Dharma Talks
given at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
2019-05-01
From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha-Mind 4: Practicing with the Body 2
66:25
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Donald Rothberg
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We contextualize our conditioning in relationship to the different “parts” of our experience—related to our thinking, emotions, and body—by examining some the social and cultural history of the last few hundred years, in which thinking has been increasingly differentiated from emotions and the body. We then examine further the nature of our ordinary, habitual experience of the body. The main focus is on a number of “body practices,” including mindfulness of the body in both formal meditation and daily life, ways to self-regulate when there is high activation, using the body in investigation of experience, and the body as a key to presence in speech and interaction.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2019-04-21
Insight practice through a systematic and cultural lens: talk and experiential practice
48:51
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Erin Selover
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Insight Meditation, also known as Vipassana Meditation, is the 2,600-year-old practice of cultivating wise presence by bringing a caring, curious, and discerning attention to what is happening moment-to-moment. Conditioned to go after what we want and avoid what we don’t want, we often act from habit and reactivity instead of our deeper held values and beliefs. With mindful presence, we can learn to cut through habitual reactivity and access innate states of well-being, creativity, courage, and liberating personal and collective insight.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2019-03-07
The Second Foundation of Mindfulness: Practicing with Feeling-Tone (Vedana—Pleasant, Unpleasant, and Neutral) (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
59:59
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Donald Rothberg
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After some further examination of the nature of mindfulness, we explore the Second Foundation of Mindfulness, first pointing to the central importance of the practice of being mindful of the “feeling-tone.” As articulated in the teaching on Dependent Origination, we study the sequence, that occurs when there are not mindfulness and wisdom, of (1) contact; (2) feeling-tone; (3) wanting the pleasant (or aversion to the unpleasant, and unawareness of the neutral), and (4) grasping the pleasant (or pushing away the unpleasant, or continued unawareness of the neutral). We look at the experiential nature of the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, and suggest a number of ways to practice with feeling-tone.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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March Insight Meditation 1-Month
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2019-02-27
Practices for the Seven Stages of the Spiritual Journey
1:19:05
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Donald Rothberg
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After a review of the seven stages of the spiritual journey presented the week before (originally with reference to Mary Oliver’s “The Journey,” the life of the Buddha, and our own journeys), we explore how for each stage, there are particular practices and intentions that are central. As we explore the practices, we get a better sense of the variety of practices that we may work with at different points in our own journeys, and which are most appropriate at which times.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2019-02-24
The Four Noble Truths
56:05
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Sally Armstrong
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The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths – the truths of suffering, the cause of suffering , the end of suffering and the path to the end of suffering – not as a philosophy, but as practices that we can use here and now to understand why we suffer and how to find release. Using this template to gain insight into our lives can bring a radical shift to the way we relate to our experience.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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February Monthlong
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