Be Here Now Network

Highlighting the impermanence of experience, Joseph Goldstein leads a practice in noticing mental and physical sensations.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein offers a guided practice on:

Working with thought and emotion

Full body awareness without effort or struggling

Noticing the breath and other sensations

Being aware of thoughts just as they are arising

Opening up to the fullness of experience

The power of naming emotions

Sensing the impermanent nature of all things

Moving from the conceptual into direct experience

The seduction of our thoughts

This 2018 recording from an Insight Meditation Retreat was originally published by Dharmaseed

“We don’t have to do anything to make things change. The very nature of whatever is arising, whether it’s in the body or the mind, the very nature is that whatever arises will also pass away.” – Joseph Goldstein

Offering wisdom on the challenging yet necessary work of spiritual practice, Krishna Das explains working through difficulty and finding answers in ourselves.

This time on Pilgrim Heart, Krishna Das offers wisdom on:

Dealing with family issues

Untying emotional knots through practice

Doing spiritual work and cleaning our hearts

Releasing the programming from our past

Treating others well and making positive karma

Chanting, mantra repetition, and serving others for deeper consciousness

Continual growth in spiritual practice

Being present, being with the sound of the name

Experiencing the space around our thoughts

Finding answers within ourselves

The roots of depression and anger

Today’s episode originally aired on Krisha Das’ “Hanging Out In the Heart Space” online satsang on May 5th, 2022. Be sure to subscribe to Krishna Das on Youtube to get new episodes of “Hanging Out In the Heart Space”, fresh music from KD and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzvMbKEud7MqkIVdFjfHXQ

“Removing the energy out of the traumatic experiences and experiences that formed us is a big job. It’s a really big thing. Don’t think of it as a waste of time. It’s our spiritual work. We’re cleaning our hearts of anger, betrayal, hurt, damage, grief, and shame, all the stuff that we’ve learned and absorbed as children in our families and in life.” – Krishna Das

This week on Mindrolling, RamDev and Raghu discuss:

RamDev’s background in mathematics and recognizing patterns

How people in the West are not as embodied as in the East

The first three chakras of fear, guilt, and shame

Psychedelics and other dimensions of reality

Going beyond separateness

Compassion and non-dual practices

Taming the monkey-mind

Sub ek and quantum entanglement

Stories about Maharaj-ji’s mystical existence

Hope for the future and allowing our hearts to be vulnerable

A meditation around inclusivity through compassion

About RamDev:

Dale Borglum is the founder and Executive Director of The Living/Dying Project. He is a pioneer in the conscious dying movement and has worked directly with thousands of people with life-threatening illness and their families for over 30 years. In 1981, Dale founded the first residential facility for people who wished to die consciously in the United States, The Dying Center. He has taught and lectured extensively on the topics of spiritual support for those with life-threatening illness, on caregiving as a spiritual practice, and on healing at the edge, the edge of illness, of death, of loss, of crisis. Check out RamDev’s podcast, Healing at the Edge, on the Be Here Now Network.

Learn more about The Living/Dying Project at livingdying.org

“In Buddhism, they say that when the mind is totally awakened, naturally arising compassionate activity occurs. You don’t have to try to be compassionate, you are compassion. Compassion is not even an emotion, it’s a state of openness of the heart in relationship to suffering.” – RamDev

In a dharma talk on working with thoughts and emotions, Joseph Goldstein explains the impersonal and empty nature of the mind.

This week on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein teaches us about:

- Observing how mind states and thoughts mutually condition each other

- The way that thoughts carry us away into different emotional states

- Looking at the direct nature and meaning of thought

- Noticing the difference between being lost and being awake

- Viewing our thoughts just as they arise

- Not overthinking and focusing on the simplicity of a practice

- The six things that are ever arising or passing: our senses

- Maintaining open awareness and experiencing the flow

“Well, what is a thought? It’s quite remarkable because when we look at that level, not on the level of the story or the content, but thought as a phenomenon, we see that it is barely more than nothing. It is so phenomenal. These thoughts arise, and the content can be so compelling, but as a phenomenon, as the nature of thought, it’s just this little energy blip in the mind. If we’re not getting hooked by the content, it has no power at all.” – Joseph Goldstein

Illustrating how to free yourself from fear and opinion, Jack reveals how to overcome suffering by cultivating a pure heart.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there." – Robert M. Pirsig

In this episode, Jack skillfully illuminates:

- Skillful ways to free yourself from stuck views and opinions

- Ram Dass's teaching advice to Jack

- Balancing life's sufferings with life's joys

- Zen wisdom on how to drop your views

- Accepting what you see and rejecting what you think

- Overcoming suffering by living with a pure heart

- Buddha's 'Fire Sermon' teachings

- The way attachment connects to fear, and how to get to the root

- How views and opinions keep you separate, ego-focused, and defensive

- Working with racism and fear by imbibing wakefulness and mindfulness

- Overcoming opinions and and views by the method of noting/naming

This Dharma Talk originally recorded on 1/1/1989 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in an online masterclass cohort starting this June! http://bit.ly/InteractiveCohort

Come hang out with Chris Grosso and Brian Fair from the band Shadows Fall as they chat about life, meditation, and the golden eras of skateboarding and punk rock.

