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Browse Tags: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - Tracking 64,049 Podcasts, 1,360,548 Episodes.
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Browse Tags: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - Tracking 64,049 Podcasts, 1,360,548 Episodes.
Top Podcasts by Votes | Top Podcasts by Subscriptions | Featured Podcasts | Webmasters - Promote Your Podcast
| Podcast title | Unfettered Mind
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| http://www.unfetteredmind.com | ||
| Description | NEWS-> Podcasts previously listed here are now available at www.unfetteredmind.org. <- NEWS Unfettered Mind is a network of teachers and students that provides training in direct awareness (e.g., mahamudra and dzogchen in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition) for those whose path lies outside established centers and institutions. The principal teacher is Ken McLeod, translator, author, and executive director of Unfettered Mind. Ken began his training in 1970 with the Tibetan master, the Ven. Kalu Rinpoche. Trained in the Kagyu, Shangpa, and Nyingma traditions of Buddhism in Tibet, he was authorized in 1985 by Kalu Rinpoche to teach and guide others. His book, Wake Up to Your Life (published in 2001), provides a comprehensive and accessible approach to practice, from the initial stages of meditation up to the full integration of open awareness into one’s life. The recordings here are a selection of his teaching and retreats over the last several years and cover a wide range of topics: meditation, compassion, emptiness, power, conflict, and presence. Ken’s approach, and the approach at Unfettered Mind, is to create environments of awareness, conditions in which people experience directly what it means to be awake and present in life. His teachings include pragmatic applications of Buddhist methods to the practicalities of life. | |
| Updated | Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:24:33 -0500 | |
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| Category | Buddhism |
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1. MTSF02: Mind Training Santa Fe '03 (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 15.88Mb) Description: Practice on awakening to what is apparently true: taking and sending. The audio for this series of podcasts was originally recorded on audio cassette. As such you may find the sound to be of a lower quality. |
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2. MTSF01: Mind Training Santa Fe '03 (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 15.53Mb) Description: Review of lineage; 5 practices on awakening to what is ultimately true: regard everything you experience as a dream, examine the nature of unborn awareness, the remedy itself releases naturally, the essence of the path: rest in the basis of all experience, in daily life, be a child of illusion. The audio for this series of podcasts was originally recorded on audio cassette. As such you may find the sound to be of a lower quality. |
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3. PAP10: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 36.24Mb) Description: Receiving the Result. Whatever the outcome, work with that: The Four Steps of Standing Up as a way of living, continually cycling. Four stages of conflict: Pacification, Enrichment, Magnetization, Destruction. Balance, boundary, and the ethics of power. Obligation and the three bases of relationship. Courage. How power differs from other gestures (ecstasy, insight, compassion). Fairy tale: Ransom, Return, Recognition |
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4. PAP08: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 41.27Mb) Description: Serving What is True. Difficulties in serving what is true when it doesn’t accord with expectations and understanding. Fairy tale: The Old Man with Red Eyes How fairy tales describe internal realms of experience vs. the world of shared experience. Attention vs. Intention vs. Will. Exercise: 4-person flocks. Obstacles as simply features in the landscape to be negotiated. |
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5. PAP09: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 6.74Mb) Description: Exercise: Artist and Critic. If you live for respect, you give your life over to others. How the sense of urgency often accelerates things, and we get swallowed up in the acceleration. Evolutionary paradigms: providing the _conditions_ for certain things to evolve. Applications to meditation. Fairy tale: Black Sheep |
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6. PAP07: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 8.96Mb) Description: On posture. How we hold ourselves carries/conveys meanings. Posture exercises: Advance-retreat; rise-lower; widen-narrow. |
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7. PAP06: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 35.96Mb) Description: Opening to What Is. How familiar situations trigger old scripts, whose function is to dissipate attention. Exercise: Push hands, back-to-back. How triggered scripts corrupt intention. Power is the ability to implement intention, by staying present. Instead of focusing on what you want to do, include the entire situation. Fairy tale: The Old Witch and the White Bird |
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8. PAP05: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 49.07Mb) Description: On Showing Up. Revisiting the primary practice: not to ‘get it right’ but to experience what happens, the totality of your life. Balancing exercises: how slowly thinking happens, but the body knows how to maintain balance. Applications in meditation. Nothing undercuts a distracting story so well as returning to the body. Fairy tale: The Black Castle |
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9. PAP04: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 40.69Mb) Description: Power and opposition. Engaging with power, you have no idea what you’re going to be called upon to do. In the experience of opposition: something in yourself that you’re not willing to admit or experience. Exercise: Walking the gauntlet. How training develops capacity to respond in complex situations. Fairy tale: The Sleeping Giants |
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10. PAP03: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 24.29Mb) Description: Forming a relationship with power. The ethics of power: the warrior’s sword vs. the predator’s sword. Exercise: Taking the sword. Four ways of working. Five mysteries associated with power: power, balance, presence, truth, freedom. Fairy tale: The Straw, the Egg, and the Book of Knowledge |
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11. PAP02: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 43.91Mb) Description: Staying present in the experience of acceleration. Receiving feedback from the environment and adjusting. The Four Steps of Standing Up: 1) Show up. 2) Open to what is. 3) Serve what is true. 4) Receive the results. Exercise: Showing up in your body. Story: The thief, the samurai, and the warlord. Do what is required, no more. Primary practice, revisted. Fairy tale: The Two Inns |
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12. PAP01: Power and Presence (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 26.31Mb) Description: Introduction to retreat themes and practices. The relationship between power and presence: finding peace under pressure. Exercise: pushing, resisting, giving way. How quickly power accelerates and takes over. Instruction in the primary practice. Fairy tale: The Journey Begins |
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13. POI01: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 36.84Mb) Description: Retreat format, structure, and materials; what is the view?; error of taking refuge in specific experiences; the mistaken notion of self vs. skillful interactions; the illusion of choice. |
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14. POI02: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 49.95Mb) Description: Overview of rituals and prayers used in retreat; the 'primary' practice described, related guided meditation, and participants' experience with this meditation; relaxing and resting. |
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15. POI03: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 52.22Mb) Description: Shamatha and cultivating a basis of attention; infallibility; the end of suffering as a process, not an end state; resting in whatever arises; guru yoga. |
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16. POI04: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 52.70Mb) Description: Consequences of ignoring what arises from meditation; what is meant by sentient beings are infinite, I vow to save them all; comments on Verse on the Faith Mind; questions from participants; sky-gazing instructions |
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17. POI05: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 53.27Mb) Description: Discussion with participants on the origin of attention; thoughts, mind, and freedom from reacting; inference, intellect, and experience; discomfort and the death of duality; mirror, mirror on the wall; the importance of stability. |
