This guided meditation focuses attention on how to mindfully investigate the transient nature of all subjective experience–of sensations, feelings, thoughts, and the characteristics of consciousness.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:58 — 41.2MB)
This meditation provides support for deepening the stability and tranquility of the mind through using breath/body awareness, with the intention to keep “letting go” and accepting whatever physical discomfort that might occur, while still going deeper.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:54 — 41.1MB)
After a significant retreat experience, participants have the opportunity to review what they learned during one of our meetings. Peter describes the retreat he just completed as one of the most significant of the more than 40 residential retreats he has attended. Shaila Catherine, the teacher, is internationally known and respected for her knowledge regarding jhana practice and her outstanding ability to describe the “craft” involved in developing very high degrees of concentration. Traditional Buddhist vipassana, or insight meditation, emphasizes the practical benefits of this level of concentration as a way to prepare the mind for deep and subtle insights into the nature of subjective experience. Peter’s review includes detailed descriptions of various markers of concentrated attention that must be developed in order to realize a jhana level of focused awareness. Prior to this retreat, Peter gave a talk on October 19 describing the various levels of jhana experience, and the recording and notes from that talk are posted in the archives.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Peter’s Jhana Retreat Report
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:45 — 60.2MB)
Peter Carlson will be participating in a 10-day retreat soon that focuses on concentrating the mind to the level of experiencing jhana, an extraordinarily focused level of attention that is frequently described in the earliest Buddhist teachings. He talks about previous jhana experience, the characteristics of jhana states and his preparation for this immersive experience. After he returns from the retreat, he will review the experience on November 8.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: CULTIVATING JHANA
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:52 — 60.3MB)
During this talk, Peter Carlson reviews the key Buddhist teaching on dependent origination as it is associated with another important concept, emptiness, which has frequently been misunderstood. During the discussion, contemporary scientific and psychological information that fosters more clarity about the topics are presented.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk, which provide a more extensive review of the various aspects of emptiness from a contemporary scientific as well as the traditional perspective: Contingent Provisional Emergence As Emptiness
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:41 — 59.2MB)
This talk by Peter Carlson thoroughly summarizes the last verse of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, which describes how the Four Noble Truths are transformed by the effective coordinated functioning of the Seven Awakening Factors from a conceptual understanding to direct knowledge of the transient and impersonal nature of subjective experience. Within the Wisdom Aggregate of the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Understanding is directly realized, becoming Right Knowledge and Right Intention is directly realized, becoming Right Release; in this way, the Noble Eightfold Path becomes the Noble Tenfold Path. The talk also includes a review of the concept of Nirvana, which, in the Theravaden Buddhist tradition, must be experienced 4 times to achieve full Awakening.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Realizing the Noble Eightfold Path
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:14 — 58.8MB)