Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) Aloka-Dharma-Zoom

(Insight Meditation Retreats) (Day 1) Compassion is the open heart's response to suffering and a profound resource for meeting life. By attending to our experience closely we can develop compassion for ourselves and the world with the care and strength of an old friend.

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) When we are stressed, our body and mind contract, and energetically we resist the life in the present moment. This meditation helps de-condition the stress reaction by guiding us to relax open from thoughts, relax physical tension, and gently relax back over and over into living presence.

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) While it’s natural to have fears of what’s ahead, when we learn to face the inevitability of change and loss without resistance, we discover true peace and freedom in the midst. In a very direct way, our awareness of impermanence awakens unconditional loving. These two talks explore the ways we habitually deny or resist reality, and the three interrelated pathways—refuge in the present moment, love and awareness—that liberate us.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We start with a brief review of what we’ve explored in the last two sessions on this theme, including the importance of both doing and not-doing in Buddhist practice and the nature of identification with the “doer” (and the related themes of self, time, and the future). We then go into more depth inquiring into the nature of the “doer,” including a brief guided meditation looking into the experience of “doing” and opening to not-doing in meditation. We lastly further investigate traditions (Jewish, Christian, Taoist, and Buddhist) that point to the importance of a doing coming out of not-doing, and ways that we can experience and explore this doing coming out of not-doing in daily life, including in the experiences of creativity in art and music, and being “in the zone” in sports.

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community)

(Dharma Zephyr Insight Meditation Community) Question and Answers including: What is the one breath and one awareness? What is a spiritual bypass? What is a way to open up space when stuck in emotions? How do we act with right action in Buddhism?

(Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley) James Baraz and Eve Decker

When we develop a basic kindness towards ourselves we not only learn to accept the difficult parts, but in the process embrace our humanity and see more clearly the beauty that's inside. As we do that we allow our goodness and True Nature to shine through. This becomes a gift to everyone we meet, a healing energy that awakens the goodness in others as well.