Tonight and maybe next week we’ll bring up politics. It feels like, it’s true for most people or a lot of people, the political impending election is a topic of conversation. It’s on our minds. It brings up, for a lot of people, a lot of fear, a lot of judgment, a lot of craving for a certain outcome. Craving for another outcome to be in favor of whatever side you're on.
How is the election effecting you? Is this one of the ways you experience suffering? Or are you unengaged?
Read MoreTreating The Human Condition
I'm going to talk about this perspective that the Buddha is referred to as the great physician. That Buddhism is medicine to heal and treat the human condition. The First Noble Truth, the suffering of the human condition, and that it can be treated.
How sick are you? How is this practice helping to cure you?
Read MoreTonight, I'm going to talk about the Buddhists emphasis on inquiry and questioning. I don't know exactly where the talk will go, but I want to bring up the importance of questioning, questioning your own mind, questioning your own views and opinions. Questioning society's views and opinions, questioning religion, questioning teachers. I feel like Buddhism maybe one of the few religions that really encourages a kind of healthy skepticism, even about its own teachings.
Was there something you used to believe that now you’ve changed your mind about? Was there something you didn’t question but should have?
Read MoreMy topic for tonight, what I've been thinking about today, and what I want to talk about in the meditation, we're going to do loving kindness. The Buddhist word is metta, loving kindness meditation. It's going to be about how we treat ourselves, how we feel about ourselves.
Where are you today on self kindness? How friendly are you to people? How are you to people that are confused? How are you to people that annoy you?
Read MoreI don't have a topic for you tonight, but I'd like to encourage you to just, introduce yourself to some people that you don't know yet and take a couple minutes to meet some new folks.
Read MoreThe topic tonight is enlightenment, awakening and liberation. The big picture, the big promise of Buddhism. The third noble truth, the end of suffering is possible in this life. You can become a Arahant, a fully awakened being in this life, if you want to. If you're willing to do the work is the teaching of the Buddha.
How enlightened do you want to be? How free do you want to be?
Read MoreI'm going to talk a lot tonight about suffering because that's what we do in Buddhism. We talk about suffering and the causes of suffering and how to end suffering… or try to end suffering.
What is your favorite thing to suffer about? What do you cling to?
Read MoreInstead of giving a lecture tonight, I'm going to reflect on some of the changes that I've noticed over these last 36 years of practice and reflect a little bit on that. How my process has unfolded in a very personal way.
What changes have you seen with your practice? What kind of progress have you seen? How has it helped you?
Read MoreSo I was going to do the six realms of existence tonight. Buddhist cosmology. I'm going to take it from both a cosmological as well as a psychological perspective. Before telling you what the six realms are, for the small groups, what I'd like you to talk about with each other is your own views, your own opinions, your own perspectives. Do you believe, do you think, are you open to the possibility that there are other realms? Other than this human realm.
Do you believe that there are other realms other than this human realm? Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in fairies? Do you believe in dragons? Do you believe in hell? Are you open to this?
Read MoreI'm going to talk tonight about a combination of some of the Buddhist teachings about our innate personality tendencies. I'm also going to talk about some of the ways that maybe we are perceived and tend to behave in the world.
How do you think you’re perceived by others? Do you have a personality? Are you an introvert or an extrovert? How do you think you are perceived?
#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation
Read MoreI often find it a little bit of a dilemma to be a householder Buddhist. To be following these teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, who was a renunciate, who was a celibate monk. This topic of pleasure and indulgence I find it a little bit of a dilemma that a lot of my teachers who are monks, are choosing this path of celibacy, renunciation and simplicity. They're not indulging in the kind of sense pleasures that I choose to indulge in. It can sometimes set up a little bit of a feeling like a second class Buddhist, like they're the real Buddhists, the kind that are really giving up the worldly pleasures…
Read MoreI'm going to talk about desire tonight.
Sometimes there's the question about craving for, wanting, or clinging to, enlightenment or spiritual practices or experiences. There's so much emphasis in Buddhism on non attachment and letting go and craving being the cause of our suffering so don't crave anything. But what about our desire or craving healing, for happiness or transformation? For learning to love ourselves, learning to forgive ourselves. It's central in the Buddha's teachings that this is an important desire, a central desire and a healthy desire.
What are some of your desires? What are 5 things that you want?
Read MoreTonight I'm going to talk about the four foundations of mindfulness and how it works. Just that sort of reminder for most people, a clarification about how this instruction has the potential of liberation and transformation.
What’s the hardest part of being mindful? Is it hard to be mindful when you’re having fun? What about when you’re eating? Can you bring it into all experiences?
Read MoreThe topic tonight is this little book that my teacher Ajahn Amaro, recently published. I think it's his newest one, it’s called And In There Passing is Peace. It's about death and about impermanence.
In peoples passing, is there peace? What is that like for you? How do you experience it?
Read MoreThe topic of the meditation and the topic of the practice and teaching for tonight is around forgiveness and compassion. Compassion and forgiveness go hand in hand.
What’s your experience with Forgiveness? What are your feelings about it? Has it changed over time?
Read MoreIt seems to be the case that, due to survival instincts, evolutionary biology of the species, that we're just born into a mind body that clings and craves. I find that understanding that and framing it that way is helpful. It takes all of the blame and shame out. It's just the system that you're born into. A system that has this instinctual drive to cling; not your fault.
What the difference between love and attachment? How does love feel? What does clinging feel like?
Read MoreI'm going to go somewhere around the teachings of acceptance and accepting ourselves the way we are; accepting this world the way it is. With some level of creating a positive change. On one hand acceptance is a core practice, principle and teaching, but then also there's all of this change we're trying to create. A pot we're trying to wake up, not trying to accept “well I'm asleep and I'm ignorant and I'm suffering’. I'm just going to accept that. There's a level of “I don't want to be asleep, ignorant and suffering. I want to be awake and free from suffering. And I want to create a positive change on the planet”.
Read MoreAlmost all of our suffering comes from selfing. The thoughts and feelings around I, me, and mine. The insight that our meditative practice leads to is understanding that it's not that personal. There's not really a self here to be so attached to. Not a permanent, solid, separate I, me, or mine. So I'm going to talk about that tonight and I'll give some meditation instructions around that.
Who am I? What am I?
Read MoreDependent origination is a core popular Buddhist teaching that is about how the process, this of life and death and reincarnation work. There's the process of birth, death, life and why we suffer. Why we're not just born in a happy, peaceful life, but why life is difficult.
Who do we surround ourselves with? Who was the last person, close to you, that you lost?
Read MoreI was thinking of riffing a little bit on Memorial Day, where I mostly just want to talk shit about nationalism and the kind of ignorance of our culture. I think Memorial Day is about death. It's about memorializing, remembering dead soldiers. I'm gonna definitely go beyond the sort of nationalist, soldier, army, death or human death and impermanence. I'm going to talk a little bit about war tonight since that's what this sort of American holiday really is about.
What’s your relationship to death? How often do you remember that you’re going to die? That everyone you know will die?
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