana who moved him. If he hadn’t been open to that … 43:45 Q4 At some point we want to be skilful and pay attention to those problematic tendencies. So maybe being caught up in that negative script is like getting caught up in judgement. 44:33 Q5 When you can stand back and look at it without being sucked into the vortex. Is that it?
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Bodhi College
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Unpicking the Tangled Skein
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2023-06-21
Q&A
42:28
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Questions précised - 00:06 Q1 A lot is said about ‘moving away from’. Could you also say something about moving towards? 15:31 Q2 When I have pain while sitting I usually practice with the pain until I feel there may be a risk to my health, for example by restricting blood flow in the leg for too long. Any ideas on this please? 17:23 Q3 Regarding sleepiness while witting, I discovered that by surrendering to it my body deeply rests and then the mind is bright again. Any comments please? 21:52 Q4 Meditation doesn’t allow me to gather energy but actually dissipates it. Why does this happen? 30:53 Q5 I live in a country where’s there’s a lot of suffering and misery and this often throws me into a state between empathy and impotence. What can you advise please? Q6 34:40 I live in the midst of great fear, witnessing emotional hostility. Where do actions and decisions and wise reflection play a part in helping but if I do too much the thinking mind goes astray. What is your advice please? 37:31 Q7 How does one we free oneself from jealousy and comparison? 40:12 Q8 How can we help others who are suffering but believe they are happy?
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Moulin de Chaves
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Regaining the Centre
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2023-05-12
Q&A
40:47
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:18 Whenever I tell someone about my worries or problems I'll be told to think positive. Does positive thinking accord with the teaching of the buddha? 06:16 I've been practicing with the satipatana sutta, establishing mindfulness. Often I get confused with the words "externally and internally" parts of the awareness practice. Can you help please? 24:37 I'm working on opening, meeting and releasing with the sympathetic attitude. I've noticed some joy and yet in unexpected circumstances I've become defensive and angry and this leads to shame. What do you advise? 30:50 If I can't get to a center where there is a more authentically embodied practice, could I practice with traditions that are more disembodied? 33:20 You mentioned the Great Forty sutta (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN117.html) regarding the basis of samadhi. Surely it needs the five precepts to be steadfast in right view etc? 37:44 As individuals we have creative potential, skills etc. Do we invite that unique particularity to manifest in our lives?
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Dhamma Stream Online Sessions
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2023-04-21
Q&A
68:18
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:09 Q1 Could you speak about the experience of thinking and emotions. 06:09 Q2 I feel I have no control. The music in my mind keeps playing, I feel I am going mad. How can I cultivate mindfully without making thoughts and stories stronger. 20:59 Q3 How can I deal with grief over loosing loved ones? 28:19 Q4 Is it normal to feel warm and perspire during sitting meditation? 32:56 Q5 Does it matter how you place the hands during sitting meditation? 35:40 Q6 When one sees the light – I guess this is meditation nimitta – do you focus on the breath or follow the light? 37:47 Q7 [Should one] place attention on the entire body even when walking? 47:43 Q7 I have scoliosis and am uncomfortable in every position. Are there techniques to help with body and mental pain skillfully when I meditate? 52:59 Q8 Regarding the 12 links of dependent origination, which link is the weakest? 59:46 Q9 How do we enter the stream? 01:01:45 Q10 Can you elaborate on what you said about what Sariputta and Moggallana understood regarding the arising of the Tathagata?
