Archive of Talks

Joey led our reflections this past Sunday. To understand the four Brahma Viharas–lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity–as embraced within the larger framework of Empathy can give new depth to our understanding, new life to our practice. Here are the talks she played: Brahmaviharas as relational practices by Akincano Marc Weber http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/360/talk/43576/ Practicing with Views and… Read more

This Sunday, Payton led the sangha’s exploration of contentment in two parts. The first part was a guided meditation by Rick Hanson, a psychologist and author of several books about contentment. The meditation is on Dharmaseed at the following link. http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/312/talk/12170/ The second part was extracts from a dharma talk by Caroline Jones entitled “The… Read more

Michael guided our discussion November 26 on the topic “Pleasure and Enjoyment in Meditation.” Here are some of the key sources brought together in our discussion. Many meditators treat practice as a duty, and the role of pleasure is ignored. But both canonical texts and contemporary neurological research point out the importance of pleasure in… Read more

This Sunday, Steve Barry led our Sangha’s discussions. He brought up perspectives on the variety of modes and methods of practice we might engage as our practice evolves. Here is the link to the Dhamma talk by Akincano (Marc Weber) on Dharmaseed: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/360/talk/28584/ The talk and the discussion focused on modes of practice, i.e. stillness/samadhi… Read more

Mike Blouin guided our reflections this past Sunday, focusing on looking deeply into Vedana, the immediate sense of pleasure, displeasure or neutrality woven into every experience. Our preferences and habit, emerge and solidify from this point of origin. What can be done to modify our responses? One talk he played was a Joseph Goldstein excerpt:… Read more

This Sunday, Patrick led the Sangha on the topic of Engaged Buddhism. Here is a link to the talk he played: http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/175/talk/2016/ The title is Reverence for Life: The Essence of Engaged Buddhism Read more