Making Peace with Pleasure and Pain

Daylong Retreat, Boulder, February 26th, 2022              52:10AUDIO

The chief difficulty of life is the fluctuation among pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experiences. We hate the unpleasant, cling to the pleasant, and completely ignore the neutral. These reactions are an argument with reality and cause a subtle, yet pervasive, restlessness in our hearts. Meditation shows us a radical alternative – by being mindful we can learn to be at ease no matter what kind of experience we are having. This is the essence of spiritual freedom.

Heartfulness

Daylong Nature Retreat, Longmont, September 26th, 2020          22:25 AUDIO

Heartfulness is the practice of merging heart qualities such as joy, gratitude, and kindness with mindfulness practice. When we meditate outside and our mind gets quiet it is easy to feel a heart connection with nature. We look around and can be so grateful that we are here at all and then everything, even difficulty, becomes something we can appreciate.

The Power of Mindfulness in Nature

Daylong Nature Retreat, Longmont, September 26th, 2020           27:18 AUDIO

Our life transpires only in the present, therefore our most important reality need is knowing how to relate to this moment. Mindfulness takes care of this moment with interest, attention and kindness, which trains us how to be in every moment of our life. Practicing mindfulness in nature helps with the process by inspiring us to be in our senses. This leads to sensory clarity, which is the key to abiding happiness.

The Wonders of Nature

Dedicated Group Ecodharma Retreat, Longmont, May 7, 2020        40:48 AUDIO

When we mediate outdoors and inhabit our five physical senses nature becomes a people whisperer, quieting our minds and gladdening our hearts. Everything we love about nature becomes heightened with meditative presence and we take pleasure in the simplest of experiences – clouds pregnant with the ground’s moisture, a vibratn butterfly resting on a vibrant flower – and we revel in the miraculousness of all existence.

Three Insights that Free the Heart

Daylong Retreat, Longmont, December 14th, 2019                1:01:23 AUDIO

Insight meditation is mindfulness directed at the three key insights that lead to deep letting go and the end of suffering – change, unreliability and not-self. The talk reviews ways to direct practice to reveal these three truths. In particular, it takes the difficult concept of not-self and makes it easy to experience through simple practice instructions.

Energy, Effort, Concentration, Strength

Dedicated Practitioner Group Retreat, Ecodharma Center, Nov. 8, 2019        45:52 AUDIO

Meditation practice employs effort to rewire our brains and create new habits of mind. This affects our entire life. Tibetan Buddhists summarize wise effort with the phrase, “short moments, many times.” When concentration dips, we can play mindfulness games to focus the mind. Mental strength plays an important role in dealing with difficult emotions and aligning us with our priorities.

Interest and Investigation: Gateways to Wisdom

Dedicated Practitioner Group Retreat, Ecodharma Center, Nov. 7, 2019       53:08AUDIO

Interest and curiosity are the key ingredients of mindfulness meditation practice, leading directly to wisdom and letting go. We normally direct our curiosity towards our thoughts, but in meditation we emphasize interest in the five physical senses. This leads to a radical inner shift, dropping us out of separateness and stress and into belonging and peace.

Interdependence, Joy and Sacred Activism

Meditation, Nature, Awakening retreat, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, Sept 25, 2019  54:58AUDIO

Our greatest difficulty is that we feel separate. Meditation practice dissolves this illusion and helps us feel that we belong to all of creation. This reduces anxiety and fosters deeps joy. It also ignites our care, motivating us to act on behalf of the planet with love, courage and wisdom.

Self-love, Vulnerability and Joy

Dedicated Practitioner Group Retreat, Ecodharma Center, Oct. 6, 2018        58:42AUDIO

Only you know what it is like to live in your body, mind and heart. This is your true home, the place you always are, no matter where else you are. Thus, you are the best person to ensure the love light is on in your home. An important part of accessing self-love is opening to your vulnerability and uncovering the strength, passion, playfulness, and joy that live inside it.

Principles for Spiritually-Based Activism

Daylong Retreat, Boulder, August 27th, 2016                            1:15:57AUDIO

Effective action is based on clear seeing and clear seeing is based on acceptance. In other words, acceptance underlies wise action, be it getting the kids to school or protesting injustice. Describes 10 principles of spiritually-based action, including: Effective action tends to the relationships involved, universal love is the most secure foundation for lasting change towards social justice, people are not their actions, and views are best held lightly because they are always biased.

