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Dharma Talks
given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2025-07-07
Talk: Bringing Our Practice to the Current Difficult Times: An Eightfold Path
66:51
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Donald Rothberg
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For the Buddha, practice was understood as involving three trainings, in wisdom, meditation, and ethics (sila). Ethics, typically under-emphasized in much of Western Buddhism, with sometimes clear negative consequences, had as its horizon helping others. The Buddha said: “Wander forth . . . for the welfare of the multitude, for the happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the world.” The later emphasis on the bodhisattva develops this emphasis further.
In this talk, we suggest a contemporary “Eightfold Path” for understanding and responding to the current difficult times in the society and world. It’s outlined in terms of three wisdom guidelines, two meditation guidelines, and three ethics guidelines.
The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-07-02
Talk: The Big Picture 3: Introduction to Ethical Practice
63:19
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Donald Rothberg
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After a brief review of the first two talks in this series, we explore the nature of ethical practice, one of the three core inter-related areas of training for the Buddha, along with training in meditation and in wisdom. We see how ethical practice has often been understood historically as having a social dimension, both in the teachings of the Buddha and later, as in the edicts of King Ashoka. We also explore some of the ways that ethical practice has been marginalized in Western Buddhist practice, with significant consequences. Then we look at the commonality of ethical guidelines in cross-religious context, with Donald telling some personal stories. Finally, we outline several ways to carry out ethical practice and then open up to discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2025-06-25
The Big Picture 2: Nine Ways of Deepening Daily Life Practice
65:55
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue our series of meditations and talks exploring the foundations of contemporary Buddhist practice. We begin by reviewing last week's talk on the basic model of Buddhist meditation, identifying three aspects of practice. These three are (1) developing samadhi or concentration; (2) cultivating three modes of liberating insight--into impermanence, dukkha or reactivity, and not-self; and (3) opening to awakened awareness. Then we focus on a crucial, central, and not always developed dimension of contemporary practice, especially for the vast majority of Western Buddhist practitioners who do not live in monastic contexts--bringing practice to everyday life. We identify nine ways of deepening daily life practice (see the attached document, #314). The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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Attached Files:
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Nine Ways of Deepening Daily Life Practice
by Donald Rothberg
(PDF)
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2025-06-18
The Big Picture 1
64:23
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Donald Rothberg
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The talk begins to give the "big picture" about the nature of our practice, and how we come, in a way suitable to our times and places, to manifest wisdom, love and compassion, and skillful responses in our lives, increasingly more of the time. We reflect first on some of the challenges of our times, and how Buddhism, as it has moved to different cultures, has always taken new forms.
A main part of the big picture, which is our main focus today, is a model of how meditation develops. We articulate a model involving three main forms of practice (that we can find in multiple Buddhist traditions): Developing samadhi (concentration), opening to liberating insight, and opening to awakened awareness. We explore each of the three and their relationship to each other. The talk is followed by discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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