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18. POI06: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 60.89Mb) Description: The problems of idealizing; seeing the mirror; awareness; commentary on Aspirations for Mahamudra. |
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19. POI07: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 46.65Mb) Description: Satori, enlightenment, and laypeople; parallels with martial arts training; what compassion is really like; commentary on Aspirations for Mahamudra. |
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20. POI08: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 53.66Mb) Description: The utility of deception; faith, trust, and not knowing your reaction to what you haven't experienced; the union of seeing and resting (guided meditation); what it the teacher in one's experience; questions from participants. |
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21. POI09: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 77.92Mb) Description: Common mistakes and pitfalls regarding emptiness and Mahamudra (believing emptiness is a thing, attempting to offer explanations to those who do not practice, etc.); a reading of One Sentence Pith Instruction and Recognizing Mind as Guru; integrating practice and life; questions from participants. |
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22. BWM01: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 26.03Mb) Description: Retreat’s daily schedule and routine; subject matter for retreat (Buddhahood Without Meditation); sitting with questions rather than trying to answer them intellectually; the challenge of doing nothing; the importance of silence; resting & seeing. |
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23. BWM02: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 63.86Mb) Description: Participants’ accounts of what is like to do nothing; overview of Dzogchen from the perspective of outlook/view, practice, and behavior; willingness, know-how, and capacity and related tools for Dzogchen practice. |
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24. BWM03: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 60.20Mb) Description: Participants’ accounts on using tools described in previous sessions; discussion on guru yoga, negative emotions, and faith; instruction and questions on sky gazing; instruction, discussion, and experiences on using the breath and questions to learn how to rest in the view. |
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25. BWM04: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 61.29Mb) Description: The hunter and the three bears; how different sets of instructions point to the same thing (Asanga, mind-training, mahamudra, dzogchen); forms of knowing; letting direct experience soak in to your core; the sense of self and ant colonies; the nature of experience; form and emptiness. |
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26. BWM05: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 57.31Mb) Description: Question regarding translation of Dogen’s Genjokoan; If objects and experiences are empty and there is no self, why does it matter what I do?; the struggle between patterns and ethical/virtuous behavior; Buddhist ethics as a way to create the conditions for a quiet mind; what would life be like if you could experience fully whatever arises?; intention; meeting what is there; what is buddha nature? |
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27. BWM06: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 58.16Mb) Description: Seeking ‘the experience’; the illusion of choice; recognizing what is arising and resting; useless and useful planning; resting as a means, not an end; the nature of mind; working with resistance; meditation instruction; emptiness and awareness; what is meant by ‘May I know that mind has no beginning.’ |
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28. BWM07: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 62.89Mb) Description: The story of tea; commentary and questions on The Wisdom Experience of Ever-Present Good and understanding apparent contradictions in the text. |
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29. BWM08: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 55.46Mb) Description: Conduct and behavior as ways to both set conditions for practice and enhance / deepen practice; the story of Mrs. Foo; applying the principle of the middle way; tightening up your life and keeping your intention clear; two lists of metaphors for conduct and behavior; engaging in a chosen behavior so as to experience in yourself the related reactive emotions. |
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30. BWM09: Buddhahood Without Meditation (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 57.80Mb) Description: Historical tendency of practice being both separate from and more important than other daily activities; stabilization of attention (with and without activity) as the only type of practice; why incorporating practice into your life doesn’t work; why incorporating your life into your practice does work; using the primary practice continually; including your whole life in everything you do; the only thing you can know is what you experience; a knowing that is immediate and direct but not conceptual; find appropriate response through the four steps of standing up; open to both poles of a reactive pattern to step out of it. |
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31. AP01: Anything's Possible (pt 1) download (audio/mpeg, 36.68Mb) Description: A reading of the heart sutra; discussion of the sutra's purpose; commentary on what is meant by 'be a lamp unto my feet'; how the title of this talk, Anything Is Possible, relates to the heart sutra; the relationship between form and emptiness; karma and memory; practice as building a capacity to experience in attention whatever arises. |
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32. AP02: Anything's Possible (pt 2) download (audio/mpeg, 32.51Mb) Description: Appearances and reality; what life is and staying present in it; the world in which we think we live and the world in which we actually live; where does Buddhism and politics come together; how does one work with psychological trauma in practice; working with fear; how does interdependent origination relate to our thoughts; karma, rebirth, and evolution; translating Buddhist poetry and spiritual writing; discussion of mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra |
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33. TAN37: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 31.43Mb) Description: The three kayas or forms of Buddhahood (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya) and their characteristics; special traits of Buddhahood; understanding the activities of Buddhahood as the natural response of compassion instead of viewing them as special abilities; thanks and acknowledgments to everyone who helped manage the class and make the podcasts possible. |
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34. TAN36: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 40.27Mb) Description: Discussion of the highly coded text used in these last chapters; overview of the ten bhumis or stages and how they relate to one's experience; how the stages reflect specific, real-life experiences and shifts; division of stages into impure and pure. Discussion of the first (nature) of the two aspects of the pristine awareness of Buddhahood; evaluating experience; resting in experience and seeing what is, bringing these two together; seeing things as they are, knowing how they appear; meditation instruction for upcoming week. |
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35. TAN35: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 38.01Mb) Description: The problems and advantages of charting spiritual progression; spiritual growth is rarely linear; the five paths as a way of organizing accumulated wisdom; The Path of Accumulation (gathering resources), mindfulness, perfect abandonment, and miracle powers; The Path of Application or Accommodation (no independent existence), the four stages and four noble truths, the five powers and strengths; The Path of Insight (seeing the nature of things); The Path of Meditation and the noble eight-fold path; The Path of Perfection (attention and seeing are stabilized). |
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36. TAN34: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 36.78Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on exploring the difference between doing routine, simple activities as usual and doing them when one has dropped into the clear resting mind; importance of means and wisdom; perfection of wisdom is knowing precisely what you are experiencing or know directly that all experience arises from no thing; translation points, change "realize" to "know directly" and "phenomena" to "experience"; entering into the mystery of "what am I? what is this experience I call life? what is time?"; approaching experience as just experience; practice instructions; meditation assignment for upcoming week on exploring when and how do I experience time in daily activities and meditation? |
