Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) This meditation guides us in embodying loving presence through a body scan, and then meeting whatever arises with a tender heart. We close with a beautiful blessing-poem from John O’Donohue.

(Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC) A key way stress disconnects us from ourselves and each other is through the limbic reactivity of blame. This talk helps us to recognize the suffering of chronic blame, resentment and anger, and to bring a healing presence to the vulnerability that underlies blame.

(Cambridge Insight Meditation Center)

(Gaia House) Spreading mettā through body and mind, and all that appears in body, and to mind, then opening that out to all beings everywhere...

(Gaia House) Hindrances appear in daily life, on the 'cushion', and right into deep experiences: if there is an appearance there must be a hindrance in someway, pushing and pulling at life. How can we be approariate to what arises? Joyfully breaking the (so called) hindrances into 5, or 3, or just 1, is a way of looking at these fabricated experiences, that helps us approach them with skill, flexibility, and freedom, no matter where they arise.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin with some remembering of our current context of crisis, and the possibility of having major learning and transformation come out of this time—personally, relationally, and collectively—rather than simply going back to the old “normal.” Then we continue to explore the different dimensions of awakening from our habits and conditioning, here looking at what may be the most central dimension—transforming dukkha (or “reactivity”—compulsively grasping after the pleasant, pushing away the unpleasant); the Buddha said once, “I teach dukkha and the end of dukkha.” We examine: (1) the nature of dukkha or reactivity, grounding in the core teachings of Dependent Origination and the Two Arrows; (2) the nature of non-reactivity, or freedom or liberation or responsiveness; and (3) how to practice to transform reactivity, identifying six ways of practicing, and focusing here on the first four.

(Gaia House)

(Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery)

(Gaia House) Bringing the heart and mind into the body, holding the body in heart and mind. Then keeping the awareness spread including beings we feel grateful for, and those who are struggling right now. Wishing them and all beings well.

(Common Ground Meditation Center)