Listen to Dharma Talks – Orlando Insight Meditation Group

Listen to Dharma Talks – Orlando Insight Meditation Group episodes:

• 05.30.2024

  Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness Overview

  Considering the Third Foundation of Mindfulness as if it were a sheet of paper, and the First as a pen, then the Second as ink; the Fourth Foundation, mindfulness of mental phenomena, is what is written on the paper, creating...

  
• 05.23.2024

  Reviewing Mindfulness of the Mind

  The Third Foundation of Mindfulness focuses attention on investigating the characteristics of a person’s consciousness–alert or dull, filled with desire or free from desire, among other categories.  During this talk, Peter reviews the various categories, supplemented by current neurological research...

  
• 05.16.2024

  Skillfully Managing Feelings

  Mindfulness of Feelings is the Second Foundation of Mindfulness, and during this talk, Peter provides a review of the various categories of feelings, which are not emotions, but rather the impulsive reactivity we all experience that precedes craving and clinging....

  
• 05.16.2024

  Guided Contemplating Feelings Meditation

  This recording provides supportive suggestions for recognizing the various manifestations of feelings–pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, both worldly and unworldly.  The goal of this meditation is to learn how to let go of unwholesome feeling tones–impulsive reactivity in the mind–to skillfully...

  
• 05.09.2024

  Emptiness or Fullness?

  This talk focuses on cultivating a deeper and more useful understanding of two important Buddhist concepts: Non-self and Emptiness.  The concepts don’t translate well into English from the original Pali teachings, so Peter uses various contemporary scientific and psychological research...

  
• 05.02.2024

  Working With The Four Elements Contemplations

  Mindfully contemplating the subjective experience of the Four Elements: Earth, Wind,Fire, and Water is mentioned in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse as part of the category “Mindfulness of the Body”.  During the talk, Peter describes the characteristics of each...

  
• 05.02.2024

  Guided Four Elements Contemplation

  This guided meditation provides suggestions for contemplating what are called the Four Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water.  These contemplations are embedded within the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse.  Peter describes the subjective characteristics of each of the Elements and...

  
• 05.01.2024

  Short Moments, Many Times A Day

  Short Moments, Many Times a Day. In this meeting of our sangha, we learn a variety of ways to incorporate moments of meditation throughout the day.  This is not a substitute for our daily sitting practice, but a way to extend that...

  
• 05.01.2024

  Right Mindfulness

  This week’s dharma talk explores the 7th step in the teaching of the Buddha called “The Noble Eightfold-Path.”  This 7th step is Right Mindfulness. We will explore this key practice that has been described as the watch guard of the mind...

  
• 05.01.2024

  Right Effort

  This week’s dharma talk explores the 6th step in the teaching of the Buddha called “The Noble Eightfold-Path.”  This 6th step takes us into the “discipline aggregate” of the eight steps.  Here we learn how to cultivate beneficial qualities of mind and...

  
• 04.04.2024

  Right Livelihood As Right Lifestyle

  The traditional rendering of samma ajiva in english is Right Livelihood; during this talk, Peter revises this part of the Noble Eightfold Path as Right Lifestyle, as life is more complex and more stressful psychologically in contemporary American culture.  He...

  
• 03.28.2024

  Reviewing Right Action

  This talk continues a thorough review of the Four Noble Truths, focusing on the second attribute of the Fourth Truth, within the Virtue Aggregate of the Noble Eightfold Path–Right Action.  During the talk, Lili describes the characteristics of the Precepts,...

  
• 03.21.2024

  Reviewing the Value of Virtue and Right Speech

  During this talk, Peter provides an overview of Sila, the Buddhist Virtue Aggregate, which is found within the Noble Eightfold Path, with an emphasis on the importance of mindfully recognizing the non-virtuous elements of contemporary cultural conditioning, which create disharmony...

  
• 03.14.2024

  Reviewing Right Intention

  This talk by Allie Vaknin continues an ongoing review of the Four Noble Truths, specifically focusing on a function of the Wisdom Aggregate of the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Intention.  Allie describes different manifestations of Right Intention: Renunciation of unwholesomeness,...

  
• 03.07.2024

  Reviewing Right Understanding

  During this talk, April continues the ongoing review of the Noble Eightfold Path by sharing her research about the Wisdom Aggregate, specifically Samma Ditthi, translated as Right View or Right Understanding.  This part of the Path provides the conceptual basis...

  
• 02.29.2024

  Overview Of The Noble Eightfold Path

  This talk continues an ongoing review of the Four Noble Truths, with emphasis on the Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path.  This overview describes the general structure of the Path categories, which represent the ways and means for realizing...

