by Peter Carlson | Sep 5, 2024 | News
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 reviewed, followed by suggestions for integrating their combined effects. There is a guided “Contemplating Mindfulness, Investigation, and Right Effort” meditation preceding this talk, which was recorded and posted in the Audio folder, under Guided Meditations. It is intended to provide a practice mode to accompany this conceptual presentation.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Mindfulness Investigation and Right Effort
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:02 — 59.5MB)
by Peter Carlson | Sep 5, 2024 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This guided meditation provides opportunities to become more clearly aware of three important mind-conditioning functions and how to cultivate their functioning, which provides the basis for experiencing high degrees of mental clarity and stability, benefiting the practice of vipassana, insight meditation. The coordinated and integrated effects of these three factors will be reviewed during a talk occurring just after this meditation training exercise, recorded and posted as “Reviewing Mindfulness, Investigation, and Right Effort”.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:58 — 41.2MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jul 7, 2022 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Sati, the Pali word we translate as mindfulness, functions as a composite–present moment awareness combined with investigation and Right Effort. This interactive process is reviewed during this talk. Additionally, there is an interesting quote included in the talk that was downloaded from Wikipedia describing the contemporary term metacognition in ways that are strikingly similar in form and function to sati, without making any reference to Buddhist psychology. This talk is intended to be a prelude to a relatively thorough series of talks reviewing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse, which many consider to be the most important teaching in Buddhism.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk, including the extensive quote from Wikipedia: The Four Foundations of Right Mindfulness
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:12 — 40.5MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jan 15, 2021 | Listen to Dharma Talks
Most current non-scholarly reviews of the life of the Buddha repeat the mythological attributions that are contained in the Suttas and Commentaries, which has some value. This review is an attempt to describe the life of this remarkable person in a way that is de-mythologized, attempting to provide a cultural context for his life and the revolutionary concepts that were developed to create what we call Buddhism. The Intention is to make his life and teachings more understandable and applicable to current life circumstances, with the hope that this will inspire more commitment to train the mind to deal more effectively with the stresses of contemporary life. Future talks will review the development of the various schools of Buddhism over the centuries following his death, the discovery of Buddhism by Westerners and its introduction into 20th century cultures, and finally the more recent neuropsychological and sociological research of the last 25 years regarding the beneficial effects of mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation, with the implications for our lives going forward.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: Early Buddhist Life
As mentioned above, next week’s talk will focus on the development of the various Buddhist schools over several centuries and on several continents.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:15 — 132.3MB)
by Peter Carlson | Jan 15, 2021 | Listen to Dharma Talks
This guided meditation provides training in noticing three essential qualities of attention described in the Satipatthana Sutta and the Anapanasati Suttta: Diligence (Persistent, dedicated application of attention), Clear Comprehension (Attention to the details of sensations while breathing along with attention to the emergence of mental phenomena), monitored by Mindfulness (Undistracted, alert awareness). During the meditation there are occasional reminders provided of those characteristics and ways to recognize and make best use of their functions, as they are key for developing insight in an ongoing way.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:59 — 82.4MB)
