Talks: Reflections on the Path

Trance of the “Unreal Other”

Trance of the “Unreal Other”

We are conditioned to perceive people as unreal others- two dimensional characters who lack sentience, vulnerability and goodness. This is often most insidious when we filter people through demeaning culturally driven stereotypes. This talk explores the suffering of living in a...

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Jung wrote that our suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. This talk explores ways we can establish a healing presence by recognizing and communicating with the parts of our being that we habitually ignore or judge.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

1000 Serious Moves – Part 2

We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease--perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In...

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

1000 Serious Moves – Part 1

We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease--perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In...

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Real But Not True

One of the most liberating realizations is that we don’t have to believe our thoughts. In this talk we look at the suffering caused by limiting beliefs–“I am unworthy, unloveable, unsafe”–and the process by which we open into the full aliveness and potential of our being.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Back to the Garden

The suffering of perceiving ourselves as separate selves expresses as fear, aggression, shame and a host of other afflictive emotions. This talk examines how, by taking refuge in the present moment, and taking refuge in love, we reconnect with our wholeness, and the timeless presence that is home. This inquiry includes a guided meditation on the power of prayer to carry us back to our natural belonging.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Listening With an Awake Heart

Listening to our inner life and each other is the grounds of healing, intimacy and love. This talk explores the challenges to offering a listening presence, and the qualities of open receptivity and interest that nourish true communicating.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Part 1 – Freedom: Seeing Who Is Looking Through the Mask

We suffer when we are identified with our egoic conditioning and unable to recognize the spirit – the love and awareness – that animates our own and all beings. In this talk we explore how recognizing our vulnerability and basic goodness helps us to see through the mask and realize who is here.

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Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation)

Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation)

Equanimity, the mindful presence that neither grasps nor resists experience, is the grounds for unconditional love and wise action. This talk explores the conditioning that entraps us in reactivity, and two primary pathways for coming home to this natural state of balance and presence.

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Committing to Joy

Committing to Joy

What makes joy rare? How do we awaken this beautiful capacity to embrace life? In this talk we explore the obstacles to joy and the attitude and practices that free us to “love what is.”

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Cultivating Compassion

We each have the potential to live with a compassionate, open heart. In this talk we explore the conditioning that closes us off to authentic caring, and the ways of deepening our attention that help us live to include widening circles of beings in our heart.

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Intimacy with Life – Awakening Love

The Buddha taught about four Divine Abodes–dwelling places of the awakened heart mind: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In this four-part series, we will explore the ways our conditioning blocks us from these expressions of inner freedom, and the understandings and practices that enable us to inhabit our full potential.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Training for Intimacy with Life

“Enlightenment is intimacy with all things” teaches Zen Master Dogen. While we long for this intimacy, we are conditioned to avoid the vulnerability and fear that an intimate presence can arouse. This talk explores how our mindfulness and heart practices cultivate the capacity to be intimate with our sensations of aliveness, our emotions and the beings in our life.

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Part 2 – The Lion’s Roar

The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full

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Intimacy with Our Inner Life

Part 1 – The Lion’s Roar

The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full.

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Be Who You Are (retreat talk)

Be Who You Are (retreat talk)

By bringing a surrendering presence to mental, emotional and physical domains, we undo the trance of separation and discover our true nature. This talk explores the practices that cultivate the non-resisting space of presence, and the flavors of our essential being that are...

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The World in Our Heart

The World in Our Heart

Some contemporary evolutionary theories track our development from survival of the fittest to group selection whereby we have the capacity for cooperation and empathy. This talk explores how our meditation practice of attending and befriending consciously facilitates the unfolding of our full evolutionary potential. The talk includes a guided meditation that helps us widen the circles of belonging to include all beings.

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Open Heart, Open Mind with Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Open Heart, Open Mind with Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Tsoknyi Rinpoche (in conversation with Tara Brach) – In talking about his new book, Tibetan teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche describes the layers of self that cover over our “essence love,” and the way that mindfulness reconnects us to our true nature.

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A Mindful Nation with US Congressman Tim Ryan

A Mindful Nation with US Congressman Tim Ryan

One of the great sources of hope is the “quiet revolution” of mindfulness that is appearing in schools, hospitals, prisons, the military, corporate settings and the lives of millions of people around the world. In this talk, US Congressman Tim Ryan points to highlights of this revolution–which are reviewed in his compelling new book, A Mindful Nation. He shares about his own personal experience with mindfulness practice and his commitment to seeing the mindfulness and compassion at the center of our work for a better future.

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