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37. TAN33: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 42.45Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on comparing experience in actions with clear and unclear intention; remedies for the following reactive emotions: desire, anger, instinct/blind stupidity/ignoring, jealousy, and pride; experiencing vs acting out or suppressing emotions; remedies are used to develop unfragmented attention; three kinds of stable attention; meditation assignment for upcoming week on exploring the difference between doing routine, simple activities as usual and doing them with a resting mind. |
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38. TAN32: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 36.37Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on exploring one's experience with enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm in everyday life; stability vs concentration; results of agitated mind; clairvoyance as a mistranslation of what can happen with a stable mind; stable attention gives rise to compassion; natural virtue of resting mind; stopping distraction; primary characteristics, genesis and faults of fragmentation of attention and solitude; evaluating what brings meaning, value and peace to us; clear intention leads to stable attention; meditation assignment for upcoming week on comparing experience in actions with clear and unclear intention. |
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39. TAN31: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 49.97Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on working more deeply to experience what one seeks to avoid by exiting into impatience; translation issues around "perseverance, diligence, effort, etc."; working hard the right way; virtuous, spiritual and practical aspects of working hard; passivity vs laziness; 3 types of laziness and remedies; translation issues around laziness; 3 types of diligence; 3 efforts; natural enthusiasm in working hard at virtue; efforts on one's spiritual path; working hard with no sense of effort; meditation assignment for upcoming week on exploring one's experience with enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm in everyday life. |
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40. TAN30: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 48.35Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on exploring impatience and what you are afraid of experiencing at that moment; impatience arising from your feeling weaker than what is opposing you; anger resulting from impatience conditions quickly and deeply; essential gesture: compassion creates a sense of ease; classification: patience when interacting with others, patience with self in spiritual practice, patience with fear of no-self; primary characteristics; developing patience with self; experience anger without acting it out; patience for the rigors of practice; patience which allows us to know just how things are; meditation assignment for upcoming week: work more deeply to experience what one seeks to avoid by exiting into impatience. |
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41. TAN29: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 42.36Mb) Description: Moral Discipline Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on exploring the difference between doing the moral thing because you know its the right thing to do and doing the moral thing because it is natural; morality as discipline; morality as skillful means; advantages of practicing and disadvantages of refraining from moral discipline: exercise of discipline as stepping out of conditioned behavior; essential gesture: moral discipline is learned through interaction; classification: restraint, generating the good and wholesome, wake up to every aspect of our experience; primary characteristics; generating good and wholesome outcomes; descriptive guidelines for living awake; moving from ordinary moral discipline to the perfection of moral discipline; end outcome; meditation assignment for upcoming week on exploring impatience and what you are afraid of experiencing at that moment. |
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42. TAN28: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 45.31Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on exploring the difference between giving with a sense of I and other and giving without a sense of I and other; advantages of practicing and disadvantages of refraining from generosity; essential gesture; classification; primary characteristics; 4 methods for increasing the power of generosity; moving from ordinary generosity to the perfection of generosity; end outcome of generosity; meditation assignment for upcoming week on exploring the difference between doing the moral thing because you know its the right thing to do and doing the moral thing because it is natural. |
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43. TAN27: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 43.81Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on experiencing the four black dharmas; genesis & fruition vehicles; six perfections: generosity, morality, patience, effort, meditative stability & wisdom; their specific evolutionary order; their characteristics; generosity as letting go; paramita; meditation assignment for upcoming week on the difference between giving with a sense of I and other and giving without a sense of I and other. |
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44. WAI01: Who Am I? (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 27.80Mb) Description: Introduction of participants; workshop outline; meditation instruction; Who am I conventionally speaking? What are my interests, talents, influences, gifts? Where am I going? |
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45. WAI02: Who Am I? (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 23.78Mb) Description: Who am I ultimately? Am I my name, my body, my feelings, my thoughts, what I experience? sense of self; impermanence of self; independence of self; irreducible aspect of self. |
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46. WAI03: Who Am I? (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 37.36Mb) Description: Who am I functionally? Who am I in the family environment? Who am I in the work environment? Who am I acting in each of the six realms? |
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47. WAI04: Who Am I? (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 35.39Mb) Description: On being nobody; our situation consists of: nothing at the core, emotional reactions from roles, world of stories; tools: black box, middle way, interdependence; closing. |
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48. TAN26: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 43.31Mb) Description: Participants' experience with previous week's meditation on response to bodhisattva vow; creating conditions for bodhicitta to arise in oneself; five training principles: don't close your heart to anything, be mindful of the benefits, nurturing goodness and awareness, spread and deepen attitude within, avoiding four black dharmas and instilling white dharmas; meditation assignment for upcoming week on experiencing the four black dharmas. |
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49. TAN25: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 40.79Mb) Description: Participant's experience with previous week's meditation on succumbing to despair and rejecting others; aspects of the bodhisattva vow associated with Dharmakirti; moving from intention to will; benefits of taking the vow, disadvantages of losing and factors leading to the degeneration of the bodhisattva vow; vow renewal; bodhicitta as an ethic of compassion; meditation instruction for upcoming week: repeat bodhisattva vow daily, how do you respond to the ceremony and to forming this intention? |
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50. TAN24: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 37.66Mb) Description: Participant’s experience with previous week’s meditation exercise on rejoicing in virtue; meeting the deficiency inside ourselves so that we may aspire to bodhicitta; planting virtuous roots; prayers used in class: Prayer to the Perfection of Wisdom, Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind, Refuge and Awakening Mind, Four Immeasurables, Dedication, Aspiration for Awakening Mind, Good Fortune; bodhisattva vow ceremony; celebration; meditation instruction for upcoming week on succumbing to despair with regard to helping others. |
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51. TAN23: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 42.88Mb) Description: Participant’s experience with previous week’s meditation exercise on laying to rest wrong action; taking the bodhisattva vow in the presence of a teacher; does spiritual understanding lead to appropriate action; insight and compassion; preparation for taking the vow: offerings (developing generosity), clearing away non-virtuous action (remorse, remedy, resolve, reliance); meditation instruction for upcoming week on rejoicing in virtue. Due to a recording error, the meditation instruction was added later. |
