Archive of Talks

In the Ball of Honey Sutta (MN 18), the Buddha stated that the cause of “conflict lies within, in the unskillful habits of the mind, rather than without.” He identified this unskillful habit of the mind as papanca. The  Pali term papanca does not have direct English equivalent and is often translated as proliferative thinking… Read more

 In this time of stress—political, racial, economic, familial, and certainly mental—the Buddha’s teachings are particularly useful, even precious.  Ordained Bhikkhuni Ayya Medhanandi, who directs a Hermitage in Ontario, recently offered a talk titled “When Fear Dies,” in which she presents the Buddha’s teachings on how we can respond to anxiety, fear, impatience or aggression, whether… Read more

What can we learn about our habitual patterns of whiteness so that we do not perpetuate racial harm? This Sunday, Joey utilized a podcast of Sharon Salzberg interviewing Ruth King about her book, Mindful of Race: Transforming Race from the Inside Out. Joey read some excerpts from King’s book, referencing the Six Hindrances to Racial… Read more

Experiences we have and thoughts that we think can trigger strong emotions in our minds and bodies. Some of these feelings can be overwhelming. Paradoxically, these sensations can make it extremely difficult to notice the overwhelm, instead causing us to react in increasingly unskillful ways. In this week’s Sangha, Payton explored the challenging practice of… Read more

Refuge is a central concept in the path of liberation. Today Zac focused on the experience of refuge through personal experience and an exploration of teachings. The talk we listened to was an excerpt from an audio book called “Truly Seeing” by Thich Nhat Hanh. Here’s a link to the audio book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Truly-Seeing-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/dp/1888375396. The five… Read more

Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock meditation center and one of the principal bringers of vipassana meditation to the west, once found himself having to explain, at length, to the Dalai Lama how it could be that, in the West, an individual could not like himself, could find herself unworthy of others’ love, or could… Read more