Compassion Towards All: Moving toward a Plant Based Diet

Compassion Towards All: Moving toward a Plant Based Diet

For most of human history it’s been “normal” to eat non-human animals. This is now changing. We are awakening to the massive suffering of the billions of animals killed each day for food, the horrors of the animal-food industry, and the impact it has on climate change...
From Judgment to Self-Compassion (retreat talk)

From Judgment to Self-Compassion (retreat talk)

When we’ve turned on ourselves with blame and aversion, it’s very difficult to arouse self-compassion. This talk looks at the role of nurturing in freeing our hearts, and offers practice in three key steps that enable us to embrace ourselves with a healing presence....
Part 2  – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion

Part 2 – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion

The compassion that arises from mindful awareness can heal our inner wounds, interpersonal conflict and the suffering in our world. These two talks focus on cultivating self-compassion and compassion for others. They look at the blocks to compassion and accessible...
Part 1 – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion

Part 1 – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion

The compassion that arises from mindful awareness can heal our inner wounds, interpersonal conflict and the suffering in our world. These two talks focus on cultivating self-compassion and compassion for others. They look at the blocks to compassion and accessible...
What Is It Like Being You?

What Is It Like Being You?

Compassion is hard wired in our organism, and can be cultivated. This talk helps us identify the blocks to compassion—our outmoded survival equipment—and using RAIN, offers practical guidance in mindfully attuning to others’ emotional experience and awakening...
Evolving Beyond “Unreal Othering”

Evolving Beyond “Unreal Othering”

What motivates us – as individuals and as a society – to build walls and knowingly hurt others? This talk explores the evolutionary roots of “unreal othering” and how when we are hijacked by fear, it can take over and disconnect us from the very real...
Short Talk & Meditation: Tonglen – Radical Compassion (32:43 min)

Short Talk & Meditation: Tonglen – Radical Compassion (32:43 min)

We are conditioned to avoid suffering – our own and others. By pulling away, we also contract our heart and disconnect from our innate capacity for compassion. This short talk and meditation is a training in touching vulnerability, and discovering the boundless...
Remembering and Choosing Loving Presence (retreat talk)

Remembering and Choosing Loving Presence (retreat talk)

We are conditioned to go into a limbic trance—an emotional reactivity to life within and around us—that keeps us identified with a limited, separate sense of self. This talk helps us to identify the flags of trance, and to bring a healing attention that frees us to...
Meditation: Awakening Compassion with Tonglen (11:35 min)

Meditation: Awakening Compassion with Tonglen (11:35 min)

Our hearts awaken as we let ourselves be touched by the suffering within and around us. They shine as we respond with care to what has touched us. This meditation uses the breath to guide us in letting in and contacting suffering, and offering out our love. With...
Radical Compassion – Part 2 ~

Radical Compassion – Part 2 ~

Radical Compassion – Part 2 – Compassion is the medicine we most need as individuals and a species to heal suffering and free our spirits. The essence of compassion for ourselves and others – what I call Radical Compassion – has three key elements: it is an...
Radical Compassion – Part 1 (retreat talk)

Radical Compassion – Part 1 (retreat talk)

Radical Compassion – Part 1 –   CC   ~ Compassion is the medicine we most need as individuals and a species to heal suffering and free our spirits. The essence of compassion for ourselves and others – what I call Radical Compassion – has three...
Your Awake Heart Is Calling You

Your Awake Heart Is Calling You

As individuals and societies, we are pulled by both the insecurity of our evolutionary past, and by our awake heart, our capacity for mindfulness and compassion. This talk explores the ways we can listen to and respond to the call of our awake heart, by training...
Meditation: The RAIN of Compassion (34:54 min) (from retreat)

Meditation: The RAIN of Compassion (34:54 min) (from retreat)

This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others.  Given at the 2015 IMCW New Year’s retreat, it is a “guided heart” practice and includes...
Meditation: The RAIN of Self-Compassion (10:42 min)

Meditation: The RAIN of Self-Compassion (10:42 min)

This meditation is included at the end of the RAIN of Self-Compassion talk. This talk explores three key features of the trance of unworthiness and introduces this guided meditation based on the acronym RAIN that awakens self-compassion and de-conditions the suffering...