I have always enjoyed working with practitioners who are continuing to deepen their practice. In the many long retreats I teach at both IMS and Spirit Rock, I feel free to pass on the deepest pointings I’ve found in the teachings of the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Those are my guiding lights in practice and understanding.
It is fun for me to take the most difficult concepts and put them into accessible language, to unwrap the mystery. So I try to find ways to explore the breadth of concepts like "emptiness" -- to see how the entire path can be explained in terms of this synonym for nibbana. One of my aims is to bring the goal of freedom into the here and now. This way practitioners get a taste of freedom, so they know what they are heading toward on their journey to liberation.
The tools of mindfulness and lovingkindness can be picked up by anyone. They are easy to understand and they bring immediate benefit to our lives. The essence of vipassana is ideally suited to western society, especially to the resonance between our psychological turn of mind and our quest for spiritual understanding.
When we engage with metta practice we receive either metta (purity) or the inner obstacles to metta, which provide the material for the purification of heart. This talk describes how to relate with self-judgement and fear through metta, as well as the supportive factor of concentration, another aspect of innate purity.
The practice of metta brings five wonderful qualities into our Dhamma practice. It makes the heart softer and more responsive; it purifies the heart; it brings us into connection with all of life; it develops concentration; and it leads to happiness. Lovingkindness is the quality of friendliness toward oneself and others developed through the practice of metta. This talk describes how the practice works as a protection, a healing, a purification of heart, and a boundless state of mind.
This talk discusses the nature of samadhi, or concentration, in our practice and how to recognize its presence. It also touches on the benefits of samadhi and ways to develop this wholesome quality.
Mindfulness is our doorway to reality, or nature, which reveals its truths to us. The qualities of mindfulness, effort and concentration, are at the heart of the meditative path. As they develop, they bring our hearts and minds ever closer to the awakened mind of the Buddha. Only
mindfulness can stem the tide of conditioned thought patterns that sweep us into sorrow.
This talk is directed to Vipassana practitioners who wish to include in their meditations the dzogchen practice and theory. It explores ways of integrating the understanding and meditation technique of the two traditions.
According to the Dzogchen teachings, an aspect of the nature of mind is non-dual awareness. But the Theravada understanding is that these is a distinction between consciousness and it's objects. How can we reconcile these views?
Two talks in one. The first describes my faltering steps in bodhisattva. The second examines different understandings of nirvana in the Buddhist tradition and compares them to the nature of mind described by Dzogchen.
This is really 2 talks in one, the first suggests different ways to work with strong emotions in both vipassana and dzogchen styles. The second relates the qualities of mindfulness and consciousness as used in Pali Suttas to the innate awareness of rigpa.
A useful way to view the unfolding of practice is through the two truths, conventional and ultimate. The purity of our true nature is revealed until a conditioned pattern of mind is encountered. When met with acceptance, the pattern becomes purified.
In his teachings on dependent origination found in the Upanisa Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha explained the path in such positive terms as joy, rapture, tranquillity, and happiness.
