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Dharma Talks
given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2021-07-28
Deepening Daily Life Practice 3: Practicing with the Eight Worldly Winds
68:43
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Donald Rothberg
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We begin with a review of the last two sessions related to deepening daily life practice, including identifying some of the challenges of contemporary daily life practice and some basic ways of deepening such practice, the importance for such practice of mindfulness of the body, and the centrality of practicing with reactivity (based on looking closely at the sequence from contact to grasping or pushing away). We then, for the rest of the session, explore the teaching of the Eight Worldly Winds (pleasure or pain, gain or loss, fame or disrepute, and praise or blame) as a way of looking out for eight specific experiences that are likely to lead to reactivity. In all of this, we focus on how we might learn from and respond skillfully to such challenging situations rather than simply react in a largely unconscious and habitual way. The talk is followed by a discussion.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-07-19
Meditation: Listening with the Heart | Monday Night
23:59
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Jack Kornfield
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Direct mindful loving awareness to the mind. The mind secretes thoughts, stories and memories. You are the loving awareness that feels the stream of the mind, that knows it—all the busyness, hopes, and ideas. Listen now to the wisdom mind. It has a message for you. It has wisdom that you need just now. Now let the field of loving awareness open, so the heart knows you can listen to the world around you with tender care. By listening with a compassionate heart and a wisdom mind, your understanding can grow.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2021-07-19
Listening with the Heart | Monday Night Talk
50:31
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Jack Kornfield
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We are each other's bond. We are each other's community. We are each other's family. What we most want, perhaps, is to be listened to in the deepest way, to be met with the heart.
When we learn to rest in awareness, there’s both caring and silence. There is listening for what’s the next thing to do and awareness of all that’s happening, a big space and a connected feeling of love. When there is enough space, our whole being can both comprehend the situation and be at ease. We see the dance of life, we dance beautifully, yet we’re not caught in it.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2021-07-12
Dana, Sila, Bhavana- Dharma practice is 24/7
58:37
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Bonnie Duran
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A brief description of Breath stroking and calming our heart with love…..and then a description of Ven. U Panditta’s teachings on Dana/Generosity, Sila/Ethical Conduct, and Bhavana/Mental Cultivation. Awakening is available in this very life!!
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-12
Tuning the Heart with Gratitude
54:53
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Tempel Smith
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Close to the four Brahma viharas lives the heart warm with gratitude. Blending intentional gratitude into our dharma paths and to the practices which open the heart, counting our blessing of a human body, simple resources around us, and gratitude for our planet helps dispel any sense of scarcity and an over-focus on what we feel is lacking. Feeling gratitude allows us to discern if and what is truly lacking, and to be free at times to be bathed in countless miracles.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-11
Loving-kindness for Difficult Relationships
46:36
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Tempel Smith
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Our hearts' defenses might be most reinforced where there has been emotional pain. Using the previous practice of loving-kindness for easier relationships we can visit the places in our own hearts where we hold fear, hatred, resentment, and judgment. Relaxing these hard and painful places within us, by small, steady degrees, frees us from squandering our inner resources. Healing these places of pain can transform our understanding of how we can be in the world with a more open heart.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-10
Pervading Love - Guided Meditation
40:21
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Bonnie Duran
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This is a guided meditation starting with Metta for ourselves, then easy people, and ending with neutral people.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-09
Metta/Lovingkindness and Purification of negative mental factors
53:48
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Bonnie Duran
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Metta/Lovingkindness practice strengthens wholesome mental factors and allows us to see more clearly our negative mental factors. Seeing more clearly an important source of our suffering, hate/aversion, we are able to work more directly for our own and others' happiness.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-08
Supports for Steadying the mind: The Jhana Factors
56:20
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Sally Armstrong
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There are five factors that are supported for deepening concentration, known as the jhana factors. These factors are developed in any kind of intensive meditation practice but are particularly supportive of the development of concentration. They also serve to counterbalance the hindrances. When the hindrances are not active, the mind and heart can be steady and open.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-08
Equanimity Brahma Vihara
45:36
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Tempel Smith
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Opening the heart and balancing with wisdom, the equanimity sacred dwelling becomes established as we relax the tightness of our preferences to be more intimate with how the world actually is moment to moment. Equanimity brahma vihara is a flow of sacred caring without reactivity or agitation to complex truths. Starting with the open heart we have in loving the natural world, we progress to bring loving equanimity to our personal lives. Through caring equanimity, we can discover how clinging to our preferences blocks deeper connection.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-07-07
Deepening Daily Life Practice 2: Practicing with Reactivity
69:27
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Donald Rothberg
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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!
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-07-07
Simple Metta Breathing and Metta Body Scan
40:12
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Tempel Smith
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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.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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"July Lovingkindness Retreat" with Tempel Smith, Bonnie Duran, MPH, DrPH, John Martin, Sally Armstrong, Marcy Reynolds and Kristina Baré, MFT, SEP
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2021-06-30
Deepening Daily Life Practice 1
68:12
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Donald Rothberg
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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.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-06-14
Summer Solstice | Monday Night Talk
55:50
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Jack Kornfield
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Here we are in the change of seasons—the great turning. The sun is something for us to pay attention to, something we often take for granted. Notice the way the gift of sunlight streams behind everything—it feeds the plants we eat. We can be grateful for sunlight and trees, for people we love, for moments of goodness, and for the breath within our breast. And as our gratitude grows, we may discover a happiness without cause.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2021-06-07
Doing, Not-Doing, and The Doing That Comes from Not-Doing: In Meditation and in Daily Life
64:49
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Donald Rothberg
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We inquire into doing and not-doing in five ways: (1) identifying the importance of a number of different kinds of "doing" and skillful effort in meditation; (2) pointing also to the centrality of a kind of not-doing (or letting go of doing) and receptivity in meditation; (3) the importance of investigating the "doer" and one's identity as a doer, in a number of different ways, in meditation and daily life; (4) the vision of a doing that comes out of being, that comes out of a deep not-doing, a vision that we find in different spiritual traditions--here we mention ways that this vision is found in Jewish, Christian, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions; and (5) how we explore and cultivate this doing coming out of a deep not-doing in daily life, in "flow experiences," in activities in which we are deeply grounded, and in such areas as sports, music, art, and dance.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-05-19
The Development of Faith, Confidence, and Trust 2
69:11
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Donald Rothberg
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We continue to explore the nature of faith (or confidence or trust), how it is developed, and the challenges that arise. We look at the traditional teachings on faith (or saddha) in several contexts, and examine how faith or confidence develops in our practice and in our lives We particularly look at some of the challenges that arise, both in the everyday experience of the Eight Worldly Winds, and in more protracted experiences of something like the "Dark Night of the Soul." The last part of the talk points to what mature faith, confidence, and trust look like, a kind of faith in our own depths and in our own deep resting in the nature of things. We then have a period of discussion and sharing.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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