Be Here Now Network

Traversing the receptive energy of water, Jack Kornfield details the power of fluidity, serenity, and gentleness.

This lecture was originally uploaded on DharmaSeed.org

A spiritual journey is often quite gradual. It is not typical to one day wake up and have a deep relationship with God or become enlightened. That gradual deepening we feel as we tune into our practice is much like a body of water. We are open, receptive, and vast. The mystery of being is that we do not know our destiny or how our spiritual journey will form, but like water, we can yield to the mystery.

"Do you have the constancy to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving and present until the right action arises by itself?"

In an inspiring conversation on serving the next generation with sacred rites and mindful guidance, director Frederick Marx joins Raghu Markus.

Frederick Marx is an internationally acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy-nominated director/writer with 40 years in the film business. He was named a Chicago Tribune Artist of the Year, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Special Achievement Award. His film HOOP DREAMS played in hundreds of theaters nationwide after winning the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was the first documentary ever chosen to close the New York Film Festival.

“I’ve always been looking for ways to bring the sacred back into the every day and to make our lives that much more meaningful.” – Frederick Marx

In this devotional space with Krishna Das, we learn that we can always come back home to the chant.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

“Every once in a while we notice that we are not paying attention and that is when we simply let go of that thought and come back to the chant. That’s why the chant is there, to give you something to come home to.” – Krishna Das

Ethan Nichtern welcomes David Nichtern back to the show for an extremely moist conversation around communication, community, interdependence, aging, and much more.

David Nichtern is the Founder of Dharma Moon and the host of the Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck podcast on Be Here Now Network.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

Register now for Dharma Moon’s Yearlong Buddhist Studies Info Session with Ethan Nichtern on December 20th from 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm ET

“When there’s good communication, you build community. It’s no accident those two words have the same root. You’re communing.” – David Nichtern

Joseph Goldstein provides an uncommon sense view of selflessness to help us understand the often vexing notion of no-self and talks about how we can be free from the illusion of self.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

“Self is like the Big Dipper. It’s a name, it’s a designation for a constellation of experiences. So when we say there’s no Big Dipper, does anything change in the sky? Everything is as it always was. In exactly the same way, our realization of selflessness does not change anything. Our experience is as it always was and will be. We’re simply seeing it in a truer way, we’re seeing it not limited by the conceptual overlay. We’re seeing it as it is. Then we can use the concept when it’s useful, but we’re not imprisoned by it, and we’re not limited by it, and we don’t contract in our identification with it.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from February 11, 2003, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

Through catalysts of compassion and acceptance, Jack Kornfield guides us into a life of lasting transformation.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

“We are a pattern, a process, that is never the same. In this process of our life, the patterns that continue for us flow out of our intentions.” – Jack Kornfield

This dharma talk was originally published on DharmaSeed.org

Enter into the luminous darkness as author and educator, Deborah Eden Tull, joins RamDev for this yin-focused dharma talk.

Deborah Eden Tull is a zen meditation and engaged dharma teacher, public speaker, author, and sustainability educator. She is also the founder of Mindful Living Revolution. She trained for seven and a half years as a Buddhist monk at a silent zen monastery and has taught engaged dharma for over 20 years. Deborah has lived in sustainable communities and as an organic gardener/farmer for decades and celebrates the essential wisdom of nature. She currently resides in the mountains of western North Carolina, originally Cherokee land, with her husband. She offers retreats, workshops, classes, and consultations nationally and internationally, integrating presence and partnership with nature. Her newest book, Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown, is now available for purchase.

“There is power and resilience and love that awaits us when we are willing to turn towards and meet our shadows rather than push them away.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Dr. Sará King and Duncan Trussell join Raghu at the Ram Dass retreat to talk trust, interbeing, vulnerability, loneliness, and getting contact high.

Dr. Sará King is a UCLA-trained neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, social entrepreneur, public speaker, and yoga and mindfulness meditation instructor. She has over 20 years of experience as a research scientist, and specializes in the study of the relationship between mindfulness, complementary alternative medicine, and social justice. She is the scientific consultant for Peace in Schools, a dharma teacher with Presence Collective, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Neurology, and the founder of MindHeart Consulting, a scientific consultancy offering seminars, research and development, and trauma healing circles.

For more on Sará’s offerings, please visit mindheartconsulting.com and follow her at @mindheartcollective.

"That feeling of being in our heads with our egos is part of the experience of being human. So you can have great compassion for yourself around that experience—it's natural, it's okay, and it's part of the practice of recognizing in that moment and bringing yourself that compassion." – Dr. Sará King

Through bearing witness, love and service, Llewellyn shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is the author of Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart, and the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Check out his new podcast Working With Oneness.

"What matters is what we bring to this intimate exchange, whether our prayers are heartfelt or just a mental exercise. It is always through the heart that our prayers are heard. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Joseph Goldstein takes a deep dive into the law of karma, how it affects us in our practice and daily lives, and how can we apply it in a way that it becomes the condition for our happiness.

This dharma talk from November 11, 2003, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“So we can see these are karmic results of one thing or another coming as impressions in the mind. But when we bring awareness to them, when we bring a certain compassionate understanding, then our practice becomes a great purifying process.” – Joseph Goldstein