Talks: Reflections on the Path
Love, and Death (Retreat Talk)
To live our lives fully, we need to embrace the natural unfolding of birthing and dying. Yet we are deeply conditioned to resist loss, to pull away from fear and grief. Through a powerful Inuit story, Skeleton Woman, shared by Clarissa Estes, this talk explores how our...
Darkness of the Womb – Four Key Steps in Transforming Suffering
Darkness of the Womb - Four Key Steps in Transforming Suffering - CC ~ We can either repeat old fear based patterns, or our suffering can awaken us to a deeper wisdom and greater love. This talk explores four principles in relating to difficulty that move us towards healing...
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 ourselves to...
Dissolving Trance with RAIN
One of the pervasive expressions of trance is identifying with a limited and separate sense of self. This talk contrasts the self-trance to our intrinsically open, awake and loving awareness. We then explore how the mindfulness and self-compassion in the RAIN practice can...
Refuge in Truth, Love and Awareness
The three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness are interweaving pathways home found in most spiritual traditions. This talk looks at our habitual pursuit of substitutes to feel happy, and reflects on how we awaken through each true refuge. The talk ends with a living...
Don’t Know Mind – Stepping Out of the Trance of Thinking
Don't Know Mind ~ (a talk from June 10, 2009) Thoughts, and more broadly, conceptual knowledge, cannot lead to the direct realization of truth, of reality. While thoughts are an essential part of surviving and thriving, spiritual awakening only becomes possible when we step out...
The Revolution of Tenderness – Part 2
These two talks explore our capacity to be tender - sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization of our collective belonging and the...
The Revolution of Tenderness – Part I
The Revolution of Tenderness - Part I ~ A two-talk series explores our capacity to be tender - sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization...
Spiritual Reparenting
CC ~ When we are not sufficiently nurtured in childhood, we are inclined toward anxiety, depression, addiction and other forms of suffering. In a deep way, we do not feel at home with others. We are disconnected from our own body, heart and spirit. This talk explores how...
Trusting the Gold (retreat talk)
When we are unaware of the emotions and beliefs that shape our experience, we are in a trance characterized by an identity as a separate, incomplete self. Trance obscures the awareness and love that is our deepest essence. This talk explores the two key pathways of awakening...
“Play a Greater Part” – Part 2 – Bodhisattva for Our Times
During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. These two talks are a reflection...
“Play a Greater Part” – Part 1 – Bodhisattva for Our Times
During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. These two talks are a reflection...
The Wings of Awakening – Self-Honesty & Love (retreat talk)
We evolve our consciousness by bringing a clear and kind attention to the tangles of suffering. This talk explores how the "second arrow" of self-judgment imprisons us in emotional reactivity, and the pathways of awakening awareness that reconnect us with our full human...
Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times – Part 2
Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times - Part 2 - The shadow is the unfaced, unlived fears and emotional pain in our individual and collective psyche. When not brought into awareness it expresses as “no” - the anger, aggression, hopelessness and cynicism that is resisting and...
Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times (Part 1)
Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times - Part 1 On both individual and societal levels, suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. This talk looks at two interrelated ways of practice that help us to awaken from a limiting self-sense characterized by...
Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 3 of 3)
Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 3 of 3) The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of...
Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 2 of 3)
Seeking What’s True - Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other - (Part 2 of 3) The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of...
Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 1 of 3)
Seeking What’s True - Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other - (Part 1 of 3) The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of...
Spiritual Empowerment ~ “A Heart That is Ready for Anything”
Spiritual Empowerment ~ "A Heart That is Ready for Anything" ~ When we are trying to control life, we are removed from presence, and act in ways that separate us from others and solidify the experience of being a insecure self. This talk explores our often unconscious...
Realizing Our Undefended and Awakened Heart (retreat talk)
It is our evolutionary and spiritual potential to release unnecessary habits of violating other tribes, individuals and unwanted parts of our own being. This talk explores three essential facets of the pathway to awakening: Leaving the fortress of aversive judgment, entering...
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