(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Metta practice is a wonderful, ancient practice that has parallels in the cultivation of kindness and love in other spiritual traditions; developing the wise heart of kindness is an ancient vocation. There are also parallels with the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his emphasis on bringing love to help transform injustice; we play a brief recording from Dr. King. We also explore different dimensions of Metta practice and how it relates to other pathways of awakening through mindfulness and wisdom. We then look at some of the main challenges of Metta practice, such as distraction, repetitive thoughts, sleepiness, and challenging emotions and body states, and how to practice with them.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) In this Opening talk, the teachers offer a land acknowledgement, introduce themselves, and Kaira Jewel gives a short talk on what metta is, how to practice metta and how we can take refuge in the retreat container.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Stephen Fulder, the founder and senior teacher of Tovana (the Israel Insight Society), is in conversation with Donald Rothberg. We hold the understanding of "crisis" broadly, remembering that we are in the midst of multiple crises, while giving more attention to Israel/Palestine. Such crises are a major challenge to our dharma practice. In this context, we explore a number of different themes, including bringing our practice to difficult experiences that often arise in a crisis, such as fear, emotional pain, reactivity, numbness, and the presence of repetitive negative narratives and views. We also identify, during the conversation, a number of resources, including qualities of compassion, empathy, equanimity, and the importance of finding a "refuge"and deep support in different ways. The conversation is followed by discussion, and a closing guided meditation.

[During the conversation, we see a short (3:28) video of Tovana teachers speaking a sentence each about the current crisis, in Hebrew, with English sub-titles. The video can be seen at https://youtu.be/NqKoCm2TMhA?feature=shared.]

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin with a brief review of the framework of ten foundations for practicing with differences and conflicts (defining conflicts as differences of goals, values, views, strategies, etc. and not necessarily involving hostility or aggression). Then we apply the ten foundations as guides for seeing how we can bring our practice (both more "inner" and more "outer") to the seemingly complex and intractable conflict of Israel/Palestine. After the talk, there is discussion of a number of areas and questions.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We start by reviewing briefly the two times' accounts of the foundations for practicing with differences and conflicts, first giving a definition of "conflict" as a difference of values, goals, or strategies, and not necessarily involving hostility or aggression. There's an invitation to focus on a conflict in one's life that is in the moderate range of difficulty, and bring this to mind as we work with ten foundations of skillful practice with conflict.

We look again briefly at the multiple reasons why bringing our practice to conflicts is often difficult, and then review the more "inner" four foundations of skillful practice with conflict (1-4). We then bring in six further foundations which are more "outer," including (5) developing guidelines and agreements, especially in groups or organizations, but also with individuals; (6) clarifying a vision of a "win-win" or "both-and" approach to conflicts that meet the underlying interests or needs of all concerned; and (7) developing empathy. We offer two brief empathy practices, including one done in the context of one's own conflict. Three further foundations are offered: (8) grounding in Buddhist ethics, particularly the precepts and the understanding that one should bring care and kindness to all, and that all have Buddha Nature; (9) skillful speech (part of ethical training); and (10) the bringing of these ethical dimensions into collective life, through nonviolent action and the concept, in Dr. King's work, of the beloved community. After the talk, there is a discussion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We start by reviewing last week's initial account of the foundations for practicing with differences and conflicts, first giving a definition of "conflict" as a difference of values, goals, or strategies, and not necessarily involving hostility or aggression. We also look again briefly at the multiple reasons why bringing our practice to conflicts is often difficult, and then review the more "inner" four foundations of skillful practice with conflict. We then bring in three further foundations which are more "outer": developing guidelines and agreements, especially in groups or organizations, but also with individuals; clarifying a vision of a "win-win" or "both-and" approach to conflicts that meet the underlying interests or needs of all concerned; and developing empathy. After the talk, there is a discussion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin by identifying the importance of developing skillful practice with differences and conflicts, whether inner conflicts or interpersonal conflicts or group or organizational conflicts or social or international conflicts. The claim is that the general principles and practices are fundamentally the same, even as the practices take different forms when there are more complexities.

We first give a definition of "conflict" as a difference of values, goals, or strategies, and as not necessarily involving hostility or aggression. This definition may help to go against the prevalence of negative conditioning about conflicts; we look at a number of reasons why bringing our practice to conflicts is commonly difficult. For the rest of the talk, we examine four more "inner" foundations of skillful practice with conflict: examining our own conditioning; working with the core relevant teachings of the Buddha, particularly about the nature of reactivity (as in the teaching of the Two Arrows); practicing with difficult emotions, body states, and thoughts; and bringing in the heart practices. After the talk, there is a discussion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin by acknowledging the importance of Wise Speech practice, and then outline four foundations of Wise Speech that we've explored in previous talks. We then review how we can bring Wise Speech into difficult or challenging situations. The last half of the talk goes further, and explores how we can bring aspects of Wise Speech into situations of social and political polarization, including in our present time in the U.S. (and other countries). We watch two brief videos. The first is a selection from "A Force More Powerful" (a 6-part series on nonviolent action), on a moment of powerful empathic yet firm speech from Diane Nash at a critical moment in the Civil Rights movement in Nashville in 1960 (go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4dDVeAU3u4&t=3082s, with the video shared going from 43:04 to 48:58). The second is a brief contemporary account of an experience of "deep canvassing" (and deep listening) by Caitlin Homrich-Kneileng in rural Michigan (go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no0NzGhwobA). This is followed by discussion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We first review four foundations of wise speech: (1) developing presence in the midst of communication; (2) working with the four guidelines for skillful speech developed by the Buddha; (3) bringing our mindfulness and skillful responses to our thoughts, emotions, and body states into our speech practice; and (4) empathy practice, tuning into others' and our own emotions and sense of "what matters." We then explore the importance of being with challenges and difficulties in our practice generally, and do two exercises exploring a difficult or challenging interaction with another, including working with an "empathy map." Discussion follows. (Materials on emotions [or feelings], needs, and an "empathy map" are given below, under "documents.")