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Dharma Talks
given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2022-04-20
Awakening and Liberation: Buddhist Practice, Passover, Easter, and Ramadan
67:08
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Donald Rothberg
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At this time of the confluence of Passover, Eastern, and Ramadan, we look at their core messages of liberation, going beyond death, and spiritual purification, and the links of such messages to Buddhist practice, with the aid of images and music.
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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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Awakening and Liberation: Buddhist Practice, Passover, Easter, and Ramadan
by Donald Rothberg
(PDF)
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2022-03-30
Reflections after Returning from Four Weeks on Retreat
68:28
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Donald Rothberg
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A few days after returning from four weeks on retreat at Spirit Rock, Donald reflects on a number of themes related to his retreat, including: the importance of retreat (as well as short periods of meditation) and getting away, if possible, from everyday demands and busyness; the centrality of noticing habitual tendencies and patterns; opening to the unknown and the mysterious; attending to what surfaces, including difficult material, deep aspirations, and insights; the importance of exploring "non-doing" in meditation and activities, and an opening to what is larger than oneself; and taking everything as part of a path of learning.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2022-03-28
Open, Spacious Awareness Meditation | Monday Night
27:27
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Jack Kornfield
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Reflect on the value of a peaceful heart. What is it like to have a peaceful heart among the worldly winds of praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, fame and disrepute. These are the worldly winds that constantly change.
It's important to stop, take a pause, and feel that we are part of something so much greater than the individual life that we live. Our awareness is big enough to hold all of this, because we are awareness itself.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2022-03-28
Peace is Possible | Monday Night Talk
45:38
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Jack Kornfield
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We are in a time of great transition. The climate crisis, the pandemic, war, injustice, racism: they're all pressing on us to live in a different way. And if you live with a peaceful heart, the point is not to let your heart get hardened. Don't turn your gaze away. But see another possibility—see with the great heart of compassion.
My teacher Ajahn Chah said, "We human beings are constantly in combat, at war to escape the fact of being so limited by so many circumstances we cannot control. But instead of escaping, we continue to create suffering, waging war with evil, waging war with good, waging war with what is too small, waging war with what is too big, waging war with what is too short or too long, or right or wrong, courageously carrying on the battle. It's time to stop the war. "
The sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson said, "The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."
The first response is tend the wounds, feed the hungry, and stand up for peace in whatever way you can. But there is also an inner response needed. We know where war starts—it starts in the human heart. We must make the heart a zone of peace. Set your compass to your highest intention. Something in us knows there is another way.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2022-02-20
The 3rd and 4th Foundations of Mindfulness
63:46
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Tempel Smith
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While the 3rd and fourth foundations of mindfulness can be taught as their own separate topics, it can be very useful to look at the language and instruction given in both of them together. In the 3rd foundation we rest mindfully in all cognitive and emotional states as they arise and pass with the courage not to change them. In the 4th foundation of mindfulness we use this deeper intimacy from the 3rd foundation to act most skillfully in how we let go of suffering states and welcome wholesome states.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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February Insight Meditation 1 Month Retreat
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2022-02-09
Donald Rothberg and Yassir Chadly in Dialogue on Buddhist and Sufi Perspectives and Practices: A Gathering of Wisdom, Love, and Respect
66:34
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Donald Rothberg
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Yassir Chadly, a long-time friend of Donald's who is a Sufi teacher, musician, and former Olympic swimmer, originally from Morocco, is in dialogue with Donald, and then, during the last part of the session, with the whole group. We explore Yassir's background, the three main levels of practice in Sufism, practicing in Sufism with what arises in the heart, parallels between Sufi and Buddhist practice, how to make sense of how and why some act negatively in the name of a religion (we discuss Islam and Buddhism), the unity of traditions in their deep mystical expressions, and the need to work together across traditions in our current world.
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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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Photo of Yassir Chadly
(jpg)
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