Wise Effort is the 6th of 8 practices the Buddha offered to help us move toward peace and freedom. It involves understanding, discernment, and choice.This talk looks at this powerful teaching and considers ways to bring it more fully into our lives.

Wise Action and Wise Livelihood are important components to Buddhism: deliberately choosing actions and jobs rooted in non-harming. This talk explores the what, why, and how of these two steps on the Buddhist path.

The Buddha emphasized Wise Speech as an important part of the path to freedom. This talk takes a look at the what, why and how of Wise Speech.

The fourth Noble Truth is the Eight fold Path. The second of the paths is Wise Intention. In this talk Eve discusses Wise Intention.

Introduction to the 8 Fold Noble Path

Adam will give the talk. Over the past seven months, Adam traveled through Bali, Nepal, and Japan on a pilgrimage that became both an outer journey and an inner exploration. At the heart of this journey was a simple question: What allows a human being to feel truly at home within themselves? Drawing from meditation, spiritual pilgrimage, and somatic practice, Adam reflects on how love transforms shame and restores our innate dignity and belonging. He will share how he sees the journey through the lens of the five elemental stages of SomAwaken that he teaches.

Margaret is the author of the just released book, Quiet Strength: Find Peace, Feel Alive, and Love Boundlessly through the Power of Equanimity. In this she leads in an exploration on this key quality that is so needed in these times. As a therapist, Margaret facilitated psycho-social support groups for cancer patients and their loved ones for over 30 years. She has led research studies on the impact of contemplative programs, co-developed the Compassion Cultivation Training with Thupten Jinpa at Stanford University. Margaret is the founder of Compassion Corps, a program which brings compassion programs to underserved populations around the world. She has been a meditation practitioner for over 40 years.

This talk is an exploration of the Anattalakkhana Sutta (Teaching on No Separate Self); one of the Buddha's first teachings after awakening. How can this teaching support our ease, insight, and compassion?

This talk explores the "two truths" doctrine in Buddhism. This teaching defines reality through two concurrent perspectives: conventional truth (relative, everyday experience) and ultimate truth (absolute, empty nature). While we move toward accessing the freedom of ultimate truth, we are always human with human lives. Wisdom and compassion guide us to bring love to the mundane as well as experience the love inherent in the ultimate.

Practice can sometimes feel complicated with so many different techniques and instructions on how to extricate oneself from identifying with our experience. Using approaches from Tibetan Dzogchen and other non-dual teachings this talks explores the profound simplicity of letting go of all trying as a way to come back to our true nature.