Against The Stream

By Noah Levine

Education Religion & Spirituality Buddhism

What's Against The Stream about?

Dharma talks and guided meditations at Against The Stream Meditation Center. Against The Stream is an American Buddhist lineage founded by Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, Heart of the Revolution and Refuge Recovery.

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Against The Stream episodes:

05.28.2024
Service, Generosity & Engagement with Noah Levine
Tonight I’m going to talk about the aspect of our practice of Buddhism that is about creating a positive change in the world: service, generosity, engagement. How are you using your life’s energy to create change? What compassionate actions are you...
05.20.2024
Sex Talk with Noah Levine
There's a question about how do we ideally practice intimacy, sexuality, romance in the Dharma. Where there's all this emphasis on non attachment. How do we have love and non attachment? How do we have sex and not cling...
05.14.2024
Appreciation with Noah Levine
Tonight we're going to talk about appreciation, appreciative joy, empathy, attunement and gratitude. May you be successful at freeing yourself from suffering. May you be successful at finding true happiness, true well being Not just material and sensual pleasures,...
05.06.2024
Equanimity with Noah Levine
I think a simplified way to think about equanimity is “keeping your cool”. Similar to the loving kindness teaching “being at ease” no matter what's happening, not just when life is easy, but also when life is quite difficult. ...
04.22.2024
Compassion with Noah Levine
I'm going to talk about, and we'll meditate on, compassion tonight. Compassion is one of the qualities that is so rare for humans to have… true compassion for ourselves, for our own pain… true compassion for others, including not just...
04.17.2024
Kindness with Noah Levine
We just, we just did completed a 10 week series on the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness and the four foundations of mindfulness. We took two and a half months to go through that. I wanted to shift from the mindfulness...
04.08.2024
Mindfulness Series wk10 with Noah Levine
We're at the final section of the teachings on mindfulness that I've been discussing over the last couple months. This section is about mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths. Turning our awareness towards our experience of suffering, the cause of...
03.25.2024
Mindfulness Series wk9 with Noah Levine
Mindfulness is the seventh aspect of the Buddha's eightfold path. The eight Aspects of practice that will lead to freedom from suffering. Alleviating the unnecessary levels of suffering that we experience. There are four foundations of mindfulness.
03.20.2024
Mindfulness Series wk8 with Noah Levine
The section tonight is mindfulness of the six sense doors, mindfulness of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling bodily sensations, and mindfulness of thoughts of the mind.
03.12.2024
Mindfulness Series wk7 with Noah Levine
The topic for tonight's aspect of the mindfulness teaching is the five aggregates or five Sconda. The five aggregates, probably the best translation, it's the five aspects of our experience that we tend to be identified with as self. ...
02.28.2024
Mindfulness Series wk6 with Noah Levine
Tonight's topic is the Buddha's teachings on how to train the mind to see clearly and to to free ourselves from suffering. We're on the fourth section tonight, which I think I'm going to spend three or four weeks on...
02.21.2024
Mindfulness Series wk5 with Noah Levine
Tonight's topic is the third foundation, which is the mind, our brains, how to bring mindfulness to what your brain is doing, what kind of thoughts are arising, what kind of attitude the mind has. Whether the mind is...
02.14.2024
Mindfulness Series wk4 with Noah Levine
So for a topic tonight: your relationship to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Just thinking about these three feeling tones. Maybe there's somebody here who you know, joining us tonight, who feels like actually pleasance is quite hard to tolerate…
02.08.2024
Mindfulness Series wk3 with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to do a little bit on this mindfulness of the body, becoming mindful of the four elements in the body and then we're going to do a meditation. It's called a charnel ground meditation or a...
01.31.2024
Mindfulness Series wk2 with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to continue what I started last week and probably will do the next few weeks. It's the Satipatthana, the four foundations of mindfulness the way they chant it, as they practice it in the monastery.
01.30.2024
Mindfulness Series wk1 with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to start what will turn into several weeks series on mindfulness, the seventh factor of the Eightfold Path and the primary meditation technique that the Buddha taught and encouraged for freeing ourselves. Freeing ourselves from the causes of...
01.19.2024
MLK Day with Noah Levine
I’ve gotten some sh*t for saying this in the past, but I haven't learned. Some of Martin Luther King's views and politics, I believe, are inspired by Buddhism. One time I gave a Dharma talk that MLK...
01.17.2024
Sorrow with Noah Levine
I'm going to talk a bit about the Buddha's first noble truth, that the beginning of the path to freedom starts by acknowledging and turning towards becoming fully aware and breaking any shred of denial that we might have about...
01.10.2024
Sangha with Noah Levine
I feel like the core of what I'm going to talk about tonight is Sangha, it's community and the importance of drawing near and sustaining connections with Sangha. With people who are wise, or at least trying, attempting to...
12.29.2023
Reflections with Noah Levine
What comes up for you around the holidays? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you bring your practice into it?
12.19.2023
Suffering Of Existence with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to talk about the reality of the suffering in the world and the suffering of existence. Why life is not easy and pleasant and why people aren't wise and compassionate.
12.07.2023
Loving Ourselves with Noah Levine
The topic tonight is about love and loving ourselves. A core part of what the Dharma is teaching us is to love ourselves and each other.
12.04.2023
Maladaptive Strategy with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to talk about maladaptive strategies. It's that strategy that's like, well, it feels really good when I do it, but I know it's creating negative karma for me because I'm lying or stealing or cheating. I love...
12.01.2023
Practice In Every Aspect Of Our Lives with Noah Levine
I'm going to talk about how Buddhism, the Buddhist teachings and this path that we call the middle path, is meant to be practiced in every aspect of our life. Our mindful awareness, intention to be kind, sexuality, our...
11.10.2023
Q&A with Noah Levine