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52. TAN22: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 39.02Mb) Description: Participant's experience with previous week's meditation on attention, intention, and will; living life at the level of intention or will in order to help others wake up (bodhicitta); Is bodhicitta or desire to help others awaken a natural instinct?; the four geneses of bodhicitta; meditation instruction for upcoming week: when you doing something you know is wrong, what needs to happen to lay it to rest? |
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53. TAN21: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 38.62Mb) Description: Participants’ experience with previous week’s meditation exercise; the four stages in the development of awakening mind; two aspects of awakening mind -- apparently true and ultimately true; translation points on these two terms; aspiration and engagement awakening mind; attention, intention and will; meditation instruction for upcoming week. |
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54. TAN20: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 39.47Mb) Description: Students' experience with previous week's meditation exercise on engaging in wholesome and unwholesome activities; reading 'behind the lines' when a text references other text (using opening of Chapter 8 as an example); what is bodhicitta, what cultivates it, and what it means to be awake; a different perspective on what it means to 'help all sentient beings'; discussion of some of the 22 similes for bodhicitta; meditation instruction for upcoming week. |
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55. TAN19: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 20.68Mb) Description: Review of previous week's discussion on outer, inner, and secret interpretations of the three jewels and participants' experiences with meditation on trusting the three jewels; participants explain why taking a vow of refuge was important; description of refuge ceremony from text; what is meant by 'realize all phenomena are nonexistent and have no form, no perception, and no characteristics...'; experience when completely present; function and importance of ritual and ceremony; discussion of various trainings in refuge; overview of pratimoksa; meditation instruction for upcoming week. |
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56. TAN18: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 23.69Mb) Description: Participants' experience of previous week's meditation on trust; an exercise in trust; overview of Jewel Ornament of Liberation covered to date; the importance of a foundation to spiritual practice; origin of refuge; in what can one trust; outer, inner and mystery interpretation of the three jewels; how each jewel meets a different motivation; meditation instruction for upcoming week |
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57. MTH01: Making Things Happen (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 15.46Mb) Description: Identifying what you want to do and what prevents you from doing it; how attention causes one to focus and create results; lack of willingness, know-how, and capacity as a framework for understanding what prevents things from happening |
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58. MTH02: Making Things Happen (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 19.97Mb) Description: Interest in understanding things; persistence that continues after exploration; close attention to genesis and causation (and the difference between the two); creativity in framing questions (and reversing the six forms of mind-killing as a way to develop them) |
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59. MTH03: Making Things Happen (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 34.61Mb) Description: An exercise on understanding the distinction between what you actually want and what you're asking for; particpants' reaction to exercise; how relating directly to experience through awareness leads to being more awake and alive; What do I stand for?; attend, intend and commit |
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60. MTH04: Making Things Happen (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 15.33Mb) Description: How to attend: gathering information (internal and external), check for balance; How to intend: get a symbol, generate possibilities; How to commit: take action (even a small action), keep cycling, watch signs, stay in touch with body and feelings, think evolution; participants' comments; reminder to stay in your own experience |
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61. TAN17: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 28.48Mb) Description: Participants report their experience with previous week's guided meditation; a tale of warm fuzzies and cold pricklies; reactions to giving and receiving kindness; three steps to staying present when receiving kindness: recognizing, acknowledging, and appreciating; the natural response (love) to staying present in kindness; extending this response to 'all sentient beings'; the difference between loving-kindness and compassion; the contraction that occurs in the presence of suffering that prevents loving-kindness and compassion from arising; meditation instruction for the upcoming week. |
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62. TAN16: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 24.45Mb) Description: Participants reaction to intentionally engaging in a non-virtuous act; patterned behavior as a way to avoid experience; ascription, inevitability and karma; how to respond to questions like "Do you believe in evil?" Loving-kindness and compassion as remedies to attachment to the pleasure of peace; the maturation of motivation and practice; Is compassion the natural outcome of awareness or something one must cultivate?; meditation instruction for upcoming week. |
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63. TAN15: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 25.36Mb) Description: Follow-up discussion on free will and karma; the four factors which determine if an action sets in motion the process of evolution or karma: motivation/intention, doing the action or causing it to be done, the object which is acted on, and experiencing the completion of the action; the four results of such action: the full ripening result, the predisposition to experience the world, how the world experiences us; the way one is likely to experience things; the results of a specific non-virtuous actions (taking life); the problem with purity; By not taking these mythic descriptions literally, are we somehow shutting the door to the mystery of life?; the three categories of non-virtuous acts (body, speech, mind); 'wrong views' as having beliefs which prevent us from relating to what actually is; what is meant by improper sexual relations (avoiding obsession); making the dharma relevant in western culture; Buddhism as 'a' way or 'the' way; karma and attachment to meditative states; guided meditation for the upcoming week. |
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64. TAN14: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 50.54Mb) Description: Three analogies for karma: God's will, gravity, and evolution; God's will as explanation of mystery; gravity as absence of justice, etc.; evolution as contrast to cause and effect; karma's function in spiritual life; karma is conditioning through intention and action; the three types of karma. |
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65. TAN13: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 50.58Mb) Description: Review of the first two types of suffering; the third type of suffering and the six realms; how a society's cosmology (medieval or modern) reflect its psychology; how we experience the realms in daily life (anger as hot hell, hate as cold hell, etc.); how the development of numbering systems impacted mythic descriptions; perception of time and the realms; personal values and social norms; the four major and four minor sufferings of the human realm. |
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66. RAC01: Relationship and Conflict (tele-teaching) download (audio/mpeg, 27.34Mb) Description: The aim of Buddhist practice; What is a relationship? Three types of relationship: 1) mutual benefit, 2) shared aim, 3) emotional connection; What's possible in a relationship? What gets in the way -- or how projections arise in relation to the Three Marks of Existence (impermanence, suffering, and no self); How relationships are undermined by disagreement or lack of clarity about their basis; How we can become awake in relationships. |
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67. RAC02: Relationship and Conflict (tele-teaching) download (audio/mpeg, 26.79Mb) Description: What can we actually know in a relationship? The story of Nasrudin, the smuggler and the customs agent; The world of shared experience and the world of individual experience; The Four Steps of Standing Up in a Relationship: 1) Stand up -- actually be there, 2) Open to what is happening, 3) Serve what is true to the limit of your perception, 4) Receive the result; Useful tools for being awake in relationships: deep listening, four questions for opening up difficult situations, the rule of three, returning confusion to its source and not picking up what isn't yours. |