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Palilai Buddhist Temple
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Deepen Your Practice
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2023-03-30
Reflective Meditations - Utilizing the Thinking Mind
69:24
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Ajahn Achalo
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A talk and Q&A at Wat Marp Jan on the occasion of Ajahn Anan's birthday. Q&A starts: 35:18 Q1 May I know how can one start to train patient endurance? If one does not have any virtue, [does it mean] one cannot practice patient endurance? 39:48 Q2 Virtues mean high moral standards. How can one develop virtues? 43:33 Q3 How can I start to integrate meditation practice in my daily life when I feel I am still a slave to my cravings and often fall into their control and indulge in them? 46:50 Q4 How can I apply metta to myself and others and really mean it, when it comes to practicing in the sangha community. There is a difficult member in the sangha and saying may he or she be well is not working at least in my case it seems. Any advice please? 55:12 Q5 How do we train to rejoice in others' good fortune when we are having a bad time in our life? 57:52 Q6 What is your advice on doubt regarding which tradition to follow? 1:01:39 Q7 You spoke about developing equanimity [towards dukkha]. How can we practice this if the dukkha is overwhelming and we just want to escape the pain? 1:04:36 Q8 If I am unable to control my craving for food, does it mean I do not have virtue? I find myself gobbling down food and then it is never enough. I always tell myself it will be the last time but the cycle repeats tomorrow. 1:07:12 Q9 Could you give more detail about how to make an aspiration for one's next life? [example given]
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Wat Marp Jan
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2023-01-29
Below the Waves Meditation
8:26
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Amita Schmidt
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A unique vertical, guided meditation for dropping below your thinking, to the body breathing, and then to awareness itself. This meditation is unique in that it doesn't try to stop thinking, but includes it as part of a vertical awareness of your whole being, here now.
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Clintonville Sangha Ohio
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2022-12-24
Working with Thinking as a "Part"
13:16
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Amita Schmidt
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Thinking itself is actually just a part, a protector part, and this meditation will help you have compassion for this part. The meditation will also give you insight into your thinking and what it's true purpose is. Knowing this will help you on the meditation cushion and in your daily life practice.
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Clintonville Sangha Ohio
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2022-10-07
Meditation on awareness, Dhamma talk Part 3 on Satipaṭṭhāna: Mind (citta)
1:33:55
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Bhante Sujato
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Meditation on awareness. Dhamma talk Part 3 on Satipaṭṭhāna: Mind (citta). The power of awareness. Movement towards subtlety, like an echo or an animal. Focussing on how greed, hate or delusion effect the mind; the mind with or without these. Awareness emerging from contemplation of the body and feeling. Discussion of wanting and not wanting, noticing when hate is reduced. How to see delusion in meditation; moha as thinking you know, delusion as a destraction from knowing often by way of greed and hate.
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Lokanta Vihara
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2022-06-09
5 Methods to Work with Troublesome Thoughts:
MN #20: Vitakkasanthana Sutta
49:43
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James Baraz
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The Buddha gave a teaching on five different methods he recommended to work with disturbing thoughts. When we are mindful of the thinking process it's possible to see thoughts simply as mental fabrications. However, when we get caught in them and the body gets activated, we spin out in the story and are caught in a negative emotional response. We become identified with those mental formations and can more easily get lost. When that happens, the Buddha offers these five strategies as skillful techniques to deal with the confused mind.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2022-04-12
Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind
29:30
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Shaila Catherine
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On the occasion of the publication of her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind, Shaila Catherine shares a progressive series of strategies to overcome the hindrances of restlessness, obsessive thinking, and rumination; dispel thoughts of anger, hatred, and anxiety; and curb habitual distractions. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators can calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, comprehend the nature of the mind, experience emptiness, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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2022-02-01
The Tiger’s Challenge: Impeccability and Aspiration
48:52
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The one thing we can train in and recollect is that we can aspire. No other creature aspires. We are born with desire, and if we don’t use it for aspiration it leaks out into sensuality and thinking. Then the mind loses its alertness. One of the most fundamental things we aspire to is a different alignment. Finding a place to stand which is true, empowering, dignified, blameless – a refuge. This is how you stand apart from the worldly currents, and live in the quality of good intent.
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Cittaviveka
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2022-01-18
Q&A
41:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:06 Mind in body or body in mind; 01:31 Citta voice and thinking mind voice – how to bring them together; 03:12 Mind storm leads to confusion, compulsive thoughts; 05:51 Sleeplessness, especially accompanied with anxiety; 08:02 how to ensure qualities like love are not coming from self-centeredness or craving; 11:09 Fear around upcoming surgery; 13:34 Losing the balance of mind when overcome with pain; 20:22 Others means of practice in addition to meditation; 21:59 Practicing meditation with the aim of attaining jhānas; 27:04 Getting a sense of pīti during meditation; 34:55 If there's no self who inherits the karmic residues from past lives; 36:51 discernment vs judgment.
