In this unique offering from the Love Serve Remember Foundation archives, Joseph Goldstein joins Ram Dass for a conversation around love, emptiness, soul, the notion of self, and much more.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommmune.com/ramdass

“And let’s not forget joy. In you is joy. In you is compassion. Peace. Emptiness. And love. Those are all in you. In you. Now, manifest them in your behaviors. And your thoughts.” – Ram Dass

In this episode:

• Joseph and Ram Dass reminisce about the early days of their friendship and how their relationship has evolved over the years
• They respond to a question about whether there’s a relationship between love and Tao, exploring the concepts of self (and no self), emptiness, and soul
• Ram Dass asks Joseph about the concept of dharma and they discuss the way of nature
• The conversation veers into karma, free will, and whether or not everything is predetermined
• They touch the mysterious forces at work in the universe and the power of imagination
• Joseph and Ram Dass respond to a question about developing compassion amidst intense polarization
• Ram Dass ends with a brief guided meditation

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Exploring the dharma of liberation, Joseph invite us beyond delusion and into the true nature of mind as innate wakefulness.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommmune.com/ramdass

“Sudden awakening is not a state of mind that is developed—it's the innate wakefulness of mind, it's the nature of mind that is free of delusion. When delusion is not present, there is the experience of awareness, of wakefulness.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from February 16, 2000, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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Joseph Goldstein explores the tendency of desire, how we can understand this driving force of Samsara, and how we can practice being free of it.

“Desire is not an insignificant conditioning in us, and it takes many forms. And it’s really not the form or even the object that’s terribly important or interesting. It’s that force, it’s that energy, it’s that habit pattern of wanting. When we don’t see it, when we’re caught, when we’re identified with that wanting mind, it obscures the natural freedom of mind. It obscures the recognition of the open, empty, selfless nature of awareness.” – Joseph Goldstein

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommmune.com/ramdass

In this episode, Joseph shares his insight on:

• The clear, unobstructed nature of the mind, and how deeply habituated patterns such as desire can obscure our natural wisdom
• The craving for sense pleasures
• Desires that manifest in our meditation practice in the forms of the expecting mind, the comparing mind, and trying to hold on to a past experience
• The desire for existence, and the craving for non-existence
• How we can better understand the powerful conditioning of desire in all of its forms and free ourselves from identification with it

This dharma talk from January 3, 2005, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Joseph Goldstein explores the 10 unwholesome activities and actions of the body, speech, and mind that the Buddha advises us all to refrain from for our own happiness and well-being.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommune.com/ramdass 

This dharma talk from October 29, 1995, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“The whole path of practice of understanding is realizing that we actually have choices all along the way. We don’t simply need to be acting out the patterns of our conditioning. And this is the great gift of awareness, it gives us the possibility of choice.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode, Joseph explores:

How the Buddha’s motivation was compassion for all beings, and how this led to him explicitly spelling out the 10 unskilled and unwholesome actions to refrain from

The four unwholesome actions of the body: killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct

The four unwholesome elements of speech: lying, harsh speech, gossiping, and frivolous and useless talking

The three unwholesome activities of the mind: covetousness, ill will, and wrong view

How the great power of awareness is the way to work with all of these actions and activities as they arise

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Joseph Goldstein explores the suffering that comes with wanting, the three types of desire, and why our investigation is to notice the ways the mind gets caught and the ways it can be free.

This dharma talk from October 10, 1999, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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“When we’re lost in the wanting mind, in the mind of desire, it solidifies and strengthens the sense of self, the sense of ‘I,’ and it obscures the natural clarity, the recognition of the natural clarity and lucidity and emptiness of our own minds. So it’s a great obscuring force when we’re not paying attention.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein explores the Buddha’s life and journey, reflecting on the four stages of this mythological unfolding of awakening and how we can all achieve the enlightenment that is the end of craving.

This dharma talk from May 5, 2004, at the Insight Meditation Society – Forest Refuge, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“On this archetypal level, the Buddha’s life is not simply the strivings and realizations of a particular individual, we can also understand his life as the unfolding of a great mythological journey. Now, mythological here does not mean unreal, it doesn’t mean imaginary. The great power of myth in our lives is that it connects our individual experiences with more universal principles.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein provides an uncommon sense view of selflessness to help us understand the often vexing notion of no-self and talks about how we can be free from the illusion of self.

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“Self is like the Big Dipper. It’s a name, it’s a designation for a constellation of experiences. So when we say there’s no Big Dipper, does anything change in the sky? Everything is as it always was. In exactly the same way, our realization of selflessness does not change anything. Our experience is as it always was and will be. We’re simply seeing it in a truer way, we’re seeing it not limited by the conceptual overlay. We’re seeing it as it is. Then we can use the concept when it’s useful, but we’re not imprisoned by it, and we’re not limited by it, and we don’t contract in our identification with it.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from February 11, 2003, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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Joseph Goldstein takes a deep dive into the law of karma, how it affects us in our practice and daily lives, and how can we apply it in a way that it becomes the condition for our happiness.

This dharma talk from November 11, 2003, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“So we can see these are karmic results of one thing or another coming as impressions in the mind. But when we bring awareness to them, when we bring a certain compassionate understanding, then our practice becomes a great purifying process.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein talks about the nature of fear, how it’s conditioned in the mind, how we can work with it, and embracing the possibility of transforming fear into wisdom and freedom.

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This dharma talk from October 11, 2000, at the Insight Meditation Society Retreat Center, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“At these times, great courage is needed. And courage here is not an absence of fear. Courage does not mean an absence of fear, it means an acceptance of fear.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein explores the mental factors of doubt, restlessness, and sloth, which are three hindrances that can cause a lack of vision and knowledge, and lead us away from Nibbana.  

This dharma talk from November 2002 at the Insight Meditation Society Retreat Center was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“This skeptical doubt, this indecision, this bewilderment, in terms of our meditation practice, is actually quite a dangerous mind state. Because unnoticed, if we’re not mindful of it, it brings our practice to a standstill.” – Joseph Goldstein

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