Apr 23, 2014
As long as we are identified as separate selves, we will inevitably experience conflict with others. If we learn to release blame and deepen attention to our embodied experience, conflict can become a portal for more loving, alive relationships and awakening into the fullness of our being.
Apr 16, 2014
The acronym RAIN is a powerful tool for interrupting habitual patterns of emotional reactivity and discovering the freedom of an awake, compassionate presence. This talk explores the components of RAIN, how it works, what makes it transformational and typical...
Apr 9, 2014
The way that we relate to impermanence and loss shapes our capacity to live and love fully. This talk, drawing on Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods,” explores three elements in our response to this fleeting, precious life that are integral to our healing and freedom.
Apr 2, 2014
The universal experience of stress (in Buddhism, called dukkha) is a message that we are not realizing, trusting and living from our true nature. Our habitual reactions to stress – grasping, aversion, resistance – deepen emotional pain and lock us in a...
Mar 26, 2014
When we are lost in the trance of thinking, we disconnect from the aliveness, awareness and love that is our source. Mindfulness, a key capacity of our evolving consciousness, awakens us from an identification with thinking and enables us to inhabit a wider realm of Being. This talk explores the confines of conceptual mind and the simple yet powerful practices that cultivate mindful awareness.
Mar 19, 2014
Drawing on Henri Nouwen’s book that interprets this famous parable, this talk looks at the ways we cut off from loving awareness, and the process of homecoming. Our inquiry, reflections and a guided meditation focus on an essential and often overlooked element of transformation: our capacity to trust in love, to let love in. Link to Rembrandt’s “Prodigal Son” painting which is referred to in the talk.
Mar 12, 2014
Equanimity is the quality of presence that is open, balanced and non-reactive. As this talk explores, when equanimity is lacking, we become easily lost in trance, identified as a defended and controlling egoic self. When present, the solidity and constriction of egoic self dissolves, and our heart is free to respond to life with love, compassion, forgiveness and joy.
Mar 5, 2014
Our innate capacity for joy is blocked by our habitual ways of paying attention. This talk explores three key pathways of presence that connect us with our full openness and aliveness.
Feb 26, 2014
Anger is an intelligent emotion, a natural part of our evolutionary design that lets us know when we are endangered or impeded in our progress. But when it locks into ongoing resentment and blame, our heart becomes armored and we lose access to a wholeness of being. This talk explores forgiving as a process of relaxing our armoring and awakening a healing compassion for ourselves and others.
Feb 19, 2014
Most of us consciously value compassion, but move through much of life without access to the full capacity of our heart. This talk explores the self-compassion that is the very grounds of loving our world.
Feb 5, 2014
Lovingkindness, or metta, is the first of the four divine abodes in buddhist teachings. This talk explores the habitual patterns of fears and wants that obscure this innate quality of heart and key ways that we awaken ourselves to its luminous presence.
Jan 22, 2014
NOTE: Tara was away this week, so asked that we post a favorite from the archives:
Listening with our full heart and attention is the gateway to understanding and love. This talk explores the challenges to deep listening, and offers ways of paying attention that awaken a healing listening presence.
Jan 8, 2014
This talk explores the three archetypal gateways to liberation – awareness (Buddha), truth (Dharma) and love (Sangha). It includes guided reflections and a refuge ceremony that can help us discover the path “inside out” through daily life
NOTE: Stuart Rakoff’s blog is here:
http://stuspeaks.wordpress.com/
Dec 18, 2013
This two part series explores the evolutionary conditioning of fear and judgment that contracts us away from love and acceptance, and the quality of mindful presence – in relating inwardly and in communicating with others – that awakens and frees our...
Dec 11, 2013
This two part series explores the evolutionary conditioning of fear and judgment that contracts us away from love and acceptance, and the quality of mindful presence – in relating inwardly and in communicating with others – that awakens and frees our hearts.