Donate  |   Contact


The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Tempel Smith's Dharma Talks
Tempel Smith
Tempel Smith spent a year ordained as a monk in Burma and teaches Buddhist psychology and social activism in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently part of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program.
‹‹ previous      1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 21 22 23 24
2025-07-25 Morning Instructions: Mindfulness of Self'ing 48:08
Download Listen
Once we have a base of simple connection to breath, body, and our immediate senses, we can explore our driven habits of adding a sense of self to these very simple experiences. As stated in the Bahiya Sutta, in the seeing just let there being the seen, with out adding a sense of "you" to what is being seen. We can compare moments of the day where the the mind isn't entangled in concocting a sense of self versus the mind which is adding a very thick sense of self.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Insight Meditation Retreat
2025-07-23 The process of self obsession and how we untangle this very deep habit. 66:12
Download Listen
For those new to directing there mindfulness practice towards the experience of self production, there are a few relatively simple practices to expose and let go of the over concoction of a thicker sense of self to life's present time experiences.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Insight Meditation Retreat
2025-07-16 Mettā practice and Wise Speech 63:47
Download Listen
The blessings of a strong mettā practice developed on retreat include how we can cultivate wise actions and wise speech when we leave retreat.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
2025-07-14 Guided Forgiveness Practice 56:14
Download Listen
From a base of loving kindness and compassion we can consciously aim our heart's attention into a practice of Forgiveness.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
2025-07-12 Morning Instructions - Mettā (Loving Kindness) including Dear Friends 50:54
Download Listen
Extending loving kindness meditation from the primary practice of ourselves and a chosen easiest being, we can open at times to include any dear friend whom also easily come to mind. At this stage of practice we are inclining out mettā practice to rest where mettā is easiest. This would be any beings for whom it is easy to see the good in them, and we easily feel warmth.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
2025-07-10 1st Night - Why Come on a Loving Kindness retreat? 63:07
Download Listen
What is special about a 9-day Loving Kindness retreat? The form of Buddhist practice helps cultivate positive qualities of friendliness and kindness, it helps purify old habits of defensiveness and hostility, and it help cultivate samadhi (concentration).
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
2025-03-22 Three kinds of Nibbana in our western Insight traditions 52:57
Download Listen
Within our blessed lineages of Venerables Ajahn Cha and Mahasi Sayadaw, and the teachings within the Pali Canon, we have found three kinds of nibbana. Nibbana is closely related to the full liberation from dukkha (suffering). To even talk about one kind of nibbana can be difficult as it is beyond language, yet there is another confusion within western Insight meditation. By practicing in Mahasi's Burmese meditaitons, in Cha's Thai Forest meditations, and here in North America, there are roughly three kinds of nibbana: a) an unperturbed background field of awareness, b) a perfect zero of cessation, and c) a stream of transient mind-body moments without greed, hatred or craving. Knowing of these three kinds of nibbana can clarify what our vipassana practices are aimed at.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  March Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat
2025-03-17 Compassion Instruction and Guidance 51:33
Download Listen
We need to explore how to find and develop true compassion which is a beautiful quality of opening our hearts to the suffering inside and outside ourselves. While there is pain in suffering we can actually grow to have a sweet heart of compassion when we know how to breath open heartedly in contact with pain and suffering. When we find true compassion we don't need to shrink back from what is difficult but rather use the commonalities of difficulties to feel warm and expanded.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  March Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat
2025-03-15 The Process and Experience of "Streaming" 53:36
Download Listen
The Buddha wanted us to learn how to wakefully "stream", to realize we are forever and only a stream of mental and physical phenomena. We have no part internally or externally which is permanent, though in daily life we subjectively feel as if there is a lot of dependably permanent parts of life. With the deepening intimacy of mindfulness all there is is a flow and change. With patience we can learn to find liberation within the universal aspect of impermanence.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  March Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat
2025-03-13 Instructions and Guided Meditation: Choiceless Attention 59:12
Download Listen
There is a style of mindfulness practice where we lightly attending a central, familiar anchor of attention, such as the breath or scanning the body, and then intentionally choose to watch our minds move through its habits and its nature. In this style of mindfulness practice we can watch our attention move through our six sense doors of stimulation. With this style of meditation we can directly see the dharma nature of our mind. With this style of practice we have to be careful we not lose attentiveness, which can be a shadow side of choiceless attention. We want to keep learning and discovering the dharma, and not space out into half committed mindfulness.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  March Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat

‹‹ previous      1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 21 22 23 24
Creative Commons License Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Dharma Seed is a 501(c)(3) Non-profit organization. email: contact@dharmaseed.org