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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Rodney Smith's Dharma Talks
Rodney Smith
More and more, the teaching practice takes me into the community where I engage directly with students. My focus right now is on bringing the continuity of the Dharma into the market place. Although retreating is an important form for self-knowledge, I find myself less interested in the immediate results of a retreat and more interested in helping students investigate their relationship to the ups and downs of their everyday life.
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2003-04-06 The Search For Meaning 45:05
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We search throughout our lives for what is meaningful, only to find it in front of our eyes.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  Vipassana Retreat
2003-03-27 The Spirit Of Questioning 48:45
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To hold a question is to keep the mind unformed and resting in stillness. Seeking an answer reconfirms the person who knows.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  Vipassana Retreat
2003-03-24 Wanting: The Payoff And The Pain 44:56
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The whole of desire must be understood—what it gives us and its inevitable pain—in order for it to be put to an end.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  Vipassana Retreat
2003-01-18 Non-Doing 45:47
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Carry the statement, "Seek first to understand before being understood," throughout this week. How does this intention create a listening attitude? Experience the effect of listening on your heart, how it opens you to caring. How does your behavior change when you allow actions to flow from listening instead of making assumptions prior to the action? Watch how the phrase interrupts reactive and impulsive thinking. Do you see the potential for changing many of your relationships through this intention?
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
2003-01-05 The Urban Buddhist 42:17
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The retreat environment brings forth certain principles of the Buddha. Lay practice brings forth other principles. What are the tools and forms of urban life?
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  New Years Retreat
2003-01-01 The Story and the Storyteller 40:00
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Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  New Years Retreat
2002-12-29 Sensitivity Of The Heart 44:34
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The meditation journey is traveling the distance between the mind and the heart.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center :  New Years Retreat
2002-12-23 The Sangha 45:41
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Sangha is an essential element in the unfolding of ones Path.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
2002-12-07 Self-Kindness and Self-Indulgence 42:31
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Study a few of your behaviors this week such as sleeping, eating, or recreational enjoyment such as listening to music or watching videos. How much of these activities arise from self-indulgence and how much from self-kindness? Are all forms of entertainment self-indulgent? Since almost any action can be either indulgent or kind, what determines which way you label it? When you consider yourself equally deserving (self-love) then the quality of your action is as important as the result. Do you believe this is a true statement? What does self-love have to do with the way you do things? Isn't it good enough that the results benefit others? Explore this question this week and watch whether you consider yourself equally deserving in your actions.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
2002-12-06 Sangha: A Path of Relationship 45:21
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Questions for personal inquiry: Do you experience most interpersonal relationships as growth opportunities or troubling? Do you make space in your life for others? Do you frequently feel isolated and lonely? How much of the isolation comes from assumptions about self and other? Do you make the effort to attend gatherings of like-minded people? Reflection: What was your life like before you knew the existence of "a Path"? What is different now? How does the sangha support that Path and your growth on it? Would the Path be the same without the sangha? What efforts do you make to build cohesion in the sangha? Exercise: Become active in your support of like-minded people. Befriend someone from the sangha, volunteer for a community activity, join a like-minded group or become socially engaged in meaningful action. The sangha like the dharma takes each one of us to make it complete.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society

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