Dhamma Talks
Five Aggregates With Clinging
This talk provides a review of pancasammupada, the Five Aggregates With Clinging, an important Buddhist concept describing how personality is organized. When Peter was in Graduate School, part of the required curriculum was a course on personality theory, citing such...
Cultivating Critical Analysis
Critical analysis is often termed critical thinking, and is a very important skill to cultivate in this era, as we are constantly bombarded with manipulative advertising and political "spin". In the Buddhist conceptual structure, one of the 7 factors for awakening is...
Cultivating A Compassionate Relationship
This discussion continues to explore the application of mindfulness and compassion to interpersonal conflict resolution. Peter introduced some points from the website metta.org focused on procedures developed in Gregory Kramer's book "Insight Dialogue-The...
Buddhism Politics And Nonself
This week's talk continues to explore how Buddhist principles and practices can support developing wisdom in the current political environment. Racism, sexism, homophobia and ethnophobia were described as themes woven into the fabric of political divisiveness. The...
How Mindfulness Cultivates Political Wisdom
This talk follows on the previous talk entitled "Mindfulness And Political Judgment" from July 6. Peter again emphasized the intention of the talk is to demonstrate that rigid thinking and the potential for aggression, psychologically termed "conservatism" is evident...
Mindfulness And Political Judgment
This talk continues to explore how Buddhist principles and practices can be beneficially applied during this contentious U. S. political season. There is a phenomenon called "negativity bias", which predisposes a person to unconsciously be stimulated by potential...
Mindfulness Evolution And Politics
This seems to be a very conflicted year in our culture--economic and ecological upheaval, political divisiveness and hostility abound. This talk begins a series of explorations of how the Four Noble Truths are relevant to current circumstances. Peter proposed that...
Mindful Grieving
This week's talk is dedicated to grieving the massacre at the Pulse nightclub on June 12. During the talk, Peter read a rendering of the discourse on lovingkindness, the Metta Sutta, and described how Buddhist concepts counter the human tendency towards hatred and...
Self State Liberation
During this talk, Peter reviewed last week's topic, "The Selfing Story" and added to the concept of the Five Aggregates the additional concept of paticca sammuppada, typically translated as "dependent origination". He substituted the term "contingent provisional...
The Selfing Story
During this talk, A Buddhist understanding of anatta, the absence of an enduring, autonomous self was described. The Western term "ego" was presented as a process that winnows through all the sensations stimulating the 5 sense doors, creating a dynamic flow of...
