by Peter Carlson | Nov 20, 2025 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Lezlie Laws describes the acronym RAIN: Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-Self as a way to approach the challenges of everyday life. She is a proponent of spiritual journaling, and shares an excerpt from her personal journal entry to demonstrate how mindfulness, investigation and acknowledging the impersonal nature of our internal selfing process brings insight into our intrapersonal conflicts.
Here are two URL’s that provide descriptive content regarding RAIN:
https://www.tarabrach.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/TaraBrach_RAIN_A-Practice-of-Radical-Compassion.pdf
Here’s a link of Michele McDonald’s version of RAIN, including the second half – DROP. https://vipassanahawaii.org/resources/raindrop/
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:19 — 61.6MB)
by Peter Carlson | May 15, 2025 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Lezlie reviews four key liberating functions in the mind: diligence, mindfulness. clearly knowing what is emerging into awareness, supported by the integrative and unifying function of concentration–the persistent operation of the three qualities already mentioned. She describes how these qualities help her investigate and deny unwholesome views of herself and others left over from her childhood. Her comments are followed by comments from others participating in the meeting.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:28 — 56.3MB)
by Peter Carlson | Apr 2, 2026 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This presentation by Lezlie Laws continues a series of talks reviewing the elements of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse. Restlessness and Worry, commonly known as one of the Five Hindrances, has two characteristics: restlessness, a felt sense of scattered, agitated attention, and worry, the story that accompanies the agitation, seeming to justify and make the hindrance stronger and more controlling of attention. Lezlie offers suggestions for setting this hindrance aside, cultivating a more serene and open-minded flow of consciousness.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:00 — 59.5MB)
by Peter Carlson | Apr 23, 2026 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This talk continues reviewing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, focusing on the hindrance of Skeptical Doubt. Peter describes the difference between beneficial introspective questioning and the “analysis paralysis” experienced when afflicted by Skeptical Doubt. He reviews the different categories of doubt that traditional Buddhist doctrine provides along with effective antidotes. The antidote for Skeptical Doubt involves using meditation practice to build confidence in the ability to contend with uncertainty and respond effectively to the changes that occur in life.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Understanding Skeptical Doubt
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:13 — 62.5MB)
by Peter Carlson | May 7, 2026 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Peter reviews a section of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, focusing on how the brain takes in sensory stimulation and integrates the various areas where senses are processed with areas of the brain that formulate self identity and and behavior, transforming the initial stimuli into the experience of “selfing”. The fetters are what binds these processes, which is described during the talk. How this works is presented from both a classical Theravada Buddhist perspective and contemporary neuroscientific research that demonstrates how the brain “binds” the various neural processes in different areas into a coherent self-experience multiple times per second.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Understanding the Sense Doors and the Fetters
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:49 — 52.0MB)
