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October Dharma Questions 2024
During this talk, Peter responded to various questions about mindfulness of breathing meditation practice, understanding how to cultivate insights regarding the self-creating process, and the body scanning practice taught by S. N. Goenka.
Waking Up From Habituation
During this talk, April reviews current neurological information associated with habituation, describing how our minds and bodies develop patterns that allow us to function more efficiently in regard to energy utilization, but can interfere with our ability to...
Reviewing Mindfulness, Investigation, and Right Effort
This talk presented by Peter is intended to provide information regarding three very important mental "skill sets" that are necessary for developing effective mindfulness meditation practice. First, defining characteristics of each mind-conditioning function are...
Guided Lovingkindness Meditation
This guided meditation focuses on the use of body awareness (middle of the chest), along with the repetition of the lovingkindness mantra, to cultivate Right Intention, which, along with Right Understanding, constitutes Wisdom. This was recorded during a one-day...
Guided Basic Mindfulness Of Breathing Meditation
This is intended to be a resource for cultivating mindfulness of breathing meditation, providing several suggestions during the experience to support developing more skill and confidence in the practice of a fundamental Buddhist training for self-awareness and...
Mindfulness On And Off The Cushion
During this talk, Lili Fernandez describes the importance of integrating the Five Precepts into daily mindfulness practice. Her experience as the mother of two young boys creates the opportunity to find different and creative ways to train the mind towards virtuous...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Reviewing Samadhi
Samadhi describes how the mind is unified during the process of Awakening, and this talk reviews the various stages of concentrated awareness that are cultivated. Here are the notes prepared for this talk: JHANA CULTIVATION-IS IT NECESSARY and Samadhi...
2023 Deerhaven Fall Retreat–Reviewing The Five Aggregates
This talk describes a way that Buddhist psychology explains human personality formation as an aggregation of five factors in order to "deconstruct" the belief that there is an enduring/autonomous self. Here are the notes prepared for this talk: REVIEWING THE FIVE...
Reviewing the Joy Awakening Factor
Allie Vaknin provides a review of the Joy Awakening Factor during this talk, clarifying the various ways that joy can arise as an internally generated phenomena, not dependent upon external circumstances.
Reviewing Tranquility and Concentration
This talk provides a review of two of seven Awakening Factors, Tranquility and Concentration, which are so integrated in their functioning that their manifestation is called samatha (syah-mah-tah) in Pali. Peter Carlson provides a review of each of the two, including...