As mindfulness practice unfolds, our experience of dukkha (suffering, dis-ease) naturally shifts and changes. Compassion morphs to meet it. This talk explores five faces of compassion that are cultivated through our mindfulness practice: patience, capacity, humility, spaciousness, and not-self.

We invite the mind and body to unwind easefully, as we arrive for this first full day of practice. This guided meditation emphasizes simplicity, ease, and settling while introducing mindfulness practice with the breathing.

This talk explores how slowing down, coming into the body, and paying attention to the living world around us can help heal the sense of separation so many of us carry. Drawing from Buddhist practice, we’ll reflect on how presence, embodiment, and relationship with the Earth can open the heart and deepen our capacity for love. At its core, this is an invitation to fall back in love with the Earth — not as an idea, but as a living relationship that can sustain and transform us.

Begins with a 30m meditation and is immediately followed by a Dharma talk. (Group discussion has been omitted.)

Open Awareness in Nature Meditation

Includes meditation, select aspects of discussion and a dharma talk.

After some personal stories from Donald about his father, who was a veteran, and about Donald’s experiences growing up at the time of the Vietnam war and being introduced to nonviolence, we explore the three main dimensions of our practice (training in ethics, meditation, and wisdom) related to the holiday. We focus on the ethical teachings about killing and nonviolence, including the complexities of these teachings; the importance of bringing mindfulness to grief, loss, and sadness, and of grounding in kindness, compassion, and love; and the wisdom and insight teachings about seeing the roots of violence. The talk is followed by discussion.