Archive of Talks

Michael guided our explorations today, which were centered around the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, the contemporary Burmese meditation master who in the lineage of teaching Vipassana to lay people, begun by Mahasi Sayadaw in the mid 20th century.  Instead of focusing on mindfulness of body (kayanupassana – breath, posture, sensations such as hearing, etc.), the… Read more

This Sunday we began our series of reflections on the Seven Factors of Awakening, with two sessions to be devoted to each.  Margaret initiated the series with a focus on the first factor – Mindfulness –  anchoring it in an excerpt of  a talk by Joseph Goldstein. http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/1965/ Joseph’s talk explored four aspects of mindfulness… Read more

Today, Wendy hosted our Extended Guided Meditation, beginning with Tara Brach’s guided meditation: Awakening the Heart of Compassion http://media.dharmaseed.org/recordings/2011/12/20111231-Tara_Brach-IMCW-guided_meditation_awakening_compassion_tonglen.mp3 This was followed by guided walking meditation by Elisabeth Blaikie: http://www.fragrantheart.com/cms/free-audio-meditations/spiritual-awareness/walking-meditation-indoors Read more

This morning’s extended meditation session, and discussion, was hosted by Philip and anchored in a guided meditation on gratitude by Larry Yang, dharma teacher and psychotherapist, to be found here: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/107/talk/21789/ Read more

This morning, Joey guided our reflections on Dharma and Relationships.  The approach was grounded in the practice of Insight Dialogue, as examined in the talk by Matthew Brensilver: Mindfulness in Close Relationships.  http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/496/talk/24457/ The approach is based in the Insight Dialogue work of Gregory Kramer, and the words that are most often recalled from encounter with his… Read more

This morning, Wendy guided our work with our shared tendency to turn to doing rather than reflecting or simply being – the ways in which we compulsively turn t activity rather than investigating our states of mind.  As a prompt for discussion, we listened to excerpts to this talk by Tara Brach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e23nUp3a9R8&feature=youtu.be&list=UUE3E-d8dUieqIbKYIO5-pFg Read more