Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) A guided meditation given as part of the Third Sunday program hosted by San Francisco Dharma Collective.

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery) This talk was given as part of the Third Sunday program hosted by San Francisco Dharma Collective.

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) In the Sallekha Sutta, MN 8, the Buddha teaches us how not to imitate the faults of others, and how to be fearless in the good and vanquish unwholesome mental habits. We start where we are and trust the path, learning to live wisely, to glimpse the fruits of letting go, reaching for the farther shore so that when fear dies, unconditional love will prevail. A talk given online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) Fear is the absence of love. Our inner purification is a movement away from fear to the embodiment of pure love - even to love the dying moment. We grow in stillness and peace as if sailing an ocean of joy, in the peace of the mind's deepest waters where we can touch the Deathless. A guided meditation and reflections offered during the Covid-19 pandemic.

(Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley) The Buddha spoke of hiri and ottappa (Shame and Dread) as "The Guardians of the World." These are considered two wholesome states as they can prevent us from engaging in unskillful actions. But guilt and shame associated with internalized racism can paralyze us or put up walls of resistance. This is especially true if we take those feelings personally and blame ourselves for the cultural conditioning we're shaped by. How can we work skillfully with those natural and understandable reactions?

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) Lovingkindness becomes full when it is energetically experienced in our bodies. This meditation guides us in awakening the receptivity, warmth and openness of metta through our body, and then invites us to rest in the space of loving presence, as we open to whatever arises.

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) All transformation arises out of love; it is the energy of caring about life that moves us toward inner, relational and societal healing. With a primary focus on our radically re-enlivened movement for racial justice and equity, this talk looks at ways of remembering what matters and consciously nourishing our care.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We open up five perspectives, the first three of which have more to do with understanding and the last two of which have more to do with practice and action. The five perspectives are: (1) remembering the Buddha's elimination of caste within his community; (2) understanding how greed, hatred (including racism), and delusion are not just personal but are also institutionalized; (3) understanding through looking at US history how race is a construction (with terrible consequences)-- both initially in the 17th century and later, commonly linked with divide-and-conquer strategies by those with economic and political power; (4) how our ethical practice calls us not just not to harm in our personal actions, but also not to let harm be done by others; and (5) the identification of different dimensions of transformative practice. The talk is followed by discussion.