In this episode, Chris and Brian dive into:

The new wave of skateboarding

Brian’s initial exposure to metal music

Skateboarding in the 1980’s and 90’s

Growing up catholic and being disillusioned with religion

Brian’s dabbling into meditation and Hatha yoga

Music and movement as a form of meditation

Moving away from perfectionism

Being there for each other

About Brian Fair:

Brian Fair is an American musician from Massachusetts, best known as lead vocalist of the metalcore band Shadows Fall. He is a skateboarder, father, and thrives off yelling at people on stage. Keep up with Brian on Instagram.

“That’s what’s funny about meditation, and a reason why I think people may not realize it’s not just about sitting in silence. It’s about being fully in a moment regardless of what transported you there. It can happen through music, through physical movement, or through silence or stillness.” – Brian Fair

Moving through the senses, JoAnna Hardy guides listeners in a meditation to acquire stillness of the mind.

In this episode, JoAnna Hardy guides us through:

The benefits of having clarity and a still mind

The breath-body central focus

Gaining self-trust

Paying attention to the sounds and sights around us without assigning meaning

Working the muscle of awareness

Reengaging with the breath when the mind gets busy

About JoAnna Hardy:

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice.

“Seeing shapes, colors, shadow, light, noticing if we look at an object very simply as those shapes and colors and shadows and light, it’s very different than immediately having the idea of what they are. Just allowing seeing, just seeing of an object without a decision about it.” – JoAnna Hardy

Uncovering how to find joy and freedom in any situation, Jack shares the roadmap for discovering peace within yourself.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in this online masterclass cohort starting this June! Learn more and register at bit.ly/InteractiveCohort

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Peace is the cessation of your struggle, it’s putting down the burden and letting things be as they actually are.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

- Learning to be at peace with yourself and the world

- How to meditate when it feels like you can’t meditate

- The way emptiness connects with compassion

- Reconciling where peace meets struggle

- Peace as an internal state you can bring with you

- Being Here Now, opening to life fully, and becoming intimate with all things

- How we can find joy, liberation, and freedom in any situation

- Dharma stories of the Buddha as well as the Bodhisattva Vimalakīrti

- Coming to terms with the First Noble Truth of suffering, disappointment, and change

- The transformative power of meeting life exactly as it is

- What we can learn from both a “Duck Meditation,” “Goose Poem,” and a Tibetan Prayer

- Love and it’s connection with courage

This Dharma Talk originally recorded on 12/01/1989 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“We can’t come to rest because we’re at war with what’s actually here.” – Jack Kornfield

“To enter into the unknown is really to enter into the moment.” – Jack Kornfield

Distinguishing commentary from direct experience, Gil Fronsdal helps us break free from the conventions and comparisons that the mind makes.

In this episode, Gil Fronsdal speaks to listeners about:

- Paying homage to those who have purified their hearts

- Direct experience versus attempting to describe things

- The way that comparison arises

- Self-image and appreciating our own suchness

- Resting in the part of ourselves that is not an idea or a concept

- The conditioning that can happen from society

- Wisdom from sitting with physical pain

- Living in the present moment instead of the stories we tell ourselves

- Letting things be as they are

- Seeing God in our simple, direct experiences

- Coming back to the breath and practicing all throughout the day

- This 1998 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed

“Most of us know the wonderful smell of a rose, but if you could try to describe in words what that fragrance is, you’d have a hard time I think. The actual sense, the direct experience of smell, is something we can all experience – seeing this flower as it is. In Buddhism, there is a lot of emphasis on seeing things as they are.” – Gil Fronsdal

Joseph Goldstein meets us at the constellation of self, the duality of self, and the need for mindfulness.

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein gets into:

Duality and how it relates to our meditation practice

The fundamental split of object and subject

Limitations from perceiving our selves as separate

Persona and the identification we have with the world

The progression from fullness/oneness to constriction

Having compassion for the shadow side

How fear desire, and attachment, make us more attached to our sense of self

Being imprisoned and conditioned by dualistic perception

The integration of mind and body and love for all experience as the connector

From the ego center to the zero center

Being totally honest with what is happening

Mindfulness as the tool to stop identification

The power of renunciation and restraint

This 2005 dharma talk was originally published by Dharmaseed

“As long as we are identified with that sense of self in the mind, that identification creates fear, attachment, separation, comparing. If there’s an “I”, if there’s a self, then we have to defend it, we have to protect it, we have to gratify it, and our whole lives revolve around this particular identification.” – Joseph Goldstein