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68. RAC03: Relationship and Conflict (tele-teaching) download (audio/mpeg, 27.50Mb) Description: Conflict as the experience of resistance to change when two or more worlds interact; Locating the resistance; The inevitability of conflict and how to engage in it skillfully; The Four Stages of Conflict (from Vajrayana Buddhism) -- pacification, enrichment, magnetisation and destruction; How to be awake in conflict using the same tools as for being awake in relationships and by remembering the Three Marks of Existence. |
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69. RAC04: Relationship and Conflict (tele-teaching) download (audio/mpeg, 20.68Mb) Description: The Four Immeasurables as higher emotions not based on a sense of self, and their transformative quality; The Four Immeasurables in the context of relationship and conflict and the ways these manifest in relationships; How equanimity manifests as judgement at the base level, up through impartiality, aloofness or detachment, and patience to full acceptance with no sense of judgement; The two aspects of true equanimity; How loving-kindness manifests as attraction or sexual desire at the base level, up through affection and caring to the selfless wish that others be happy; How compassion manifests as pity at the base level up through sympathy, fearlessness to be with another person's pain to the genuine wish that they not suffer; The complexity and richness of compassion; Joy as competition or paranoia at the base level, up through elation or delight to joy in being and knowing what needs to be done and just doing it. Loving kindness and compassion as the appropriate efforts in intimate relationships; The shared aim relationship with a spiritual teacher; A summary of conflict as resistance to change demanded by the third world created when two people interact. |
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70. TAN12: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 52.43Mb) Description: Recap of chapters previously covered; about the word "dukha"; what 'suffering' means in Buddhism; what is the question to which 'the vicious cycle of samsara' is the answer; why not just eat, drink, and be merry; relating the three types of suffering to the three poisons and the three types of faith; an exercise on experience and our reaction to experience; a closer look at the first two types of suffering. |
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71. WTD01: What To Do About Christmas? (talk) download (audio/mpeg, 34.83Mb) Description: Talk and meditation instruction on holiday stressors and the three marks of existence: facing the passage of time (impermanence), dealing with difficult emotions (suffering), dealing with difficult situations (non-self). |
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72. TAN11: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 54.08Mb) Description: Appreciating and living in the understanding of the three facts of impermanence: death is certain, time of death uncertain, and we take nothing with us into death; regret and death; moving beyond the child-like morality of right and wrong; impermanence and the intensification of life experience; value of being able to experience life fully; how to do reflective meditations such as death and impermanence; how to use physical and emotional reactions in these meditations. |
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73. MAV01: Money and Value (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 12.59Mb) Description: The problem: money drives the way we understand ourselves. Aim of financial model is to see experience through projection of money; aim of Buddhism is to experience what arises without projection; three bases of relationship: mutual benefit, shared aim, emotional connection; all forms of idealism involve avoidance of some form of suffering; when money is regarded as the problem, something else is being ignored; Questions: What are you asking for? What do you want? What does money symbolize to you? |
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74. MAV02: Money and Value (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 25.07Mb) Description: What generates the problem? Confusion about money points to confusion about what we value in our lives; when you see things in terms of money, you are inevitably in one of the six realms; guided meditations: survival, getting emotional needs met, and self-image; intention versus self-image; valuing what can be taken away places life in other people's hands. |
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75. MAV03: Money and Value (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 23.29Mb) Description: Possible directions towards a solution. The world of shared experience and the world we actually experience; money exists in the world of shared experience and of materialism; definition of materialism; comparison of the bases of life in world of materialism and world of well-being; comparison of spiritual ideal and being fully alive; Questions: What would you do with your life if you knew you would die in one year? If you were free from trying to get your emotional needs met? If you weren't concerned with being somebody? |
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76. MAV04: Money and Value (workshop) download (audio/mpeg, 21.29Mb) Description: Theoretical and practical concepts of what might be done. Traditional Buddhist method of The Noble Eightfold Path; footnote on the word "right"; four bases of success – curiosity, persistence or enthusiasm, understanding of genesis and conditions, creativity in framing questions; seven steps of manifestation; Questions: What am I going to do next week? Next month? Next year? |
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77. TAN10: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 23.61Mb) Description: Viewing mythic descriptions of the outer world as descriptions of internal processes; meditating on death as a means to detach from social conditioning, increasing clarity in life, and savoring every moment; why be concerned about death if our 'experience isn't real'; the balance created by contemplating the fact death can come at any time; working with physical reactions and sensations that arise with contemplating death; emotional parallels between contemplating physical death and experiencing death of patterns. |
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78. TAN09: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 26.37Mb) Description: Transitioning to the method for awakening; four reasons (obstacles) why we aren't already awake: taking experience as fact, habituated tendencies to satisfy cravings, mistaking peace for being awake, and not knowing what to do to wake up; If experience isn't real or a fact, what is experience?; differences in the meaning of 'ego' as used in Buddhism and psychology; remedies to the four obstacles; impermanence and the four ends. |
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79. TAN08: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 27.63Mb) Description: Respect for, and service to, one's teacher as expression of importance of one's own spiritual practice; eastern and western perspectives on the teacher-student relationship; knowing when motivation for practice comes from presence and not patterned behavior; devotion and reverence towards one's teacher as expression of one's own emotional attitude toward spiritual practice; practice and persistence (the individual responsibilities of teachers and students); three ways to receive teaching |
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80. TAN07: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 48.38Mb) Description: The teacher-student relationship as origin of understanding; the importance of questions; experience as teacher; the four classifications of teachers; defining nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and bodhisattva; ways to approach the mythic language of classical texts |
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81. TAN06: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 49.00Mb) Description: Recap of last week's discussion on faith and belief from a perspective of how suffering is viewed in Christianity and Buddhism; people's reports of what they experience when working with a teacher; what is the question for which 'meeting a teacher' is the answer; three reasons why a person needs a spiritual teacher: scripture, logic, simile; retranslating omniscience, merit, and purifying obscurations |
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82. MRT01: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 18.51Mb) Description: What is Mahamudra? It can be seen as another way of looking at what the Four Noble Truths are about. Or it may be approached by asking: to what questions might those practices provide answers? What are my questions? |
