Archive of Talks

This Sunday, Payton led the Sangha’s discussion on the topic of the Five Hindrances, and how they might be more like teachers rather than problems in our life. The talk he played was by Vinny Ferraro at Against the Stream Meditation Center and is available here: https://www.againstthestream.org/podcasts/the-five-hindrances-6/ “Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out… Read more

This Sunday, Patrick guided our reflections, exploring how awareness of feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, or neither; called vedana in Pali) can help cultivate a warm heart and a greater internal awareness. A short talk by Gil Fronsdal helped to illuminate this understanding of both worldly and spiritual feeling tones, and the benefits of distinguishing between… Read more

This past Sunday, Mike Blouin led our reflections, continuing to explore other dimensions of the relationship between engaged buddhism and personal practice. Sharing his own perspectives as well as drawing from “The Way of Tenderness” by Zen priest Zenju Earthly Manuel, who brings her own experiences as a lesbian black woman into conversation with Buddhism… Read more

This week Jeffrey continued our investigation of racism and buddhism with a review of basic concepts and definitions about racism. This was followed by a discussion of how the self is constructed by both social elements, e.g, racial identity, and personal experiences, e.g., experiences in our families. All of these elements are similarly conditioned and… Read more

Jeffrey guided our reflections this Sunday. We continued investigating the issue of social transformation from a Buddhist perspective that has threaded through many of our meetings. Most recently, Brit hosted a meeting April 1st about angel Kyodo Williams’ conception of “engaged buddhism” that Williams calls “Radical Dharma”. Lorilee followed April 8 with another talk on… Read more

This past Sunday, Rebecca guided our reflections with readings from Yogi Ramcharaka, on the topic “Omnipresent Life.” The reading was chapter 2 of Yogi Ramacharaka’s book “Gnani Yoga, the Yoga of Wisdom.” Read more