The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Retreat Dharma Talks at Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Monday and Wednesday Talks

Regular weekly talks given at the lower Spirit Rock meditation hall

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

  
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2021-02-03 The Necessity of Joy 1:53:51
Heidi Bourne
2021-02-10 Renunciation & Kindness; a Symbiotic Relationship 1:46:15
Heidi Bourne
2021-02-17 Intimacy: Healing Division through Deep listening and Letting Go of Views (with Antonio Aversano) 1:27:13
Kaira Jewel Lingo
2021-02-24 Choosing the Path and Taking it: A Manifesto for Practice (with special guest Sylvia Boorstein) 1:26:55
Heidi Bourne
2021-03-03 Doing and Not-Doing in Meditation and in Daily Life 1 1:10:10
Donald Rothberg
We explore the nature of doing and not-doing, first in dharma practice generally. The Buddha’s teachings seem full of exhortations to diligence, mindfulness, and skillful effort and doing. Yet there also is a clear place for not-doing—for example, in letting go and in cultivating mindful receptivity to experience. We can also see how being a “doer” is so central to many of our identities, whether in our roles or work or even our meditation. Given these dimensions of doing and not-doing, we suggest a number of ways to inquire into and respond to our patterns and habits related to doing and not-doing, both in meditation and daily life.
2021-03-10 Doing and Not-Doing in Meditation and Daily Life 2 69:08
Donald Rothberg
We briefly review the main themes from last week, including the importance of "doing" and effort in the teachings and practices of the Buddha, the importance also of "not-doing" (through letting go and cultivating receptive mindfulness), and elements of our conditioning to be a "doer." We go in more detail into this conditioning, pointing to ways of practicing and inquiring. Then, finally, we explore how there is an advanced way of being in which doing comes, so to speak, out of non-doing; we look at this in terms of the teachings of Lao-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, and Dzogchen. We close with a kind of developmental model of the stages of inquiry into the doer.
2021-03-17 What Is Still True 1:53:07
Sylvia Boorstein
2021-03-24 Cultivating an Appropriate Response to Violence Yet Again 1:19:28
Heidi Bourne
2021-03-31 Doing and Not-Doing in Meditation and Daily Life 3 68:17
Donald Rothberg
We start with a brief review of what we’ve explored in the last two sessions on this theme, including the importance of both doing and not-doing in Buddhist practice and the nature of identification with the “doer” (and the related themes of self, time, and the future). We then go into more depth inquiring into the nature of the “doer,” including a brief guided meditation looking into the experience of “doing” and opening to not-doing in meditation. We lastly further investigate traditions (Jewish, Christian, Taoist, and Buddhist) that point to the importance of a doing coming out of not-doing, and ways that we can experience and explore this doing coming out of not-doing in daily life, including in the experiences of creativity in art and music, and being “in the zone” in sports.
2021-04-07 The Preciousness of Life and Connection 1:49:10
Sylvia Boorstein
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