by Peter Carlson | Apr 25, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Robert just completed a one week self retreat at the Providence Zen Center. It’s part of our practice to provide someone who has completed a significant retreat to process their experience during one of the dharma dialogues. The value of this is to provide the participant to “think out loud” about his or her experience, as this supports integrating the deep changes that retreat provide with a more conscious clarity afterwards. It also can inspire others to go on retreats as well, since this sort of intense training provides great benefit for the participants.
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by Peter Carlson | Apr 18, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this dialogue led by Kitty, the nature of complacency in spiritual practice was explored, combined with how conceit affects the mind. Conceit means to be attached to believing I am better, worse or separate from others. Kitty used an example from a relationship conflict that was conditioned by complacency combined with conceit, that is, not paying attention to her internal process, which caused friction between her and a dear friend. She then discussed how conceit conditioned this response, and how the conflict was successfully resolved. This presentation was accompanied by some lively discussion.
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by Peter Carlson | Apr 11, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this second of two talks on the Third Noble Truth, Peter reviewed last week’s dialogue, which was focused on understanding how emotionally potent memories (karma) bias the data input through the sense doors, the result being that we “imagine” our way through life. Mindful investigation allows these emergent processes to be noted sooner, and Right Effort allows the unintegrated self states to become more coordinated and less conflicted in function. This process sets the stable platform of samadhi, and allows the integrated personality structure to be investigated, producing a process of spiritual awakening. Peter then read a long excerpt from Rodney Smith’s book: “Stepping Out Of Self-Deception-The Buddha’s Liberating Teaching of Non-Self”, to illuminate how important letting go of egocentric thoughts are for the awakening process. For Those who might be interested in looking up the excerpts, they cover several pages in the chapter entitled: “Action From Emptiness”.
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by Peter Carlson | Mar 28, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this dialogue, Judy reviewed kayanupassana, mindfulness of the body, from the Satipatthana Sutta, which is usually translated as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. She explained that the “body” referred to is the aggregation of all the parts of the body, including the senses and breath awareness–in Pali, kaya can apply to a group of people, a bunch of bananas, etc. She placed emphasis on the aspect of kayanupassana called satisampajjhana, which can be translated as mindfulness/clear comprehension of how the body moves during the experience of moving, that is, while standing, walking, eating, reaching, etc. Additionally, the value of awareness of a worthy goal, suitable means for achieving the goal, the field of awareness that’s applied to maintain the suitable means–all in the context of non-greed, non-aversion and wisdom.
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by Peter Carlson | Mar 21, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this dialogue, Tommy reviewed the last two presentations Peter provided on craving and clinging. Tommy’s frequent use of facilitating questions opened up a lively dialogue among the folks attending. Wendy asked for comments from others about how they approach cultivating mindfulness at the start of the day, and received an abundance of reports from various Sangha members that were quite helpful.
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by Peter Carlson | Mar 14, 2013 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Peter continues the discussion begun in the last meeting on the Second Noble Truth. Again it was emphasized that there are three levels of approach to the Four Noble Truths: to be understood conceptually, to be noted upon emerging into awareness, and for the first two to be mastered. This talk explored the concepts associated with clinging, particularly from a neuropsychological perspective. The value of this approach is to demonstrate the impersonality of the various neural networks involved as initial sensory input is processed through association to prior experience. This is another way to look at the Buddhist concept of karma and the resultant effects, known as vipaka.During the next talk Peter will present in a few weeks, we will discuss the Third Noble Truth as a progression from personality integration (the mastery of virtue) to spiritual attainment (the mastery of wisdom).
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