I don't really have a topic topic tonight. I'm just going to do a Q and A. I'm not going to do a full Dharma talk, but we’ll be reflecting on what you understand of Buddhism so far. Maybe...
10.26.2023
Letting Go with Noah Levine
I'm gonna to focus on the Buddhist teaching on non attachment, letting go. The teaching of accepting the impermanent nature of all things and trying to see how much suffering we create for ourselves when we cling or get attached....
10.23.2023
Death with Noah Levine
So tonight the topic for exploration, meditation, and, discussion is death. We talk a lot about impermanence and the Buddha had a lot of teachings about death. So we're gonna talk about death tonight, our relationship to death and the...
10.07.2023
Suffering with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm gonna talk a lot about suffering, the first noble truth. We're gonna do a Tibetan meditation tonight called Tonglen. We’ll breathe in the suffering and breathe out compassion. Developing an attitude of friendliness and care, warmth and...
10.05.2023
Forgiveness with Noah Levine
The Buddha says “in order to really have loving kindness, we have to free ourselves from ill will. Let none despise any being in any state”. So this is a instruction… Just for a moment reflecting on how many people...
10.04.2023
Equanimity with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm going to talk about equanimity, which is a balancing to compassion. The whole goal of Buddhism is to learn to end suffering, not to add to it, not to compound it, but to end it. The whole teaching...
09.01.2023
Compassion with Noah Levine
Compassion is a central aspect of what the Buddha's path to liberation entails. Without compassion, there's certainly no freedom, certainly no happiness. It's a necessary skill that we have to develop. It's a radical one. It’s not a decision we...
08.25.2023
Heart Practices - Loving Kindness with Noah Levine
Tonight I'm gonna talk about and start a series for the next few Mondays where I'm gonna give teachings and practices on the, the Buddha's heart practices, what we call developing a wise heart. Positive emotional responses which are Loving...
08.18.2023
Soft Belly Meditation with Noah Levine
My father developed a soft Belly Meditation. It’s a mindfulness practice. If we wanted to fit it completely into the Buddhist teachings, it would be part of the first foundation of mindfulness. Mindfulness of the body, and becoming aware in...
08.11.2023
Renunciation with Noah Levine
I'm often talking about the difference between wanting and needing and that which we are attached to. Of course, the whole emphasis of Buddhism is that everything that we're clinging to, that we're attached to, is causing us suffering. The...
08.04.2023
Perseverance and Effort with Noah Levine
The transformation that Buddhism offers, the path to end suffering, it's such a gradual long-term process. Something that’s really a lifetime's endeavor. It's not a quick fix. It's not like you can learn meditation in 10 days, do 10 minute...
07.20.2023
Acceptance with Noah Levine
I'm gonna talk tonight about acceptance and the role of acceptance. Just kind of reflect a little bit on acceptance. I have a hard time accepting all of the oppression in this world. All the ignorance. What does Buddhism teach...
07.13.2023
July Q&A with Noah Levine
I have no planned topic for tonight and would like to just talk with you about whatever might be interesting for you. So reflect for a moment on questions you might have around meditation practice this form of theravada inspired...
07.11.2023
Impersonal Nature of Things with Noah Levine
Part of the Buddhist teaching is that if you can truly understand who you are and who you're not, you won't suffer so much. You won't take things so personally. You won't be so attached to your views, your opinions...
07.03.2023
Foundations of Mindfulness with Noah Levine
I wanna talk about mindfulness. It comes in the eightfold path as the seventh factor of the Buddha's path to awakening and there are four sections of mindfulness, the four foundations of mindfulness. Every week we're practicing mindfulness in here,...
06.23.2023
3 Aspects of Meditation with Noah Levine
Some of you've been practicing for a long time, and so of course you're aware that when we practice Buddhism, especially in this kind of tradition of Buddhism, you get this toolbox of meditations. You get the mindfulness practices, and...
06.08.2023
Different Realms of Existence with Noah Levine
One of the things I'm gonna talk about is this Buddhist teaching about six different realms of existence in the kind of cosmology of Buddhism. The problem with all of these Buddhist realms is that they're all impermanent. When you...
06.01.2023
Your Meditation Practice with Noah Levine
I invite you to reflect a little bit on where you're at in your practice, your meditation, your practice of Buddhism. What is interesting you? What questions do you have about how to work with, respond to, understand different aspects of...
05.30.2023
Love with Noah Levine
What's it feel like to love someone? Maybe some of it could be romantic love like, “I’m in love with this person”. But also just like, “I really love that friend”. Not romantic at all, but I just really love...
05.23.2023
Uncertainty with Noah Levine
We have a lot of views and opinions and ideas and, but what can we be actually completely confidently certain of Sure about? Our minds, the human mind, this natural phenomena that we all live with, a mind that worries...
05.11.2023
Developing Goodness with Noah Levine
Some of this could be framed in Buddhist's ideas around karma, good karma, positive actions, wise actions, bad karma or negative, unskillful harmful ways of behaving. I think that most people are seeking a little less suffering. A a bit...
05.03.2023
Money and Finances with Noah Levine
One of the core sources of suffering, joy and sorrow in our lives is around finances and money. Around attachment, fear, worry, clinging and generosity. All of the associated stuff around our relationship to money. I'll discuss some of the...
04.27.2023
Sex and Sexuality with Noah Levine
It's normal to create joy and sorrow around sex and sexuality and that Buddhism offers some radical transformative perspectives of how to engage intimacy and sexuality and love with less suffering, perhaps not so much suffering at all, ideally.
04.25.2023
Death with Noah Levine
Am I still alive? Yep. Breathing in, still alive? Yep. Breathing out, feeling sensation, feeling emotion. Feel, the feeling life. And this reflection that we're not exempt from the end of life, the, decay of the body, and all of...
04.13.2023
Practicing Forgiveness with Noah Levine
Everyone owns the karma of their actions. We're forgiving, the confused being that acted in that unskillful way, not the action.
04.06.2023
Freedom From Identification with Noah Levine
It said that one of the first levels of liberation or freedom from suffering is no longer being identified with or believing that you are your personality.