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83. MRT02: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 3.40Mb) Description: Four fundamental questions to consider are: How do I know what is real? How do I know what is true? How do I know what is right? How do I know what to do? The beginnings of answers may be found in he Four Reminders (precious human existence, death and impermanence, teachings of karma, shortcomings of samsara). |
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84. MRT03: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 33.46Mb) Description: Practice: deep listening, More questions from the Perfection of Wisdom: What do I trust? How do I relate to people/things/experience? What can I know? |
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85. MRT04: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 34.34Mb) Description: Building capacity, Shamatha meditation, Energy transformation practices, The practice of devotion: guru yoga |
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86. MRT05: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 42.50Mb) Description: Practicing without reference points: Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom, verses 2-6, Doing nothing: Six Words of Advice from Tilopa, A question of teaching: keeping our intention clear |
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87. MRT06: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 35.95Mb) Description: Stillness and movement: Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom, verses 8-17, Learning to breathe underwater: finding stillness in experience |
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88. MRT07: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 37.32Mb) Description: Basis-of-everything consciousness and awakening, Teachings on View: how we look at things |
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89. MRT08: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 36.73Mb) Description: Pointing-out instructions, The resting knowing mind, Nothing that arises in experience is different from us |
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90. MRT09: Mahamudra Retreat 2007 download (audio/mpeg, 36.45Mb) Description: An overview of the Aspiration for Mahamudra and the Vajradhara Prayer |
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91. TAN05: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 51.90Mb) Description: Reviewing the rare combination of circumstances that allow for the opportunity to practice; reports of experiences with faith and belief; defining faith (the willingness to open to whatever arises in experience) and belief (unchallengeable positions through which one filters experience); faith and experience; the three types of faith: trusting, longing, and clear; in what do we actually have faith?; trust the knowing; Q & A. |
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92. TAN04: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 51.37Mb) Description: What is the question for which 'this precious human body' is the answer?, what is meant by 'body', the eight unfavorable conditions that make practice difficult, the ten factors that must be present for practice, the three types of motivation for practice. |
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93. MUB01: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 57.33Mb) Description: Review of basic meditation, basic means foundational, rest in the experience of breathing; breath is life; relinquishing control and the repeated experience of failure; the body breathes, brings attention to the experience of the body; letting the body find its way to sit vs. imposing a posture; fine points in attuning to the body; attention consists of resting and listening, how to rest and how to listen; short Q&A session |
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94. MUB02: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 56.45Mb) Description: Working with the second of the four noble truths; attraction, aversion and indifference as impulses, and the reactions they initiate; concerns about making things last or getting rid of them; the formation of emotional needs and why they are impossible to meet; the need to be somebody conditioned by both family and society, practice instructions on finding peace and understanding in the experience of emotional impulses; Q&A |
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95. MUB03: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 72.40Mb) Description: The six realms, projections of emotional reactions; anger and the hell realms, greed and the hungry ghost realms, instinct and the animal realms, fun and busynesss in the human realm, jealousy in the titan realm, pride in the god realm; meditation practice on experiencing the six realms; Q&A |
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96. MUB04: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 67.42Mb) Description: Habituation as a form of addiction; the dynamics of addiction from an experiential perspective; the dynamics of addiction from a biochemical perspective; stepping out of addiction to habitual reactions; process through which freedom is found; meditation practice on emptying the six realms; Q&A |
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97. MUB05: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 69.33Mb) Description: Retreat experience to date, locking up in the body, what to do about it, guided meditation on how the six realms appear in daily life, venturing into the mystery of not living in any realm. |
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98. MUB06: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 58.95Mb) Description: Stepping out of the six realms, doing nothing, three aspects of doing nothing, connection with the three marks of existence; no distraction, not holding onto things, differentiating between thoughts and thinking; no control, not trying to control what we experience, connection with suffering; not working at anything, not being somebody, opening to the totality of experience; meditation instruction. |
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99. TAN03: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 54.11Mb) Description: What makes it possible for the heart/mind to grow quiet? What makes it possible for me to know?; the five types of potential (families); interpreting the mythic; transformation of motivation; the process of spiritual maturation; Q & A. |
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100. TAN02: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 46.40Mb) Description: What is the question for which buddha nature is the answer?; what is buddha nature; buddha nature is not a thing; difference between knowing and understanding; buddha nature and emptiness; why it is possible to awaken; exploring potential and motivation; questions and answers |
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101. TAN01: Then and Now (class) download (audio/mpeg, 48.86Mb) Description: Studying ancient texts in modern times; three approaches: study / reflection / practice; texts to be covered; commentary on The Jewel Ornament of Liberation's' introduction text; looking for the questions behind the answers; participant's questions about text / course. |
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102. FEFD01: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 36.93Mb) Description: Dakini practice as a way of refining experience, comparison with Mahamudra practice; dakini practice as tool to raise energy; review of elements in relationship to emotional patterns and as descriptions of experience; nature of dakinis: “know dakinis to be one’s own mind”; symbolic nature of dakinis & relation to wisdom awarenesses; overview of five wisdom awarenesses: evenness (balance), mirror-like, distinguishing, effective action, totality; overview of practice instructions |
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103. FEFD02: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 38.28Mb) Description: General practice guidelines; outline of generic sequence for yidam/deity practice; emotional reactivity vs volitional action; earth dakini instructions, particularly loss of balance and internal stability; nature of “practice” |
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104. FEFD03: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 37.71Mb) Description: Fire dakini instructions; Issues of isolation, volatility, passion; importance of experiencing reactions; what to do with the experience of boredom |
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105. FEFD04: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 45.21Mb) Description: Water dakini instructions; Issues of avoidance, flow, clarity |
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106. FEFD05: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 31.39Mb) Description: Air dakini instructions; practice may become more difficult as the elemental energy becomes more subtle; Relation to c`hi, anxiety, panic |
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107. FEFD06: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 39.33Mb) Description: Void dakini instructions; the usefulness of “zero”: void makes everything possible; terror; destructive aspect of spiritual practice, constant letting go; Tilopa’s instructions |
