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Dharma Talks given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Publicly available talks can be browsed here in the order indicated by the "Sort Order" selection. Talk titles and discriptions can also be searched by typing in a search word (or words) in the search box and clicking "Search Titles and Descriptions". With multiple words, only those talks containing all the given words are displayed.

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2025-02-12 Awakening in a World in Turmoil 2: Seeing the World with Dharma Eyes 65:07
Donald Rothberg
How do we see the world, especially and social world, from the perspective of awakening--with, we might say, "dharma eyes"? We explore this question in a time of great turmoil and concern in the world, particularly in the U.S. We start with several passages coming from an awakened mind and heart, including a passage from the Metta Sutta--how would one then look at the larger world? We explore how the Buddha himself looked at the world and social structures, particularly in terms of caste and gender. From our practice seeing greed, hatred, and delusion in ourselves, we learn how to see these qualities in others, and in the world. From our ethical training, we learn how to see when we are not following the ethical guidelines and when others are not, including on a larger social level. We also see how we can understand some of the larger social issues, particularly related to the climate crisis, racism, and gender, in terms of greed (especially), hatred, and delusion. We close, in this context, first with a pointing to ways of responding, using Joanna Macy's model of three ways that the "Great Turning" occurs, and then with a poem.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2025-02-12 Guided Meditation: Exploring Feeling-Tone and Reactivity 0:00
Donald Rothberg
(Recording not available) 
After guidance in developing concentration and mindfulness, we practice in silence. Then there is guidance related to mindfulness of the feeling-tone (the Second Foundation of Mindfulness), particularly the pleasant or the unpleasant (and whether there is reactivity, grasping after the pleasant and pushing away in some way the unpleasant), related to the theme of the talk given after the meditation.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2025-02-12 Mindfulness of Strong Emotions 58:57
Devon Hase
Instructions and guided practice on meditating with strong emotions - light RAIN with somatic experiencing using orienting, titrating, and pendulating.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center 2025 February Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat

2025-02-09 Doubt and Delusion 65:25
Devon Hase
Teachings on how to recognize delusion and its sub-category of doubt.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center 2025 February Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat

2025-02-09 When the Buddha was Afraid: The Attadanda Sutta 64:53
Gullu Singh
Spirit Rock Meditation Center BIPOC Voices - Series

2025-02-09 Teachings on Second and Third Foundations of Mindfulness 58:55
Devon Hase
Short talk followed by a guided meditation on working with vedana in the mind. How to practice with thoughts and their machinations in the third foundation of mindfulness from the Satipatthana Sutta.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center 2025 February Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat

2025-02-06 Metta for Yourself (Retreat at Spirit Rock) 48:26
Devon Hase
Teachings on how to practice metta for ourselves, including poetry by Jane Hirshfield and a story by Father Gregory Boyle. Guided practice in receiving care and sending love to our younger self.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center 2025 February Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat

2025-02-05 Where We Learned to Love 55:29
Brett Wheeler
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Spirit Rock - Rainbow Sangha

2025-02-05 Awakening in a Time of Turmoil 67:08
Donald Rothberg
We continue to explore the nature of awakening. In the first 2/3 of the talk, we examine the traditional notion of awakening, as going beyond the habitual constructions of experience in all the parts of our lives. These constructions are rooted in reactivity (grasping and pushing away aspects of our experience), and a sense of self along with a world of objects known conceptually (through "signs"). We look also at the more positive sense of awakening to the "signless, boundless, and all luminous," to what the Thai Forest teacher Ajahn Mun calls the "primal mind." Then we ask about whether there are other dimensions to awakening needed for contemporary awakening, and examine in particular what awakening means in a time of turmoil. We take Thich Nhat Hanh as an exemplar--a practitioner dedicated to awakening practicing and teaching amidst the turmoil of war and exile. We outline a number of suggestions and guidelines for those practicing and awakening amidst the current turmoil.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2025-02-05 Guided Meditation: Exploring Some Further Ways We Construct Experience 35:51
Donald Rothberg
We start with basic instructions in developing (1) concentration and stability, and (2) mindfulness, and then practice developing these two qualities. With mindfulness practice, we notice the main patterns of thoughts, emotions, and bodily experience. In the second half of the session, we work with being aware of the feeling-tone (linked with the Second Foundation of Mindfulness), noticing moderate (or somewhat greater) pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tones, and what occurs after we notice them. We also attend for a short period of two minutes to the moment-to-moment feeling tones of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and then go back to basic mindfulness practice for the last part of the session.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

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