by Sharon Wright | Nov 21, 2023 | Classes
The Four Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths were the first teaching the Buddha offered to his followers after his awakening. They are important because they hold the core teachings he offered throughout his life, giving us a clear and doable path toward understanding the nature of our minds and toward the pathway toward liberation.
In this four-session course, we will meditate, review the core teachings, and discuss how we can apply these teachings to our own lives, fraught as they are with all the burdens and responsibilities of the twenty-first century.
Our goal is to learn how to live our lives with more ease, purpose, and joy.
The class is taught by Lezlie Laws. Click here for more information about Lezlie.
- When: March 14, 21, 28, and April 4 6:30pm – 8:00pm
- Where: Zoomonline meeting. A zoom link will be sent to all registrants before the class begins.
- Fee: $60, payable to the Orlando Insight Meditation Group to pay for space and retreat scholarships (the teacher takes no fee; students may make a voluntary offering to the teacher at the end of the course out of gratitude for the teaching.)
- For more information: Email Lezlie.
by Sharon Wright | Jul 24, 2023 | Classes
In addition to our weekly Sangha, we invite you to join the monthly LifeArt Meditation Group, offered on the second Tuesday of every month from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.
In these sessions we explore the habits of the mind and the structures of living that allow us to live with more presence, more clarity about what matters, and more capacity for being of benefit.
Meeting format:
- A short talk on developing skillful means for maintaining a satisfying meditation practice. The emphasis here is on how to address all manner of hindrances that damage our motivation or hobble our mental capacities to remain concentrated and focused.
- A 20-minute guided meditation designed to help you put into play the ideas addressed in the talk.
- A Q&A session to gain clarity and insight about the practice.
When: Second Tuesday of the month from 6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: Zoom Meeting ID 847 5327 2329 Passcode: 525335
Teacher: Lezlie Laws. Click here to contact Lezlie.
by Sharon Wright | Jul 3, 2023 | Classes
The five hindrances are a set of mental factors that hinder progress in meditation and in our daily lives. This group of five hindrances is identified in the Pali tradition and the Sanskrit tradition as well as the contemporary Insight Meditation tradition.
- Sensory desire: A type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
- Ill-will: All kinds of thought related to wanting to reject. This includes feelings of hostility, resentment, hatred and bitterness.
- Sloth-torpor: Heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.
- Restlessness-worry: The inability to calm the mind.
- Doubt: Lack of conviction or trust.
Contemporary teachers emphasize that these factors should not be understood as personal failings, but rather as mental factors or “enemies” that arise in the minds of all humans. Through working with these factors in the context of meditation practice, we also learn to work with them in daily life. Contemporary Theravada teacher Ajahn Sumedho states:
In meditation one develops an understanding of the Five Hindrances–how, when one of them is present, you investigate it, you understand it, you accept its presence and you learn how to deal with it.
This quotation, then, is the format we will use in this workshop.
Mindfulness is the universal antidote to all of the hindrances. Beyond your practice, here is the way we engage in investigation of our thinking in order to achieve insight:
Step 1: Observe (and accept).
Step 2: Investigate your thinking. Noting how our thoughts are supporting or sabotaging our aspirations. Are they nourishing our personal values and life goals?
Step 3: Act. Taking wise action by eliminating non-beneficial thinking; establishing brave action; creating accountability.
The Insight Meditation tradition teaches a way to temper our hindrances. They are not simply afflictions we must endure.The way out is cultivating better states of mind. We invite you to join a small group of people gathering to improve their practice and live with more clarity and aliveness.
Required Reading: Unhindered: A Mindful Path Through the Five Hindrances by Gil Fronsdal. Click Here to purchase on Amazon.
The class is taught by Lezlie Laws. Click here for more information about Lezlie.
- When: April 20, 2024 9:00am-1:00pm and follow up on April 27, 2024 9:00am-1:00pm
- Registration: Limited to 8 participants. Email Lezlie Laws to register.
- Where: 1289 Harmon Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789 (Lezlie Laws’ home.)
- Fee: Fee is $60 to support the Orlando Insight Meditation Group. (The teacher takes no fee. Students may make a voluntary offering to the teacher at the end of the course out of gratitude for the teaching.)
- For more information: Email Lezlie.
by Sharon Wright | Jul 3, 2023 | Classes
This course is an introduction to mindfulness and concentration practices that support meditation. The meditation method we use is called Insight Meditation, and instruction is based on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. These practices support increasing emotional calmness and lowering stress reactivity. Throughout the four sessions, participants will learn concrete techniques for:
- How to hold the body
- How to breathe
- How to focus the mind
- How to release unbeneficial thoughts
- How to relax tension in the mind and body
- How to observe the movements of the mind
These skills can be cultivated, and in doing so, you will achieve moments of clarity, equanimity, and joy. Meditation is a practice that anyone can learn and improve skill and positive results. It just takes some knowledge and a desire to establish this life practice.
This is a beginners’ class so we welcome people who have no experience and want to establish a meditation practice. We also welcome those who want to brush up their skills and re-ignite their practice. You will learn concrete and specific ways to make your practice more skillful and more beneficial.
The class is taught by Lezlie Laws. Click here for more information about Lezlie.
- When: January 4, 11, 18, 25; 6:30pm – 8:00pm
- Where: Zoom online meeting. A zoom link will be sent to all registrants before the class begins.
- Fee: $60, payable to the Orlando Insight Meditation Group to pay for space and retreat scholarships (the teacher takes no fee; students may make a voluntary offering to the teacher at the end of the course out of gratitude for the teaching.)
- For more information: Email Lezlie.
by Sharon Wright | Nov 25, 2012 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Listen in as Bob Allen shares insightful and humorous thoughts on Gratitude on the eve of Thanksgiving