Tea with Mara

"Questions about Anxiety and Anger" is a mix between a Dharma talk and a guided meditation. I showed up without a talk prepared, or even a topic in mind, and the community asked how to "prevent the anxiety of an impending event" (paraphrasing) and "How to deal with a coworker who spoils the mood of the entire workplace with their attitude"? I hope I gave some useful teachings that will help in these matters, and that you find something useful in them. Enjoy!

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"Reduce and Renew" is a Dharma talk offered at Two Hands Sangha exploring the idea that transformation doesn’t necessarily come from adding something new, but from letting something go. On Easter, many people are reflecting on renewal and new life, we’ll take a Buddhist look at what it actually means to begin again. Over and over again, as something available to us moment to moment. What if “coming back to life” is about releasing what’s heavy and discovering what’s already here when the things we let go of begin to fall away. Happy Easter to our Christian friends who celebrate the day, Enjoy!

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"The Direction of Support" is a talk offered for the Virtual Reality community MindfulnessVR about how sometimes in life the direction of support gets a little unclear. We all need guidance. We all need connection. We all need people who can help hold us when things feel heavy. But in healthy relationships
there’s usually a natural direction to that support. And when that direction gets reversed inappropriately, it can feel confusing or draining, and frankly it can sometimes be hard to name or notice. This talk explores what it means to stand on your own feet and recognize what truly supports the path and how to relate to others with wisdom, compassion, and wise boundaries. I hope something in this talk lands as helpful for you. Enjoy!

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"W.A.R." is a Dharma talk offered at Two Hands Sangha on the topic of the walls we build, the ways we see the world, and the responsibility we carry for what comes next. Drawing from a high school musical presentation of Hadestown, Frank White's Overview Effect, and the reality of collective action, this talk explores how fear and conditioning shape our perception and how a shift in view can change everything. When we step back for a moment the lines we thought were solid begin to soften. I hope this talk helps us all determine who we are building on behalf of and what we are building. Enjoy!

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"The 4H Club" is a Dharma talk and brief guided meditation about how probably all of us have or will experience harmlessness, harm, harmfulness, and if we are lucky...heedfulness in our lifetimes. We talk about the life of Angulimala and some lessons we can learn from him. Ultimately, this talk is about how we can break the cycle that keeps us stuck in harming and being harmed, and learn to be heedful. I hope you'll find this useful. Enjoy!

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“Just This” is a Dharma talk that builds on the two most recent talks about identity and the unreliable narrator of the mind. If we’re not the stories we tell about our experience, and we can’t always trust the voice telling them, then where does that leave us? This talk explores a powerful teaching from the Buddha to Bāhiya: “In the seen, just the seen… in the heard, just the heard…" We look at what it means to experience life directly, without turning it into identity, commentary, or self-story, as well as how that simple shift opens the door to more ease and freedom in our everyday lives.

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"The Unreliable Narrator" is a Dharma talk and brief guided meditation that follows up on the last talk I offered. That other one (Between Being and Having) was about the difference between having an experience and making that experience our identity. This talk, The Unreliable Narrator, is about how we can work on breaking that down and beginning to question the voice in our heads that tells the story of who we are. Like any narrator, it’s not always accurate. It’s shaped by habit, memory, and conditioning. When we learn to listen to it a little more carefully, instead of automatically believing it, we create space and in that space a little more freedom becomes possible.

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"Between Having and Being" is a Dharma talk offered at Two Hands Sangha about the difference between having an experience and making the experience our identity. All about the "I", "Me", "Mine" experience we solidify around with most of our thoughts and words all the time, and how to begin changing that. I hope this will be helpful for some of you, and that you will enjoy the talk!

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"A Stable Table" is a Dharma talk offered at Two Hands Sangha on the topic of the three pillars of our practice: Panna, Sila, and Samadhi. This seemed like a natural follow up to our month of cultivating (or strengthening) a daily sitting practice, and I hope you'll find it useful. Very simple and straightforward, and supportive of your practice. Please forgive the audio quality, as I was forced to use a different microphone tonight with no noise control. I hope it's not too troublesome. Enjoy!

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"A Place of Peace" is a Dharma talk and brief guided meditation on the topic of how to be at peace in a world at war. Nobody really wants to dwell on these difficult times, and that's not what this is about. It's about how to practice and maintain your own sense of peace and practice alongside troubled times. May you find this helpful. Enjoy.

https://bio.reverendgeorgebeecher.com