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Donald Rothberg's Dharma Talks
Donald Rothberg
Donald Rothberg, PhD, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice and the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Formerly on the faculties of the University of Kentucky, Kenyon College, and Saybrook Graduate School, he currently writes and teaches classes, groups and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, spirituality and psychology, and socially engaged Buddhism. An organizer, teacher, and former board member for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Donald has helped to guide three six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality through Buddhist Peace Fellowship (the BASE Program), Saybrook (the Socially Engaged Spirituality Program), and Spirit Rock (the Path of Engagement Program). He is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers.
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2025-02-05 Guided Meditation: Exploring Some Further Ways We Construct Experience 35:51
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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.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Monday and Wednesday Talks
2025-01-16 Metta Practice and the Larger World (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 42:17
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In this session, Donald gives about a 25-minute talk, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. How do we move from a week of metta practice into a time of turmoil and uncertainty in the U.S. and in the world? A number of guidelines and suggestions are given, including keeping the vision of practicing in all parts of one’s life, and keeping close the visions of awakening and of what Dr. King called the “beloved community.” In this time, staying connected with community is also crucial, as are, among many skillful intentions, practicing skillfully with difficult emotions, grounding in the body, cultivating cycles of engagement and withdrawal, and being careful about the amount of information one takes in. The talk ends by pointing to Joanna Macy’s model of three areas of transformation, and the invitation to respond to the call that each of us may hear. Discussion follows.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
2025-01-15 Metta Practice and the Life and Work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 55:59
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On the birthday of Dr. King, we explore some of the remarkable and powerful parallels between Metta practice and Buddhist teachings, on the one hand, and the life, teachings, and work of Dr. King, on the other. We explore in particular three areas: (1) the connection between Metta and the Christian tradition of acting from love that is central for King; (2) the wisdom perspective of seeing greed, hatred, and delusion, and developing understanding and manifesting non-reactivity through ethical grounding and nonviolence; and (3) the other qualities of the awakened heart--the Brahmavihara for the Buddha, and Dr. King’s way of manifesting qualities in addition to love, such as compassion, empathy, joy, and equanimity.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
2025-01-13 Guided Meditation: Radiating Metta (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 37:19
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We start with naming two general contexts for metta practice: (1) metta is practiced along with the other three brahmavihara—compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—and when mature integrates the other three; and (2) there are different ways of practicing metta. We then look at another main way of practicing, likely the way that the Buddha practiced—radiating metta. After a brief overview, we practice radiating metta first through a guided spatial expansion of radiating metta, from one’s own heart to the infinite expanse. Then we practice briefly a simple way of just letting metta radiate. After practice, there is discussion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
2025-01-12 Guided Meditation: Forgiveness Practice (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 47:04
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We begin with a short overview of the nature of forgiveness and forgiveness practice. Then there is a guided practice of forgiveness, followed by discussion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
2025-01-11 Evening Talk: The Nature and Potential of Metta Practice (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 58:47
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We start with a story and poem related to developing metta. Then there is an overview of the nature of metta and metta practice, and how the intention to manifest metta—good will, care, and a powerful friendliness—has many resonances with the core intentions of other spiritual traditions, often expressed in terms of manifesting love. We explore how we train in developing the intention to manifest metta and how we see what gets in the way. We look at several of the challenges of metta practice and how to work with them.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Awakened, and Responsive Heart
2025-01-08 The Nature of Awakening and the Path to Awakening 58:53
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As we begin a new year, it's helpful to remember the deep motivation of our practice--to awaken--and to ask how our intention to awaken manifests in our practice. In this talk, we explore the Buddha's metaphor of "awakening" (from sleep, from dreams) as a metaphor for spiritual practices, and how he also speaks of realizing Nirvana. We unpack how the Buddha understood Nirvana and awakening--both negatively, as the end of ignorance, and dukkha and reactivity--and more positively as going fully beyond the ordinary constructions of experience. We also look at how the Buddha understood the practical path of training to realize awakening and Nirvana, and how this was explicated through different teachings and practices. At the end, we briefly bring up the question of what a contemporary path of awakening looks like. The talk is followed by discussion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Monday and Wednesday Talks
2025-01-08 Guided Meditation: Identifying Some of the Ways that We Construct Experience 37:10
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After some basic instructions in developing concentration and stability, as well as mindfulness, we practice in silence. After about another ten minutes, there are several periodic brief periods of guided practice, in which we are guided to notice our main patterns of thought and perception of objects. In the latter part of the period, we are guided to drop constructions of experience in two ways.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Monday and Wednesday Talks
2024-12-18 Talk: Practicing at the Winter Solstice: Embracing the Dark, Inviting the Light 62:34
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The time of the Winter Solstice, leading up to the New Year, can be an important time for practice, as we, like the plants, stop, as we open to not doing as much, to stillness, and to listening. We look at some of the background, across different cultures, for the celebration of the Winter Solstice. We then explore five themes, five metaphors of darkness, that can support our practice at this time: (1) the darkness as related to a stopping and becoming still, like the earth; (2) being able to be with difficulties, the darkness as a metaphor for difficulty or challenge; (3) going into the darkness of not knowing—the unknown, the mystery; (4) the darkness as generative and creative; and (5) the darkness as luminous, generating light, opening us to the light. The talk is followed by discussion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Monday and Wednesday Talks
2024-12-18 Practicing at the Winter Solstice: Guided Meditation 40:39
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At the time of the Winter Solstice, our practice (for the Wednesday morning gathering) connects our usual grounding in concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness with themes related to the later talk on the Winter Solstice, particularly opening to the unknown and mysterious, and to what is difficult, through mindfulness and compassion.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Monday and Wednesday Talks

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