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Retreat Dharma Talks
at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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| Regular weekly talks given at the lower Spirit Rock meditation hall |
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2023-02-01
Guided Meditation: Metta (Lovingkindness) Practice
40:15
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Donald Rothberg
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We start with a short introduction to Metta (Lovingkindness) Practice, working with phrases that tend to evoke Metta, kindness, good will, etc. Then there's a 10-minute period of settling (with mindfulness practice), followed by about 20 minutes of Metta Practice, with beings with whom Metta flows well.
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2023-02-01
Cultivating Metta (Lovingkindness, Love, Friendliness) 1
63:18
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Donald Rothberg
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The aim of our practice is to develop wisdom, love, and skillful action in our lives. We commonly cultivate these capacities separately and then integrate them. In this session, we first explore the nature of Metta, its etymology in words suggesting "friendliness" and "friendship," and the ancient vocation, found in multiple spiritual traditions of cultivating Metta or love or kindness. We then look at the multiple ways of developing Metta, both in formal practice and in daily life, and examine briefly some of the challenges in cultivating Metta. Then we have a guided meditation the last 15 minutes exploring "Radiating Metta," a way of practicing likely closer to how the Buddha taught Metta. We follow this with discussion.
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2023-02-06
Embodied Presence Meditation | Monday Night
22:40
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Jack Kornfield
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Jack offers a flowing guided meditation helping us skillfully move past the thoughts, emotions, and images of the mind, and into a state of stillness, spacious loving awareness, and relaxed embodied presence.
"The invitation of meditation is to come into the present, to quiet the mind, to open the heart, to find an embodied presence and loving awareness." – Jack Kornfield
This meditation was originally live-streamed by Spirit Rock for the Monday Night Dharma Talk on 2/6/2023.
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2023-02-08
Cultivating Metta (Lovingkindness, Love, Friendliness) 2
62:26
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Donald Rothberg
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In this second talk on Metta (lovingkindness) practice, we first review the foundational nature of the practice and its connection with the cultivation of wisdom and bring our practice into our lives and action in the world, with a reading of a poem from one of the early Buddhist nuns. We examine in some depth some of the challenges to Metta practice, what makes it challenging to manifest kindness and love, and point to some of the way to practice Metta in daily life.
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2023-02-22
Guided Meditation: Connecting Metta (Lovingkindness), Mindfulness, and Awareness
39:08
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Donald Rothberg
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We start with a short period of metta or some other heart practice, noticing how mindfulness brings us back to the practice when we are distracted. Then there is a longer period of mindfulness, hopefully infused some with metta, in the spirit of Sylvia Boorstein's wonderful invitation: “May I meet this moment fully. May I meet this moment as a friend.” We then have a second sequence of relatively brief metta practice followed by a longer period of mindfulness practice. The last part of the session is a guided practice of radiating metta, moving toward an integration of metta and a boundless awareness.
b. Let it infuse mindfulness: Sylvia’s phrase. See how this is.
c. Check periodically. Maybe do 2-3 minutes of metta.
d. Radiating metta exploring a loving awareness.
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