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Bandar Utama Buddhist Society
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Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
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2022-01-16
Q&A
54:26
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:53 Please explain the idea of the pāramī; 04:59 Letting go of thinking/expectation; 07:44 Using the sound of silence in practice; 15:58 How Qigong connects to practice; 24:47 Tension in tongue and jaw; 25:03 Remaining “upright and joyful”; 29:23 Family does not agree with my practice; 34:13 Dealing with pain; 38:10 Experience of a deep horrific fear; 43:45 Out of body experiences while meditating; 45:19 Relationship between release of somatic knots and releasing the citta; 48:55 Regrets and resentment; 50:13 Can you speak about the āsava? 53:37 Difference between peace, serenity and tranquility? Pīti and sukha?
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Cittaviveka
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2021-12-29
Inquiry as a Factor of Awakening in Formal Meditation and Daily Life
66:41
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Donald Rothberg
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Inquiry is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening, and can be a crucial factor in our practice, leading to greater energy, interest, and learning. Yet we may believe that meditation should be about "not thinking." We explore how we need to be able to not be ruled by thinking; this can make it possible then to use thinking and question fruitfully in inquiry. In the talk, we outline five modes of inquiry, going into depth on two of them: (1) bringing inquiry into our mindfulness practice in several ways, and (2) listening deeply, particularly through the body and emotions (in the "dropping down practice") when there are repetitive thoughts and narratives. After the talk, there is discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-12-12
Q&A
46:27
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:00 Working with people who have suffered trauma; 05:32 Helping someone into feeling the body or breath; 06:54 Relationships with others who are not spiritual; 09:06 Relationship between energy, intension and kamma; 17:57 The felt sense of being held; 20:36 Feelings of negativity when verbally attacked by family members; 23:24 Feeling sleepy; 25:29 Disorientation when trauma recedes; 28:55 The thinking mind; 32:02 When something is stuck; 34:27 Samādhi and concentration; 42:00 Is chanting helpful to the practice.
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London Insight Meditation
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Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
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2021-11-25
Q&A
23:17
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00: How to suffuse; 04:40 Placing and sensing the thinking mind; 07:14 Does Ānāpānasati help prepare us for end of civilization; 08:42 Nimittas; 10:01 When one area of body is not suffused; 11:25 How can we suffuse pīti/sukha? 13:00 Softening the process of enquiring; 15:26 Generating joy with chronic pain and vicious personal circumstances; 18:17 Blockages make nostril breathing difficult; 21:24 Can you speak about death?
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Bodhi College
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Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
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2021-10-20
Befriending the Mind
42:02
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Jill Shepherd
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One common misperception of meditation is that it aims to stop thinking, but the true purpose of insight meditation is to develop a more skilful relationship to every aspect of our experience, including our thoughts and emotions.
During this talk, we will explore some ways to let go of unhelpful mental habits and to cultivate helpful ones: states of heart and mind that lead to greater ease, happiness, peace and freedom.
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Cambridge Insight Meditation Center
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2021-08-28
Who Do You Think You Are?
21:45
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Not-clinging spreads very fast, very far. Its fuel power is letting go attachment to ‘self’; to selfishness and the inversion of the mind into a cocoon of self-concern – which is spiritual death. There’s no truth in that. Aren’t we all drowning – metaphorically? Not thinking of ourselves, the moment we jump into the river to rescue someone, we begin to wake up. Who can do that? We must help each other. But first we practice and gain strength to traverse the rapids and the mire of this conflicted, misguided world. Destination – directly knowing what we truly are – and are not.
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Satipanna Insight Meditation (SIMT)
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2021-05-02
Embodying Mettā: A Daylong Retreat
3:34:42
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Dawn Mauricio
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Those who are familiar with the practice of mettā, or lovingkindness, know that it is one of four divine abidings of the heart according to the Buddha’s teachings. One way that this quality can be cultivated—as traditionally and so frequently taught—is through the recitation of phrases. However, without a deeper understanding or familiarity with the subtle expressions of mettā, or the alternate doorways into cultivating this profound and limitless quality, lovingkindness meditation can mislead us to binary thinking, as in: "I am loving and kind” or “I am not loving and kind."
In our daylong together, we will explore the various doorways into cultivating mettā, as well as the spectrum in which it can come alive in our daily lives. All levels and experiences welcome.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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