Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Cittaviveka) We seek steadiness and happiness from that which is inherently changing and unsteady – the constructed notions of future, past, myself and others. Withdraw from the tangle, acknowledge without getting involved. When you collect your heart with presence and acknowledge the tangle and the stress, there’s empathy rather than agitation. Good qualities naturally arise from that stable empathetic basis.

(Cittaviveka) Encourage attention to find its way back through the tangle, back to the basis of citta. Sentient, present, withdrawn from the mental landscapes and the personal scenarios. Fully dwelt in, lingered in, citta, in its basis, is happy.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) The powerful COVID-19 virus teacher has brought us to the brink of widespread systems change and deep uncertainty about how things will unfold. There is a hunger for a more profound understanding of the links between ecosystem collapse and public health threats, between patterns of economic domination and racial injustice. Systems thinking and Buddhist views together offer skillful means for making sense of these interlocking calls for action.

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) Aloka-Dharma-Zoom | Geführte Meditation

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) Aloka-Dharma-Zoom

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) John O’Donahue writes, “We are so busy managing our lives, we forget this great mystery we are involved in.” This talk looks at the ways we pull away from the mystery and the path of “beginners mind” that enables us to encounter this living world with freshness, courage and wonder (a special talk from the 2013 archives).

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) In the moments we release all resistance, we relax open to inhabit the fullness of our Being. This meditation guides us to an embodied, openhearted presence that welcomes the changing flow of life.

(Cittaviveka) The realization of changeability can be transformational and liberating. When we deepen into presence, we can review the contents of the mind with spaciousness – without identifying with anything, without creating a self. With this quality of relinquishment, wonderful dhammas arise – spaciousness, clarity compassion – the ending of suffering.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We continue to explore the nature of faith (or confidence or trust), how it is developed, and the challenges that arise. We look at the traditional teachings on faith (or saddha) in several contexts, and examine how faith or confidence develops in our practice and in our lives We particularly look at some of the challenges that arise, both in the everyday experience of the Eight Worldly Winds, and in more protracted experiences of something like the "Dark Night of the Soul." The last part of the talk points to what mature faith, confidence, and trust look like, a kind of faith in our own depths and in our own deep resting in the nature of things. We then have a period of discussion and sharing.

(Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community) This talk offers reflections on a metaphor found in the Dona Sutta as well as offering a way of pausing found in the course: Practicing in 3D found at https://mailchi.mp/3af4c5cd014d/practicing-in-3d