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108. FEFD07: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 32.11Mb) Description: Putting it all together as ongoing practice; Blindness to significant patterns |
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109. FEFD08: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 37.54Mb) Description: Presence, purification, energy: 3 types of practice; Dakini practice as purification, transforming reaction chains into presence; Personal practice balances these elements; Two modes of completing practice: symbols and lights; Statements associated with elements, related to emotional patterns |
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110. FEFD09: Five Elements / Five Dakinis (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 25.38Mb) Description: Presence, purification, energy: 3 types of practice; Dakini practice as purification, transforming reaction chains into presence; Personal practice balances these elements; Two modes of completing practice: symbols and lights; Statements associated with elements, related to emotional patterns |
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111. MMT01: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 11.40Mb) Description: Overview of different meditation practices: presence, energy transformation, purification; mind-training as a way to clear away self-cherishing; meditation instruction for resting with the breath; feeling the breath with the heart; variations in translation of the mind training text (available at unfetteredmind.org) |
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112. MMT02: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 28.57Mb) Description: Education, training, and learning in Tibetan and Western cultures; brief biographies of Atisha and Chekawa Yeshe Drorje; secret teachings and transmissions; mind-training as a way to refine experience; refining v. training; empty compassion (emotion-free); illusion of choice as an indication of the lack of freedom; meditation instruction on groundwork |
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113. MMT03: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 21.46Mb) Description: Clarity in intention; the world of shared experience, the world of personal experience and the myth of integration; What am I? What is life?; subject and object; Where does experience reside?; the dream analogy; What is awareness?; thoughts as experience; meditation instruction on awakening to what is ultimately true |
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114. MMT04: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 26.73Mb) Description: Knowing whatever arises for what it is; the natural response of compassion; the three poisons and dualistic thinking; why taking and sending works; taking and sending & the four immeasurables; the three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue; meditation instruction for awakening to what is apparently true, taking and sending; questions from participants |
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115. MMT05: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 42.76Mb) Description: Questions from participants on taking and sending, including: Is it okay to focus just on the meditation’s imagery of smoke and light rather than specific emotions? How specific should one be with taking and sending? How much do you sent out? How do you deal with running out of energy? Is taking and sending to be taken literally or figuratively? A variation of the taking and sending meditation from the previous session; applications of mind training, including: making adversity the path; driving blame into one; being grateful to everyone; emptiness as the ultimate protection; the four practices; working with whatever one encounters |
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116. MMT06: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 26.53Mb) Description: Origins of lists and reasons for their use in contemporary life; summary of essential instructions: the five forces, instructions on dying; measures of proficiency: the one aim, rely on your own clarity, deep and quiet joy, practice as a natural response Proficiency isn’t attainment; regret v. guilt; working with emotions that arise from taking and sending |
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117. MMT07: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 23.51Mb) Description: Function of Buddhist ethics; descriptive v. prescriptive; importance of ethics; benefits of memorization Commentary on mind training commitments including: the three basic principles, intention and behavior, giving up hope for results; not forming an identity around practice; working with reactive emotions; not hoping to profit from sorrow. |
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118. MMT08: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 28.03Mb) Description: Difference between commitments and guidelines Commentary on guidelines, including: using one practice and one remedy; the two things to do, patience in everything; never compromise your practice; the three challenges, three key elements, three kinds of damage, three faculties; train on every object; practice what’s important now; don’t get things wrong (proper placement of priorities) |
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119. MMT09: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 19.68Mb) Description: Questions from participants, a practical application of taking and sending, commentary on concluding verses, the 8 worldly concerns, living a life of no regret, a fable on taking and sending, instructions on working with the difficulties and challenges arising from practice, opening to whatever arises |
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120. FI 06: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 32.56Mb) Description: Participants' comments and questions on compassion meditation including: joy, passion, excitement, and fun; what is meant by the line "May I experience the world celebrating my efforts"; sympathetic joy; is "the world celebrating my efforts" a form of external validation; how impermanence may appear to contradict cause and effect; how can I "enjoy the activities of life itself" when life becomes sticky; what does one do if you can see a situation clearly but may not have the capacity to act as the situation demands. Commentary on energy transformation passage from the reading assignment; what participants got from the class; where to go from here. |
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121. FI 05: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 28.28Mb) Description: Participants' comments and questions on compassion meditation including: Should we say the verses used in these meditations aloud or to ourselves?; Does the line in the compassion meditation, 'May I experience the world wishing me freedom from pain', impose an unrealistic ideal upon the world?; difficulty in extending these verses to include others; the relationship between compassion, despair, and joy; What are you opening to when being compassionate towards others?; How does one find the balance between justice and compassion? Commentary on social and adult expressions of the four immeasurables and spiritual longings passage from the reading assignment; meditation instruction for joy. |
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122. FI 04: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 30.89Mb) Description: Participants' experience with compassion meditation and related reading including experiences with heartbreak and movement of energy; being present in the suffering of others; are goals useful in practice; intention and results; compassion and boundaries; what is meant by 'the open space of no response'; what is meant by 'non-residing'; working with the line 'May I experience the world wishing me freedom from pain'; the satisfaction of despising. Commentary on adolescence striving and parental mind; meditation instruction for compassion. |
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123. FI 03: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 31.59Mb) Description: Participants' experience with loving-kindness meditation including opening to what arises; doesn't wishing oneself to be happy actually separate you from certain experiences; is it unrealistic to think of the world wishing you happiness and peace; how this meditation impacts life off the cushion; is there a specific order to the immeasurables; how to work with fear; what is meant by 'opening' to experience; the purpose of practice and its effect on one's life; is our natural state to be open or closed to what arises. Commentary on decay and corruption in the four immeasurables; meditation instruction for compassion. |
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124. FI 02: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 33.47Mb) Description: Reading assignments for class; participants' experience with equanimity meditation including preference and prejudice towards one's self; willingness, know-how and capacity in applying the immeasurable; reaction to 'experiencing the world knowing me just as I am'; judgement versus discernment; sitting in experience versus deduction and analysis. Commentary on the two types of experience: social/shared experience and individual/actual experience; being complete in the world of individual experience; how equanimity arises naturally in the world of individual experience; questions from participants on the two worlds of experience; meditation instruction for loving kindness. |
