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Dharma Talks
given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2020-12-02
Practicing with Views 2
1:18:14
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue to explore the important, complex, and often challenging theme of practicing with views (or beliefs)--a central theme of individual practice and a vital area in the contemporary collective context. We first review the teachings of the Buddha on views, mentioning several key texts in which it's clear that he takes a highly pragmatic approach to views; views are helpful if they are conducive to awakening and traditional Indian metaphysical views are both not helpful and not ultimately resolvable in terms of their validity. An approach to views is unskillful if based on reactivity, on grasping or fixating, on the one hand, or pushing away in aversion, on the other. We also explore how many social views are the result of manipulation and control, as in propaganda and the social construction, often for reasons of manipulation, of many of our most central concepts and views. In the last part of the talk, we explore several ways of practicing with views, including (1) developing mindfulness of views, (2) inquiring into fixed views (we outline a number of methods), and (3) cultivating listening and empathy. The talk is followed by discussion, with comments and questions.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2020-11-30
Exploring the Buddha's Core Teaching: "I teach Dukkha and the End of Dukkha"
64:48
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Donald Rothberg
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The Buddha famously said, “I have dukkha and the end of dukkha.” Yet it can be confusing to know what the Buddha might have meant. One reason for the confusion is that there are multiple accounts of dukkha in the discourses; we explore four of them, finding that, for the first three, it doesn't make sense to speak of the "the end of dukkha." Only for the fourth sense of dukkha, which we find both in the teaching of the Two Arrows (or Darts) and in the teaching of Dependent Origination does "the end of dukkha" make sense. On this basis, we then explore the nature of dukkha, interpreted especially as reactivity, which we find in two forms--grasping and pushing away. We lastly explore eight core ways of practicing with dukkha.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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