Dharma Talk and Meditation Podcast

I'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 More

Tonight 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 More

The 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 More

The 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 More

It 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 More

I'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 More

Almost 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 More

Dependent 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 More

I 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?

Read More

Tonight I’m going to talk about the aspect of our practice of Buddhism that is about creating a positive change in the world: service, generosity, engagement.

How are you using your life’s energy to create change? What compassionate actions are you taking? How are you helping others? What kind of service are you involved in?

Read More

There's a question about how do we ideally practice intimacy, sexuality, romance in the Dharma. Where there's all this emphasis on non attachment. How do we have love and non attachment?

How do we have sex and not cling is the topic tonight. We're going to talk about sex tonight, and I'll share some Buddhist perspectives.

Read More

Tonight we're going to talk about appreciation, appreciative joy, empathy, attunement and gratitude. May you be successful at freeing yourself from suffering. May you be successful at finding true happiness, true well being Not just material and sensual pleasures, but may you have some real healing, some real awakening. May your path lead to freedom. This is a practice of having that sort of attitude and encouragement and training our heart to feel it.

Read More

I think a simplified way to think about equanimity is “keeping your cool”. Similar to the loving kindness teaching “being at ease” no matter what's happening, not just when life is easy, but also when life is quite difficult.  Maintaining a sense of equanimity, ease, cool, well being,  understanding and accepting that  pain is unavoidable. That we will all experience pain in our lives and  try to meet that with compassion.

What does Equanimity mean to you? What is the most challenging area in your life to be equanimous? 

#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

Read More

I'm going to talk about, and we'll meditate on, compassion tonight. Compassion is one of the qualities that is so rare for humans to have… true compassion for ourselves, for our own pain… true compassion for others, including not just our loved ones. There are certain people who are easier to have compassion for than others, but the practice is to actually have compassion for all living beings.

Where do you feel compassion in your body? What does compassion mean to you?

Read More

We just, we just did completed a 10 week series on the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness and the four foundations of mindfulness. We took two and a half months to go through that. I wanted to shift from the mindfulness based meditation instructions to heart practices. Practices around developing kindness and compassion and forgiveness and appreciation, generosity. So I think I'll spend the next few weeks doing meditations on that. I thought I'd start tonight with the kind of umbrella term of kindness, the importance of kindness and the practice of kindness.

How do you express kindness? What’s your love language? Does it come naturally to you? What’s your practice around kindness?

Read More

We're at the final section of the teachings on mindfulness that I've been discussing over the last couple months. This section is about mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths. Turning our awareness towards our experience of suffering, the cause of suffering, those times where we're not suffering, the cessation, the end. Those moments throughout our lives where there's no suffering and the goal of living more and more into a life where we're not suffering about what's happening. And the eightfold path that leads to the end of suffering. So I'm going to share some of the traditional teachings about that.

How do you know when you’re suffering? What does suffering feel like? What are your experiences with suffering? What are some of the ways that you know that you are suffering? What are some of the things that you suffer about?

Read More

Mindfulness is the seventh aspect of the Buddha's eightfold path. The eight Aspects of practice that will lead to freedom from suffering. Alleviating the unnecessary levels of suffering that we experience. There are four foundations of mindfulness.

What do you think enlightenment is? What does it mean to be enlightened? What do you think that would be like? Does it seem desirable? Is that your goal?

#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

Read More

The section tonight is mindfulness of the six sense doors, mindfulness of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling bodily sensations, and mindfulness of thoughts of the mind.

Do you use the sense doors as a mindfulness practice? Which sense is the most challenging for you to remain present with? Is it pleasant? Is it unpleasant? What's happening at the eye awareness? What's happening at the ears, at the nose, at the tongue? What's happening in your body, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant or neutral?

#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

Read More

The topic for tonight's aspect of the mindfulness teaching is the five aggregates or five Sconda. The five aggregates, probably the best translation, it's the five aspects of our experience that we tend to be identified with as self. The aggregates, sometimes this term sconda or aggregate, is also like a heap.

The different heaps of our or piles the, uh, different, um, piles of experience that we tend to consider “that's who I am”. The, the first one is our bodies. The aggregate of a physical form. We have a body. The second one is our mind. We have a mind that thinks and plans and remembers. The third one is perception of feeling tone, of feeling pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.

What percentage of the time do you believe your thoughts? How much of the time is it true?

#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

Read More

Tonight's topic is the Buddha's teachings on how to train the mind to see clearly and to to free ourselves from suffering. We're on the fourth section tonight, which I think I'm going to spend three or four weeks on this fourth section, mindfulness of the Dhammas. Dhamma translates as Dharma, as what's true. But it starts with the five hindrances. So tonight we're going to meditate, discuss and look at the text on the mindfulness of the five hindrances.

Why would I ever move my body? What motivates you to take action? When you look at the suffering in your life, do you feel that there’s more suffering caused by clinging to pleasure or avoiding pain? Which of the 5 hindrances do you experience the most?

#AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

Read More