  
• 02.29.2024

  Guided Basic Mindfulness Of Breathing Meditation

  This is intended to be a resource for cultivating mindfulness of breathing meditation, providing several suggestions during the experience to support developing more skill and confidence in the practice of a fundamental Buddhist training for self-awareness and self-discipline.

  
• 02.22.2024

  Third Noble Truth Review

  During this talk, Allie Vaknin provides insights regarding the four stages of Nirvana experience: Stream Entry, Once-Returner, Non-returner, and Arahant.  The recording includes comments from various participants in the meeting. Next week’s talk will provide an overview of the Fourth Noble...

  
• 02.15.2024

  How To Change Your Karma

  This is the second presentation regarding the processes that create dukkha.  The talk recorded on February 14, 2024 reviewed the characteristics of craving and clinging.  This talk provides a review of a key concept of Buddhist psychology, paticca samuppada, translated...

  
• 02.15.2024

  Guided Dependent Origination Contemplation

  This guided meditation is intended to accompany the Dharma talk of February 14, 2024 that focuses on the important Buddhist concept of paticca samuppada, dependent origination.  During the meditation, it is suggested the meditator investigate how the mind is drawn...

  
• 02.08.2024

  The Second Noble Truth, Part 1, Craving and Clinging

  This talk focuses on the factors that produce dukkha–craving and clinging.  Peter describes the traditional Buddhist terms for craving and clinging, along with how contemporary neurological research supports the validity of this understanding of the human condition.  After his descriptions,...

  
• 02.01.2024

  Mindful Parenting and Dukkha

  During this talk, Lili, the mother of two young boys, reviews her Buddhist studies and practices for addressing the dukkha–distress and confusion–that occurs while parenting, along with effective ways of cultivating mindfulness, kindness, compassion, and patience during daily interactions with...

  
• 01.25.2024

  Dukkha, The First Noble Truth

  This presentation by April Koester, one of our cadre of teachers, begins an extensive review of the Four Noble Truths, focusing on the inevitability of dukkha, the physical and mental suffering that comes with being alive.  During the talk, several...

  
• 01.18.2024

  Overview of the Four Noble Truths

  This talk presents a broad review of a core concept within all the Buddhist traditions, the Four Noble Truths.  Peter talks about how the concepts of dukkha, craving and clinging, freedom from dukkha and the Noble Eightfold Path provide an...

  
• 01.11.2024

  Why Did The Buddha Meditate?

  During this talk, Peter provides a brief speculative review of Siddhartha Gautama’s life experience, before he became known as the Buddha.  The intention here is to consider the sociocultural stresses of his time in comparison to the stresses of contemporary...

  
• 01.04.2024

  Peter Reports On December 2024 Retreat

  During this talk, Peter describes the challenges encountered in practicing mindfulness of breathing meditation for the cultivation of entry stages of jhana, a highly concentrated state of mind.  This practice requires a careful balance of energy and tranquility applied through...

  
• 12.14.2023

  Getting Unhooked From Craving And Clinging

  This talk, presented by April Koester, focuses on a Tibetan term, shenpa, translated as attachment, but more provocatively termed hooked, made well-known by Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist teacher and author.  An alternative rendering for \shenpa is craving and clinging,...

  
• 12.08.2023

  Mindfulness On And Off The Cushion

  During this talk, Lili Fernandez describes the importance of integrating the Five Precepts into daily mindfulness practice.  Her experience as the mother of two young boys creates the opportunity to find different and creative ways to train the mind towards...

  
• 11.30.2023

  Giving Presence Over The Holidays

  This talk provides a brief overview of traditional American holidays from Halloween through New Year’s Eve, from their origins centuries ago up to how current consumerism and social conflict has created a stressful and potentially damaging series of events during...

  
• 11.23.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Post-Retreat Review

  Following a long-established custom, this meeting is focused on providing opportunities for those who attended the annual Deerhaven one-week residential retreat to review their experience.  Due to the occurrence of the meeting on Thanksgiving Eve, only 3 of the 14...

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Renouncing The Five Hindrances

  This talk provides information about how to identify and set aside the five hindrances to concentrated and tranquil awareness, preparatory to developing the process of Awakening through the practice of vipassana, insight into the conditioned nature of the mind. Here are...

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Reviewing Samadhi

  Samadhi describes how the mind is unified during the process of Awakening, and this talk reviews the various stages of concentrated awareness that are cultivated. Here are the notes prepared for this talk:  JHANA CULTIVATION-IS IT NECESSARY  and Samadhi Passadhi-Unifying a...