What's Against The Stream about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Against The Stream episodes:

Service, Generosity & Engagement with Noah Levine

Sex Talk with Noah Levine

Appreciation with Noah Levine

Equanimity with Noah Levine

Compassion with Noah Levine

Kindness with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk10 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk9 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk8 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk7 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk6 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk5 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk4 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk3 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk2 with Noah Levine

Mindfulness Series wk1 with Noah Levine

MLK Day with Noah Levine

Sorrow with Noah Levine

Sangha with Noah Levine

Reflections with Noah Levine

Suffering Of Existence with Noah Levine

Loving Ourselves with Noah Levine

Maladaptive Strategy with Noah Levine

Practice In Every Aspect Of Our Lives with Noah Levine

Q&A with Noah Levine

Letting Go with Noah Levine

Death with Noah Levine

Suffering with Noah Levine

Forgiveness with Noah Levine

Equanimity with Noah Levine

Compassion with Noah Levine

Heart Practices - Loving Kindness with Noah Levine

Soft Belly Meditation with Noah Levine

Renunciation with Noah Levine

Perseverance and Effort with Noah Levine

Acceptance with Noah Levine

July Q&A with Noah Levine

Impersonal Nature of Things with Noah Levine

Foundations of Mindfulness with Noah Levine

3 Aspects of Meditation with Noah Levine

Different Realms of Existence with Noah Levine

Your Meditation Practice with Noah Levine

Love with Noah Levine

Uncertainty with Noah Levine

Developing Goodness with Noah Levine

Money and Finances with Noah Levine

Sex and Sexuality with Noah Levine

Death with Noah Levine

Practicing Forgiveness with Noah Levine

Freedom From Identification with Noah Levine