by Peter Carlson | Sep 28, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Lezlie Laws reviews the seventh Awakening Factor, Equanimity, beginning with a very well-written essay by her describing the poise and dedication of a hawk living in New York City and raising chicks in the middle of the busy metropolis. She speaks of how viewing a video about this hawk stirred her emotionally and connects the theme of the story and her experience with the Awakening Factor of Equanimity. This is followed by her review of the traditional characteristics of the Equanimity Awakening Factor, which functions to bring balance to the other six factors and, therefore to the Awakening mind. Several participants in the meeting then talk about their understanding of how the story and Equanimity applies to her or his life experience.
The topic for the next talk will summarize the fulfillment in the development of the elements found within the Four Foundations of Mindfulness through an explanation of how the Noble Eightfold Path becomes realized as the Noble Tenfold Path.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:05 — 59.6MB)
by Peter Carlson | Sep 21, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
It is customary for our Sangha meetings to provide an opportunity for someone who has participated in a recent residential retreat to “think out loud” about their experience. Much of the benefit of a retreat occurs outside of awareness, and an opportunity to talk about what happened during the retreat can bring new insights to them and integrate what has occurred into conscious awareness and therefore become more accessible for future spiritual development. Listening to a review can also be informative and inspiring for those in the meeting or reviewing this recording. During this talk, Andy, the founding teacher for the Lakeland Insight Meditation Group, recounts his experience at the Southern Dharma Center in North Carolina at a retreat led by Donald Rothberg, a well-respected author and teacher, whose training has been influenced by Theravaden and Tibetan Buddhist teachings.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:06 — 45.9MB)
by Peter Carlson | Sep 15, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Allie Vaknin describes the characteristics of the Five Aggregates of Clinging: Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Mind Conditioning Factors, all reflected in Consciousness.
This review is supplemented by a posted recording titled “Guided Five Aggregates Contemplation”, recorded just prior to this talk.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:21 — 58.9MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jul 27, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Lezlie Laws initially provides an overview of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of Mental Phenomena. She then describes how the Five Hindrances are recognized and effectively set aside. This talk also includes a period of time for questions to be discussed.
The focus for the next talk will be the next category of the Fourth Foundation, the Five Aggregates.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:03 — 63.2MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jul 20, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This review, provided by April Koester, focuses on the Third Foundation of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which is intended to describe how the characteristics of various states of consciousness can affect our self-experiences. The mind operates like a filter, “coloring” perceptions through various states such as desire, aversion, dullness, agitation, etc. The goal of mindfulness and internal investigation is to understand the conditioning of the filtering process and, through Right Effort, create qualities of consciousness that provide an unfiltered view of the impermanent and non-self characteristics of subjective experience.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:48 — 53.8MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jul 13, 2023 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This talk first focuses on reviewing the Second Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of Feelings; the second focus is on a core concept of Buddhist psychology, Dependent Origination, within which mindfulness of feelings plays a key role. Peter Carlson provides a contemporary rendition of dependent origination, Contingent Provisional Emergence, which describes the ancient concept using more contemporary psychological terminology.
There are two sets of notes accompanying this talk: MINDFULNESS OF FEELINGS and Understanding Contingent Provisional Emergence
There is a guided meditation posted on this site intended to complement the contents of this talk: Guided Mindfulness of Feelings Contemplation
Next week’s talk will review the Third Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of the Mind
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:42 — 60.1MB)
