Archive of Talks

  • Pleasure and Enjoyment of Meditation

    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

  • The Ins and Outs of Practice

    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

  • Pleasant/Unpleasant

    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

  • Engaged Buddhism

    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

  • Don’t Know

    This past Sunday, Sam led the Sangha on the topic of “Don’t know mind”. The three talks we heard excerpts from are: Jack Kornfield, “On Not Knowing”, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, 3/21/2000, Eugene Cash, “Not Knowing”, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, 5/14/2013, Yanai Postelnik, “Not Knowing”, 3/20/2015. The quote he read was from the book “No… Read more

  • Yoga and Buddhism

    Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha-to-be, became a yogi when he left his father’s palace to “go forth” in pursuit of liberation….He sought out and studied with the greatest yogis of his day–including approximately five years of study with the well-known yogis Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. Under their tutelage, the young aspirant studied the most sophisticated… Read more