by Peter Carlson | Jun 30, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
It is customary for our Sangha to provide the opportunity for those members who recently completed a residential retreat to talk about their experience. It fosters the integration of the meditative experience through “thinking out loud” and responding to questions and comments from those participating in the meeting. Lezlie recently participated in a one-week residential retreat co-led by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, two well-respected teachers who are also psychologists. She describes the structure of the retreat and her significant insights regarding the Dharma during the retreat. Several participants spoke of their gratitude for her thorough and insightful comments during the review.
Next week’s topic will begin an extensive and thorough review of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, which is characterized as Right Mindfulness within the Noble Eightfold Path. The topic for this meeting will focus on an expansive review of the elements of sati, translated as mindfulness, including contemporary neuropsychological research on what happens in the brain when one practices mindfulness meditation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:42 — 62.0MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jun 24, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This talk is part of a series reviewing the Four Noble Truths. Right Effort is an important element of the Noble Eightfold Path and can be understood as a process of channeling the energy of attention away from unwholesome self-states towards wholesome self-states. The cooperation among the first three of the Seven Awakening Factors–Mindfulness, Investigation of Mental Phenomena and Energy, as Right Effort–is essential for fulfilling one’s potential for Awakening, and this talk discusses their interactions. Various characteristics of Right Effort are also included in the review. There is a guided meditation posted in the Audio archives of this website entitled “Guided Channeling Right Effort Meditation”, which is intended to provide supplementary support for the contents of this talk.
Here are the notes prepared for the talk: Reviewing Right Effort
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:19 — 48.8MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jun 24, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This guided meditation offers a different approach to cultivating Right Effort by suggesting that, while meditating, we can view the flow of experience as metabolic energy derived from food and oxygen, that feeds the brain’s activities. Rather than trying to “stop” unwholesome self-states, we can redirect the energy of attention away from the “weeds” (the Five Hindrances) towards nurturing the “flowers” (the Seven Awakening Factors), as if attention is water flowing through a hose. This guided meditation is intended to supplement the Dharma talk entitled “Reviewing Right Effort”, which was presented and recorded on June 23, 2022.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:52 — 41.1MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jun 16, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This talk reviews the third attribute of the Virtue aggregate in the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Livelihood. in addition to traditional renderings of this topic, contemporary considerations of “Right Lifestyle” are described, including the importance of physical and financial balance in one’s life to support meditative development and integration of the Dharma into daily living routines.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Reviewing Right Livelihood
The topic for next week’s talk will focus on Right Effort, the first of three attributes in the mental discipline aggregate of the Noble Eightfold Path.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:15 — 55.2MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jun 2, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Right Action is a category of the Virtue Aggregate within the Noble Eightfold Path. This talk reviews the various traditional aspects of virtue–harmlessness, not stealing and not in ways that are sexually harmful–including commentaries that focus on contemporary social issues such as behavioral addictions, which has a large impact on current life.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Reviewing Right Action
The focus of the next talk will be a review of Right Livelihood, with additional commentary on contemporary cultural issues that affect the development of the Awakening process.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:27 — 54.4MB)