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125. FI 01: The Four Immeasurables (class) download (audio/mpeg, 45.60Mb) Description: The context for the four immeasurables in Buddhist practice, how they differ from other emotions including their power to transform ordinary experience into presence; how different traditions view the immeasurables; clarifying pain, hurt, suffering and harm; the purpose, cost and benefit of practicing the four immeasurables; meditation instruction on equanimity practice, Q&A |
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126. UM01: The Unfettered Mind (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 15.44Mb) Description: Explanation that this retreat is based on two letters by Takuan Soho: The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom and The Clear Sound of Jewels (these can be found in a collection of his writings entitled The Unfettered Mind); the three requirements to practice in the way described in The Unfettered Mind: ability, principles, technique; responding versus reacting; overview of what will be done in the retreat's body movement sessions. |
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127. UM02: The Unfettered Mind (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 41.72Mb) Description: Knowing versus understanding; mind as experience; the relationship between mind and reality; Buddhism as a set of tools to understand how things are; seven techniques for mind nature practice: letting the mind settle, dropping the mind, opening the mind, looking at the mind, letting the mind go, focusing the mind, and joining the mind with the object; questions from retreat participants; instruction on sky gazing. |
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128. UM03: The Unfettered Mind (retreat) download (audio/mpeg, 45.65Mb) Description: Review of previous day's talk (recording of talk not available due to technical difficulties); defining integrity; integrity as a value; integrity as balance (rather than standing on principle); addressing imbalance as the essence of ethics; becoming an ongoing response to the pain and suffering of the world; questions from retreat participants. |
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129. UM04: The Unfettered Mind (retreat)
download (audio/mpeg, 42.94Mb) Description: What is meant by 'immovable wisdom' in the text The Unfettered Mind; how to know imbalance; taking action to address imbalance; seeking the lost mind; how integrity looks in action; seeking balance in the whole; questions from retreat participants. |
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130. WDIDN 2a: What Do I Do Now? (class) download (audio/mpeg, 19.66Mb) Description: The session begins by explaining there are different levels of understanding found in the first two spiritual paths (traditional path and path of cutting through conditioning). These paths have a vertical dimension. A person can become aware of new levels in two ways: through interaction with a teacher or through interaction with fellow students who have more experience. Practice only grows if one works at the edge of one's practice. Working the edge can be difficult: it is often experienced in the body as panic or nausea and in the mind as uncertainty, or confusion. Finding the edge often requires interaction with a teacher, especially if the student experiences a feeling of not getting anywhere, staleness, or coasting in practice. Physical signs of being over the edge include a sense of being out of balance, engulfed, isolated, failing, or bewildered. The discussion then turned to different levels of practice, this time from the perspective of 'doing what you know needs to be done' as opposed to 'being good.' |
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131. WDIDN 2b: What Do I Do Now? (class) download (audio/mpeg, 17.17Mb) Description: Participants share what each has learned on how to proceed with their practice. Included in this discussion are questions regarding how to know you are working the edge of practice as opposed to falling off the edge, how transmission between teacher and student works, and how to recognize patterns. |
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132. WDIDN 1a: What Do I Do Now? (class) download (audio/mpeg, 17.94Mb) Description: How do you know your next step in the spiritual path? This class explores this question through three different approaches: a traditional path, a path based on cutting through four types of conditioning, and a path based on personal experience. The book Wake Up To Your Life describes one traditional path: developing attention through basic meditation, cutting through conventional notions of success and failure, recognizing patterns, and working with the five elements. This leads to breaking down emotional reactions and dismantling the sense of "I". The section closes with comments on about additional practices, the need to adjust practice to the student, and the importance of working with a spiritual teacher. |
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133. WDIDN 1b: What Do I Do Now? (class) download (audio/mpeg, 35.25Mb) Description: The second approach discussed is to cut through four types of conditioning: sociological, psychological, perceptual, and cultural. To cut through sociological conditioning one contemplates on death and impermanence. Contemplating on karma cuts through psychological conditioning. Breaking through the I-other framework cuts through perceptual conditioning. And development of compassion cuts through cultural conditioning. The third approach is based on personal experience: study and practice everything you can, make the path your own based on what works for you, and stand in your own knowing. Discrepancies between your intention and experienced results are reliable indicators that you are not standing in your own knowing. A flat or stale practice may indicate you've exhausted your intention and signal the need for redefining your intention in practice. Keep an eye out for chronic imbalances, as they indicate something is not working. The session ends with a group discussion on whether or not compassion or forgiveness towards oneself is important, especially if there is no self, and how to detect imbalance. |
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134. Meditation Timer: 30 min. download (audio/mpeg, 6.40Mb) Description: Simply lay your iPod or MP3 player near you with the headphones exposed and the volume turned up. This will allow you to hear the recorded chimes without having to wear the earpieces. This timer begins with 5 minutes of silence for you to start it, position yourself on your meditation cushion, say any opening prayers or chants, and let your mind settle. Then the session begins with three chimes. This is followed by silence for the selected number of minutes. The recording concludes with three more chimes to end the session. |
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135. Meditation Timer: 40 min. download (audio/mpeg, 8.12Mb) Description: Simply lay your iPod or MP3 player near you with the headphones exposed and the volume turned up. This will allow you to hear the recorded chimes without having to wear the earpieces. This timer begins with 5 minutes of silence for you to start it, position yourself on your meditation cushion, say any opening prayers or chants, and let your mind settle. Then the session begins with three chimes. This is followed by silence for the selected number of minutes. The recording concludes with three more chimes to end the session. |
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136. Meditation Timer: 50 min. download (audio/mpeg, 9.83Mb) Description: Simply lay your iPod or MP3 player near you with the headphones exposed and the volume turned up. This will allow you to hear the recorded chimes without having to wear the earpieces. This timer begins with 5 minutes of silence for you to start it, position yourself on your meditation cushion, say any opening prayers or chants, and let your mind settle. Then the session begins with three chimes. This is followed by silence for the selected number of minutes. The recording concludes with three more chimes to end the session. |
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137. Meditation Timer: 60 min. download (audio/mpeg, 11.55Mb) Description: Simply lay your iPod or MP3 player near you with the headphones exposed and the volume turned up. This will allow you to hear the recorded chimes without having to wear the earpieces. This timer begins with 5 minutes of silence for you to start it, position yourself on your meditation cushion, say any opening prayers or chants, and let your mind settle. Then the session begins with three chimes. This is followed by silence for the selected number of minutes. The recording concludes with three more chimes to end the session. |
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