The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Donald Rothberg: Dukkha and the End of Dukkha: The Core Teaching of the Buddha

   (Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley) The Buddha famously said, "I teach dukkha [suffering or reactivity or a sense of unsatisfactoriness] and the cessation of dukkha.” We explore this core teaching as it is expressed in the Four Noble Truths and the teachings of the Two Arrows and Dependent Origination, including ways that it can be confusing. We suggest ways to understand and implement this teaching both in formal meditation and in everyday life. (See document 328 below, on "Four Meanings of Dukkha, and Contact to Grasping in the Dependent Origination Model.")

   September 03, 2026·51min
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   Number 2: Ayya Santussika: Guilt: A Lightning Rod for the Sense of Self

   (Karuna Buddhist Vihara) This guided meditation, dhamma talk, comments, questions and responses was offered on the 12th of September, 2026 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00:19 - GUIDED MEDITATION 0:17:22 - DHAMMA TALK 0:59:24 - COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & RESPONSES

   September 12, 2026·1h 32min
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   Number 3: Donald Rothberg: Practicing the Wise Speech Guideline of Truthfulness: Four Dimensions of Practice 2

   (Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We review the importance of giving attention to ethical practice, and how it has often been marginalized in Western Buddhism, with meditation typically being at the center (as is evident in speaking of “meditation centers” and “meditation groups”). Wise Speech, as one of the three aspects of ethical practice named in the Noble Eightfold Path, is particularly important in contemporary Western practice; we can have an opportunity for many hours a day of spiritual practice if we bring Wise Speech practice into our lives! The Buddha’s four guidelines for Wise Speech were truthfulness, helpfulness, care and kindness, and appropriateness (especially good timing). We focus, in this second talk on the first guideline of truthfulness, on how we understand and practice being truthful in our relational and social lives, with reference also to how truthfulness is understood in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. We see how truthfulness is crucial in communities and societies, what the consequences are of a lack of truthfulness, and how one dimension of our Wise Speech practice is helping to develop more truthfulness in our communities and societies. The talk is followed by discussion.

   September 16, 2026·54min
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   Number 4: Devon Hase: Like the River Flows: Anattā, Impermanence, and the Freedom of no Fixed Address

   (Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) A dharma talk exploring anattā through the five aggregates and the Anattālakkhaṇa Sutta, alongside Anāthapiṇḍika's deathbed teaching from Sāriputta. Weaves impermanence and death contemplation together with not-self - drawing on Thanissaro Bhikkhu's pragmatic (not metaphysical) framing of not-self - and closes with mettā as the natural fruit of a loosened, undefended heart.

   August 27, 2026·48min
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   Number 5: Mushim Ikeda: Great Rivers Flow Silently

   (Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

   September 13, 2026·56min
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