Archive of Talks

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

This past week, Michael led our Sangha in an exploration of the ever-present idea of “self” and all the identifications and attachments that entails. In particular, he looked at traditional Buddhist concepts and how they have evolved in our modern world. To make the Dharma up-to-date and relevant to our lives, we may set aside… Read more

Building on last week’s exploration of Engaged Buddhism, this week Lorilee offered a talk by one of the world’s best known teachers in this practice: Thich Nat Han. In a talk given at Plum Village on the last day of 2008, “Thay” as he is often called by his followers, presents “The World We Are”,… Read more