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Reviewing The Five Aggregates

  This talk describes a way that Buddhist psychology explains human personality formation as an aggregation of five factors in order to “deconstruct” the belief that there is an enduring/autonomous self. Here are the notes prepared for this talk:  REVIEWING THE FIVE...

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Contingent Origination Review

  A core principle of Buddhist psychology is paticca samuppada, dependent origination.  During this talk, an alternative translation is offered–contingent provisional emergence–which incorporates contemporary scientific and psychological understandings of this important concept for understanding how karma forms and how it can...

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Self-State Integration To Self-State Liberation

  This talk provides a way to understand how one’s self-experience develops from what is termed “self-state conflict” through “self-state integration”, leading to “self-state liberation”.  We all experience conflict between how socially conditioned ideals of oneself and the world are conflicted,...

  
• 11.20.2023

  Reviewing Anatta–The Non-Self Doctrine

  This talk provides a review of how to understand the anatta doctrine from a contemporary scientific and psychological perspective in order to realize the absence of and enduring/autonomous self.

  
• 11.20.2023

  2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Practicing Awakening At Home

  This talk on the last night of the retreat describes various areas of home life that are benefited through diligent and mindful application of the principles and practices retreatants learned and cultivated during the retreat. Here are the notes prepared for...

  
• 11.20.2023

  Guided Seven Awakening Factors Contemplation

  This guided meditation provides an investigative review–how to recognize and cultivate each of the Seven Awakening Factors in order to facilitate the development of each, individually and as a coherent group.

  
• 11.20.2023

  Guided Contemplation Of Impermanence

  This guided meditation focuses attention on how to mindfully investigate the transient nature of all subjective experience–of sensations, feelings, thoughts, and the characteristics of consciousness.

  
• 11.20.2023

  Guided Contemplation For Deepening Concentration

  This meditation provides support for deepening the stability and tranquility of the mind through using breath/body awareness, with the intention to keep “letting go” and accepting whatever physical discomfort that might occur, while still going deeper.

  
• 11.09.2023

  Peter’s Jhana Retreat Report

  After a significant retreat experience, participants have the opportunity to review what they learned during one of our meetings.  Peter describes the retreat he just completed as one of the most significant of the more than 40 residential retreats he...

  
• 10.19.2023

  Cultivating Jhana

  Peter Carlson will be participating in a 10-day retreat soon that focuses on concentrating the mind to the level of experiencing jhana, an extraordinarily focused level of attention that is frequently described in the earliest Buddhist teachings.  He talks about...

  
• 10.12.2023

  Dependent Origination And Emptiness

  During this talk, Peter Carlson reviews the key Buddhist teaching on dependent origination as it is associated with another important concept, emptiness, which has frequently been misunderstood.  During the discussion, contemporary scientific and psychological information that fosters more clarity about...

  
• 10.05.2023

  Realizing The Four Noble Truths

  This talk by Peter Carlson thoroughly summarizes the last verse of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, which describes how the Four Noble Truths are transformed by the effective coordinated functioning of the Seven Awakening Factors from...

  
• 09.28.2023

  Reviewing The Equanimity Awakening Factor

  During this talk, Lezlie Laws reviews the seventh Awakening Factor, Equanimity, beginning with a very well-written essay by her describing the poise and dedication of a hawk living in New York City and raising chicks in the middle of the...

  
• 09.21.2023

  Retreat Review By Andy Quinn

  It is customary for our Sangha meetings to provide an opportunity for someone who has participated in a recent residential retreat to “think out loud” about their experience.  Much of the benefit of a retreat occurs outside of awareness, and...

  
• 09.15.2023

  Reviewing the Joy Awakening Factor

  Allie Vaknin provides a review of the Joy Awakening Factor during this talk, clarifying the various ways that joy can arise as an internally generated phenomena, not dependent upon external circumstances.

  
• 09.15.2023

  Reviewing Tranquility and Concentration

  This talk provides a review of two of seven Awakening Factors, Tranquility and Concentration, which are so integrated in their functioning that their manifestation is called samatha (syah-mah-tah) in Pali.  Peter Carlson provides a review of each of the two,...

  
• 09.15.2023

  Guided Tranquility And Concentration Contemplation

  This guided meditation combines the functions of Tranquility and Concentration, two of the seven Awakening Factors.  This contemplation is intended to supplement the talk ” Tranquility and Insight”, presented the same evening and posted in the archives.

  
• 09.15.2023

  Reviewing The Investigation of Mental Phenomena

  During this talk, Peter Carlson reviews Dhamma Vicaya Bojjhanga, the Investigation of Mental Phenomena Awakening Factor.  This quality of investigative curiosity, in coordination with the Mindfulness and Energy Awakening Factors, provides a primary support for the development of the other...