Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) Aloka-Dharma-Zoom

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Compassion Part 3

(Auckland Insight Meditation) Finishing the series of talks on the five clinging-aggregates with a short overview of consciousness as a clinging-aggregate

(Auckland Insight Meditation) Beginning by settling attention in the body, then bringing awareness to the mind, noticing mental activity centred around a sense of "I"

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) A guided meditation and Dhamma talk hosted by the West Seattle Sangha, Eastside Insight Sangha, and Seattle Friends of the Dhamma. The talk is on the role of desire on the Path and supports for maintaining the practice over time

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Patience and Perseverance

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We continue to explore the important, complex, and often challenging theme of practicing with views (or beliefs)--a central theme of individual practice and a vital area in the contemporary collective context. We first review the teachings of the Buddha on views, mentioning several key texts in which it's clear that he takes a highly pragmatic approach to views; views are helpful if they are conducive to awakening and traditional Indian metaphysical views are both not helpful and not ultimately resolvable in terms of their validity. An approach to views is unskillful if based on reactivity, on grasping or fixating, on the one hand, or pushing away in aversion, on the other. We also explore how many social views are the result of manipulation and control, as in propaganda and the social construction, often for reasons of manipulation, of many of our most central concepts and views. In the last part of the talk, we explore several ways of practicing with views, including (1) developing mindfulness of views, (2) inquiring into fixed views (we outline a number of methods), and (3) cultivating listening and empathy. The talk is followed by discussion, with comments and questions.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The Buddha famously said, “I have dukkha and the end of dukkha.” Yet it can be confusing to know what the Buddha might have meant. One reason for the confusion is that there are multiple accounts of dukkha in the discourses; we explore four of them, finding that, for the first three, it doesn't make sense to speak of the "the end of dukkha." Only for the fourth sense of dukkha, which we find both in the teaching of the Two Arrows (or Darts) and in the teaching of Dependent Origination does "the end of dukkha" make sense. On this basis, we then explore the nature of dukkha, interpreted especially as reactivity, which we find in two forms--grasping and pushing away. We lastly explore eight core ways of practicing with dukkha.