Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) In this guided meditation, we start with about 10 minutes of settling. We then attend to when there is a moderate or greater pleasant or unpleasant feeling-tone, bringing some investigation as to what occurs in ones' experience, including tendencies to reactivity (grasping or pushing away). Toward the end of the guided meditation, there's an invitation to track for those forms of reactivity coming after one of the Eight Worldly Winds (pleasure or pain, gain or loss, fame or disrepute, and praise or blame).

(Cittaviveka) Suffering tends to isolate us into a small tight heap forming around a particular topic. In this narrow field we lose access to gladness, self-acceptance, and forgiveness. Breathing through the agitating energies, feel them as just that – it’s not personal, we can rise above. Willing to touch what’s difficult with gladness, we can meet the failing world without getting upset.

(Common Ground Meditation Center) The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.

This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.

(Common Ground Meditation Center) The Buddhist Studies courses are designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Classes will include dharma talks, large and small group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.

This six week course is a continuation of our year-long study of the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. With mindfulness of the mind, the Buddha invites us to notice whether the mind is with or without greed, anger, or delusion. We can learn to discern whether the mind is contracted and distracted or whether the mind is open and still. Learning to recognize the shape and quality of the mind is the first step toward deepening insight and release.

(Cittaviveka) The Buddha teaches the middle way between the extremes. This quality of balance extends from right view, the recognition that actions extend beyond oneself – into the world around, to other people; it sets up what develops next for oneself. It matters which way the mind dips. Stay upright in that center that deepens into samādhi and wisdom, extending goodwill and clarity across whatever we contact and touch.

(Cittaviveka) When mindfulness is based on right view, there is understanding of skillful and unskillful mind-states and the effects they give rise to. Otherwise mindfulness is merely attention. Right mindfulness, established firmly in the body, has the quality of steadiness and stillness, witnessing and non-involvement with phenomena. Mindfulness is about returning to body and breathing – ground, space, center.

(Cambridge Insight Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We are each other's bond. We are each other's community. We are each other's family. What we most want, perhaps, is to be listened to in the deepest way, to be met with the heart.

When we learn to rest in awareness, there’s both caring and silence. There is listening for what’s the next thing to do and awareness of all that’s happening, a big space and a connected feeling of love. When there is enough space, our whole being can both comprehend the situation and be at ease. We see the dance of life, we dance beautifully, yet we’re not caught in it.