Dhamma Talks
Dukkha, The First Noble Truth
This presentation by April Koester, one of our cadre of teachers, begins an extensive review of the Four Noble Truths, focusing on the inevitability of dukkha, the physical and mental suffering that comes with being alive. During the talk, several participants share...
Overview of the Four Noble Truths
This talk presents a broad review of a core concept within all the Buddhist traditions, the Four Noble Truths. Peter talks about how the concepts of dukkha, craving and clinging, freedom from dukkha and the Noble Eightfold Path provide an an integrated way to...
Why Did The Buddha Meditate?
During this talk, Peter provides a brief speculative review of Siddhartha Gautama's life experience, before he became known as the Buddha. The intention here is to consider the sociocultural stresses of his time in comparison to the stresses of contemporary life. He...
Peter Reports On December 2024 Retreat
During this talk, Peter describes the challenges encountered in practicing mindfulness of breathing meditation for the cultivation of entry stages of jhana, a highly concentrated state of mind. This practice requires a careful balance of energy and tranquility...
Getting Unhooked From Craving And Clinging
This talk, presented by April Koester, focuses on a Tibetan term, shenpa, translated as attachment, but more provocatively termed hooked, made well-known by Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist teacher and author. An alternative rendering for \shenpa is craving and...
Giving Presence Over The Holidays
This talk provides a brief overview of traditional American holidays from Halloween through New Year's Eve, from their origins centuries ago up to how current consumerism and social conflict has created a stressful and potentially damaging series of events during the...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Post-Retreat Review
Following a long-established custom, this meeting is focused on providing opportunities for those who attended the annual Deerhaven one-week residential retreat to review their experience. Due to the occurrence of the meeting on Thanksgiving Eve, only 3 of the 14 who...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Renouncing The Five Hindrances
This talk provides information about how to identify and set aside the five hindrances to concentrated and tranquil awareness, preparatory to developing the process of Awakening through the practice of vipassana, insight into the conditioned nature of the mind. Here...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Contingent Origination Review
A core principle of Buddhist psychology is paticca samuppada, dependent origination. During this talk, an alternative translation is offered--contingent provisional emergence--which incorporates contemporary scientific and psychological understandings of this...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Self-State Integration To Self-State Liberation
This talk provides a way to understand how one's self-experience develops from what is termed "self-state conflict" through "self-state integration", leading to "self-state liberation". We all experience conflict between how socially conditioned ideals of oneself and...
