Who am I? Is there a spiritual essence to who I am? Is there a soul? Is there a self? Is there a true self versus a false self? Am I my ego, views or opinions? Is that who I am? Would you like to be free from suffering? Would you like to be happy? Why am I suffering? What's the causes of these suffering?
Read MoreWhat benefits have you seen from being mindful? Why are you interested in learning mindfulness based meditation?
Read MoreWhere do you find yourself these days in your meditation practice? Are you focusing on training the mind to be more compassionate or ignoring the mind? Are you still coming back and disengaging from what the mind is doing? Coming back to the breath, the body, the first foundation, or are you doing some third foundation observing non non-interfering awareness of the mind?
Read MoreOne of the things I'm gonna talk about is this Buddhist teaching about six different realms of existence in the kind of cosmology of Buddhism. The problem with all of these Buddhist realms is that they're all impermanent.
When you reflect on your current state of mind are you human? Are you in balance with joy, and sorrow? Are you currently in a place where there's so much pain in your life that it often feels hellish, often feels like my life is like a hell realm. Are you in a place these days where there's some jealous God energy in your mind?
Read MoreSometimes when I'm with my teachers I'm like, I don't really have any questions, but I wouldn't mind a reminder about this aspect of the teaching. It's not that I haven't heard it before, but sometimes it’s good to have a refresher. The last couple of years, I keep asking my teacher the same question and he keeps giving me the same answer and I still don't quite understand it…
Read MoreWhat's it feel like to love someone? Maybe some of it could be romantic love like, “I’m in love with this person”. But also just like, “I really love that friend”. Not romantic at all, but I just really love that person. Maybe, ideally there's a sort of Buddhist concept that says, “You know, we wanna try to love all living beings”.
Read MoreMaybe it is the truth of uncertainty that creates the, tendency to worry. Because we just don't know what's going to happen, so anything can happen and often our mind will create the worst case scenario. Does your mind do that? People have different levels of minds that create worry, that create fear, that creates thoughts like “I’m not sure what's gonna happen, but it's probably gonna be bad, or it might be bad.”
Read MoreSome of this could be framed in Buddhist's ideas around karma, good karma, positive actions, wise actions, bad karma or negative, unskillful harmful ways of behaving. I think that most people are seeking a little less suffering. A a bit of an improvement in the quality of life. Aa bit of transformation, but not looking for total liberation.
Read MoreOne of the core sources of suffering, joy and sorrow in our lives is around finances and money. Around attachment, fear, worry, clinging and generosity. All of the associated stuff around our relationship to money. I'll discuss some of the Buddha's teaching, some of my own experience and what I take away from Buddhism in relationship to money.
Read MoreIt's normal to create joy and sorrow around sex and sexuality and that Buddhism offers some radical transformative perspectives of how to engage intimacy and sexuality and love with less suffering, perhaps not so much suffering at all, ideally.
Read MoreAm I still alive? Yep. Breathing in, still alive? Yep. Breathing out, feeling sensation, feeling emotion. Feel, the feeling life. And this reflection that we're not exempt from the end of life, the, decay of the body, and all of these different stages.
Read MoreEveryone owns the karma of their actions. We're forgiving, the confused being that acted in that unskillful way, not the action.
Read MoreIt said that one of the first levels of liberation or freedom from suffering is no longer being identified with or believing that you are your personality.
Read MoreSuffering is a part of existence for everyone, but it doesn't have to be. The dharma is for those of us who say, “I'd rather not suffer. I'd rather not be normal. I'd like to rebel against the normal status quo of human suffering. I'd like to, take this radical path of actually freeing myself from suffering. I defy the causes of suffering.”
Read MoreThe core of what I'm gonna talk about is acceptance. I ask you to reflect for a moment about what are some of the difficult things for you to accept about reality? What do you find hard to accept?
I believe it's part of our practice to see clearly and accept the world as it is. Right now, it’s like this, the world is like this. In no way does acceptance mean complacency. It means to see clearly what's happening in you and around you.
Read MoreThe promise of Buddhism is that it is possible to not suffer about the pain and difficulties in our life. What hinders your ability to not suffer?
The buddha gave a list of the 5 hindrances:
1. Craving for pleasure
2. Aversion to pain
3. Restlessness, anxiousness, and impatience
4. Laziness and procrastination
5. Self-doubt and unworthiness
Mindfulness allows us to slow down and name these hindrances without allowing them to overtake us and cause us suffering.
Read MoreJoin Noah for this special talk on his birthday as he reflects and shares about his story and the last 35 years of his practice and transformation through the Dharma.
Read MoreEmotional intelligence is about developing a wise relationship to human emotion through Loving Kindness and Meta practice.
The intention with these practices is to develop positive emotions so that we can more easily access kindness, compassion and forgiveness - towards others and ourselves.
Read MoreSuffering is normal, suffering is the reality of this world. But how do we take that suffering and learn to have a wise relationship to it?
Buddhism offers us a wise response to living on this planet. Compassion and equanimity are the solutions to suffering and through meditation we can access that loving, compassionate heart and that is our true nature.
Read MoreJoin Noah Levine for a special Q&A about the Dharma and this practice.
In this talk Noah answers questions from the community around mindfulness and how much benefit we get from learning to be uncomfortable.
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