The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Dharma Talks given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
2021-07-07 What We're Doing with Our Metta Practice and Why It Matters 57:44
John Martin
Spirit Rock Meditation Center "July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP

2021-07-07 Metta/Lovingkindness from our Benefactors and Ancestors 34:12
Bonnie Duran
This is a guided meditation with Benefactors…..Lovingkindness is an important mental factor for our everyday lives and for Dharma practice. It promotes happiness in ourselves and those all around us. It is a mental attitude of enlightened beings… Non-duality- All my relations. Our ancestors wanted the best for us.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center "July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP

2021-07-07 Deepening Daily Life Practice 2: Practicing with Reactivity 69:27
Donald Rothberg
We begin with a review of last week's opening exploration of deepening daily life practice, naming some of the challenges of daily life practice, some initial ways of deepening such practice, and the centrality for such practice of mindfulness of the body. We then, for the rest of the session, explore how we can practice with reactivity when it arises, in its two forms--grasping after the pleasant and pushing away what is taken as unpleasant. We ground such practice in the Buddha's teaching in the model of Dependent Origination of the sequence from contact to feeling-tone to wanting (or not wanting) to grasping (or pushing away). We then point to a number of ways of practicing with reactivity and some of the complexities of such practice, particularly the ways in which reactivity can be enmeshed with discernment. A discussion follows!
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2021-07-07 Deepening Daily Life Practice 2: A Guided Meditation: Practicing with Reactivity 26:04
Donald Rothberg
In this guided meditation, we start with about 10 minutes of settling. We then attend to when there is a moderate or greater pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tone, bringing some investigation as to what occurs in ones' experience. Toward the end of the guided meditation, there's an invitation to track for any moment of reactivity (grasping onto the pleasant in some way, or pushing away the unpleasant).
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2021-07-07 Simple Metta Breathing and Metta Body Scan 40:12
Tempel Smith
To form the foundation for loving-kindness meditation we invite the attitude of kindness, calm, and simplicity to our breath and body awareness. For many, this is the most simple and suitable metta meditation, and once embodied this metta meditation becomes the basis for radiating healthy lovingkindness to our selves and all beings. This is also the meditative foundation to ripen the five jhana factors leading to full absorption.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center "July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP

2021-07-05 Collective Pain, Collective Practice, Collective Liberation 63:49
Sean Oakes
So much of the pain afflicting our lives right now is based in conditions that are much larger than any of us as individuals. The climate crisis, racism, economic suffering, and the pandemic all are results of actions committed not by individuals but by groups. Rather than absolving us of responsibility, knowing this can help us to move through doubt and shame into the more wholesome states of urgency and collective agency.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2021-07-04 Practicing in Urban Life 59:01
Tuere Sala
Spirit Rock Meditation Center BIPOC Voices - Series

2021-07-01 Thoughts on Metta and Kindness 26:57
Grace Fisher
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Thursday Morning Women’s Group

2021-06-30 Deepening Daily Life Practice 1 68:12
Donald Rothberg
In an important sense, daily life practice is central and vital; it is where we live! Yet at times in the non-monastic Insight Meditation approach as it's developed in the West, such practice has been somewhat marginalized, with retreat practice and formal meditation practice at the center. We explore first the challenging context of daily life practice for many Western practitioners, including not just such a lack of sustained emphasis on daily life practice, but also the challenges of living in what is often a very busy, "mental" culture and society. We then look at a number of ways to bring more awareness into daily life, inviting the listener to see what one or two ways of practicing might be emphasized in the next period of time. We give a more in-depth focus on one very central way of bringing more awareness into daily life--developing mindfulness of the body. We offer a number of different practices that support such mindfulness of the body.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday and Wednesday Talks

2021-06-24 The Balancing Rays of Metta 20:45
Grace Fisher
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Thursday Morning Women’s Group

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