Talks: Reflections on the Path
Concern for All Beings: Plant-Based Eating
Concern for All Beings: Plant-Based Eating – A conversation with Tara Brach and Tricycle‘s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen. A vegetarian diet, while encouraged in most schools of Buddhism, isn’t a requirement of the Buddhist path. But there are powerful spiritual opportunities...
Survival of the Nurtured – Our Path to Belonging
“We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.”— Louis Cozolino We flourish when nurtured with love and understanding. Yet for so many, the violence of our society and lack of attuned caretakers has severed trust and belonging. This talk explores...
Awakening through Difficult Emotions: “The Poison is the Medicine”
Most of us know the pain of getting stuck in fear, anxiety, anger or shame. This exploration looks at how the emotion that takes over, when we attend with mindfulness and care, can become a place of deep transformation and freedom. Included in the talk is a guided RAIN...
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 3: A Mirror
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 3: A Mirror - This 3- part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power...
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 2: Inner Fire
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 2: Inner Fire - This 3- part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power...
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 1: Forgiveness
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life - Part 1: Forgiveness - This 3-part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power...
Awakening from the Landlocked Self
The Buddha taught that our suffering arises from forgetting who we are. This talk explores the trance of identifying as Somebody, and the compassionate witnessing that allows us to discover the freedom of our natural being. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just...
Homecoming to Your True Nature: Awakening Beyond the Separate, Fearful Self
Homecoming to Your True Nature: Awakening beyond the separate, fearful self. Most of us unconsciously identify as a separate, threatened, deficient self. This talk shines a light on this conditioning and explores the ways that mindfulness, compassion and self-inquiry reveal the...
From Dragons to Schmoos – Meeting Life with Compassionate Presence
From Dragons to Schmoos – Meeting Life with Compassionate Presence - The trance of unworthiness is sustained by our aversion to the dragons – the difficult emotions and related behaviors that are a deeply conditioned part of the human experience. In this talk we explore the...
Navigating the Dark Ages
Navigating the Dark Ages - How do we process and respond to increasing societal oppression and violence? What helps us transform the energies of fear, hatred and delusion? This talk offers ways we can draw on our spiritual path to steady our heart and engage with presence,...
The Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 2
Cultivating a surrendering presence allows us to release the identity of a small, separate self, and open to the truth and fullness of who we are. These two talks explore misunderstandings about surrender (such as the fear that we will become passive or condone injustice) and...
The Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 1
Cultivating a surrendering presence allows us to release the identity of a small, separate self, and open to the truth and fullness of who we are. These two talks explore misunderstandings about surrender (such as the fear that we will become passive or condone injustice) and...
The Three Steps of Letting Go
The Three Steps of Letting Go: A wonderful inquiry is, “What is between me and openhearted presence?” This talk explores the profound healing and transformation that arises when we release the blocks to our natural and loving awareness. Let go of the ways you thought life would...
Cultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 2
Cultivating a Courageous Heart - Part 2: In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding—to ourselves, each...
Cultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 1
Cultivating a Courageous Heart - Part 1: In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding - to ourselves,...
Nourishing Our Spirit in Times of Collective Fear
Nourishing Our Spirit in Times of Collective Fear - We are living with the threat of increasing, dramatic suffering around the globe. This talk looks at the direct ways our meditation practices, supported by findings of neuroscience, can help us find resilience and an open...
Self-Forgiveness with RAIN
Our inability to forgive ourselves blocks healing and freedom. As we explore in this talk, the habit of judging and blaming ourselves traps us in fears, prevents intimacy with our world, and veils over the goodness and mystery of who we are. This talk includes several...
Equanimity – Part 4 of Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love
Part 4: Equanimity - unfolds as we find a wise balance and spaciousness in the midst of this living, dying world. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual...
Joy – Part 3 of Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love
Part 3: Joy - blossoms in the moments our hearts open boundlessly to reality, to the 10,000 joys and sorrows. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual...
Compassion – Part 2 of Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love
Part 2: Compassion - the tender resonance of heart - awakens as we allow ourselves to be touched by our shared vulnerability. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the...
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