Longing and Resistance on the Spiritual Path

Daylong Retreat, Boulder, October 10th, 2015AUDIO

We both really want and really do not want to wake up. We long for peace, fulfillment, and belonging, and yet we actively resist the meditative path that takes us there. Meditation is boring, unproductive, or scary, says the resistance, and progress is too slow. Yet overcoming resistance is not such a big deal. It is as simple as becoming aware of the present moment. Meditation makes this simple move a stronger habit and it is the gateway to deep freedom and realizing our heart’s longing.

I Do: The Holy Matrimony of Love and Wisdom

Love and Wisdom retreat, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, Sept 20, 2015AUDIO

Love and wisdom are two essential aspects of the spiritual path. When wisdom empties the heart of  a separate self, love fills it up with care for the entire world. Without wisdom, love is attached and limited. Without love, wisdom can be cold or lacking passion.  When the two qualities come together, we feel the truth of the Tibetan metaphor, “the jewel is in the lotus,” as everything feels to be in its rightful place.

Choosing Love

Love and Wisdom retreat, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, Sept. 12, 2014AUDIO

Our ability to love is not pre-given, but, rather, depends greatly on our habits of mind. Metta, or lovingkindness, is a practice in which we remember the shared bond we have with all sentient beings – a drive for well-being – and we send out loving wishes to them. With practice, we lessen the habit of focusing on our superficial differences with people and the mind naturally inclines towards more friendliness and love.

Joy in the Practice, Joy in Life

Going to the Woods retreat, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, June 4, 2014AUDIO

Buddhism, in contrast to its stereotype of being overly focused on suffering, is, in its truest sense, a discipline for realizing abiding joy. This talk focuses on ways to overcome the negativity bias of the brain by practicing sympathetic joy, gratitude, playfulness, and a sense of humor. The talk also focuses on how to take meditation practice off the cushion and into daily life.

Working Wisely with Difficult Emotions

Daylong Retreat, Boulder, February 8th, 2014AUDIO

Mindfulness of difficult states is one of the fastest ways to taste the transformative power of meditation. Mindfulness allows us to stay open during emotional storms, allowing them fully without being swept away by them. We are enriched in the process, becoming more strong, wise, compassionate and authentic. When we see that our minds are workable, all of life feels workable. Includes slogans and the RAIN approach to working with emotions.

How to See a Rainbow: Uncovering Equanimity

Daylong Retreat, Boulder, February 23rd, 2013AUDIO

To see a rainbow, you must stand exactly between the sun and the rain. Similarly, when we stand evenly balanced between the pleasant and the unpleasant, we taste equanimity, a state as sublime as a rainbow. Meditation increases our equanimity by replacing reactivity with curiosity and awareness. In the process, we become more at ease in the midst of the very chaos of our lives.

The Mind as River

Weekend Retreat, Canon City Sangha, September 2012 AUDIO

When we are not identified with our thoughts and emotions, we realize that the things we take so personally are really just impermanent and conditioned phenomena that arise and disappear all by themselves. Insight into this profound truth is deeply freeing, and is where we really begin to see the payoff of dharma practice. When we are unconscious of change it is an enemy; when we are conscious of change it becomes a strong spiritual ally.

Blessings Seen and Unseen

Daylong retreat, Boulder, July 7, 2012AUDIO

Saying “thank you” is not just good manners, but a deep spiritual path. Gratitude practice helps us realize that the universe is supporting us much more than we let ourselves believe. Heaven is right here and now, if we only took the time to notice. Even painful experiences are beneficial as they make us dig deep and access strength and wisdom we didn’t know we had. Includes a guided gratitude meditation.

The Body as River

Weekend Retreat, Canon City Sangha, September 2012AUDIO

This talk illuminates some of the insights that come when we focus on impermanence in the body. The body has a mind of its own – sensations come and go all by themselves, and so many bodily processes happen automatically with no conscious effort. The more we realize the body is an uncontrollable, wild, river, the more we let go, and the happier we get.

So Spiritual an Animal

Going to the Woods week-long retreat, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, May 28, 2011AUDIO

We take ourselves so personally, yet so much of us is a product of natural evolution, from our two-legged gait to our opposable thumbs to the negativity bias of the human brain. The more we awaken, the less personally take ourselves, and the more we realize both our spiritual and animal natures. Wisdom shows us who we really are is nature itself.