Archive of Talks

Joey guided our reflections this past Sunday as we focused on Wise Speech, drawing from several sources including Joseph Goldstein and Gregory Kramer. Here is the talk by Joseph Goldstein: http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/28657/ Read more

This Sunday Payton guided our discussion around one organization of the Eightfold Path: Sila, Samadhi, and Panna, or, Ethics, Concentration, and Wisdom. With the addition of a recorded talk by Christopher Titmuss (listen to the talk here) we had a lively conversation about the ways in which the “Three Trainings” influence one another in a way… Read more

Although Westerners often begin their engagement with Buddhism with items listed at the end of the Eightfold Path – Mindfulness and Concentration – the Buddha put Right View and Right Intention at the beginning, and considered them foundational. Wendy guided our reflections this week, using portions of a dharma talk by Sally Clough Armstrong to… Read more

Payton led the discussion centered around the idea of Papancha, or Mental Proliferation. The seminal sutta on this topic is the “Honeyball Sutta”, where it’s explained as: first there is the coming together of three things, an object, a sensory organ, and consciousness. The meeting of these three is “contact”. Contact leads to feeling tone (Vedana),… Read more

Zac guided us through multiple avenues of reflection on vedana or the feeling tone of our experiences…pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Recognizing these dispositions as they arise and breaking off the automatic clinging or rejecting or ignoring can help us step out of a downward spiral. Read more

Payton guided the discussion this morning on the concept of Doubt in our practice. Typically Doubt is expressed as one of the Hinderances, but in a talk by Tony Bernhard we heard that doubting is only natural, and perhaps more important is our understanding of what we decide to believe. To listen to Tony’s talk,… Read more