Archive of Talks

  • Desire and Renunciation

    This past Sunday, Mike guided our reflections on the oft-confusing topic of Renunciation in our lay culture. Mike utilized a talk by Leela Sarti, who is a visiting teacher at Gaia House in England, linked below: http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/364/talk/31696/ Read more

  • Mindfulness of Dhammas

    This morning Rebecca read to us from Joseph Goldstein’s book, Mindfulness, focusing on Mindfulness of Dhammas, particularly the concept of “Right” or “Wise” Speech. The discussion brought up the importance of examining one’s intention when considering the wisdom of saying something critical of another. How tightly do we cling to the idea that we are… Read more

  • Interdependence

    This past Sunday Zac guided our reflection on the topic of interdependence. Matthieu Ricard says, “The concept of interdependence lies at the heart of the Buddhist vision of the nature of reality, and has immense implications in Buddhism regarding how we should live our lives.” Below are some resources which Zac used to focus the… Read more

  • The Six Entanglements

    This Sunday Payton led a discussion on the Six Sense Bases (the usual five plus the mind), which Gil Fronsdal calls the “Six Entanglements” based on a different interpretation of the word usually translated as “fetter” into English. The discussion was centered around a talk by Gil linked here: http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/6452.html The talk invited us to… Read more

  • Sharing and Generosity

    For our initial meditation this past Sunday, we listened to a guided practice by Guy Armstrong in Choiceless Awareness. Joey then offered excerpts from a dharma talk by Ruth King on Sharing and Generosity. One important question asked by both Joey and Ruth: what keeps us from generosity? When and why do we hold back? The… Read more

  • The Brahmaviharas

    This past Sunday, Zac led the discussion on the topic of the four Brahmaviharas or “Noble Abodes” of the mind. These four practices are prescribed by the Buddha and can sometimes be described as four types of Love: Loving-Kindness (Metta), Compassion (Karuna), Sympathetic Joy (Mudita), and Equanimity (Upekkha). Zac emphasized that the traditional mantras used… Read more