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Dharma Talks
given at Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-11-11
Letting Your Heartbreak Open to Active Hope
53:05
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James Baraz
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How can we keep open and stay engaged when our hearts are breaking and we just want to shut down? How can we cultivate a "no-matter-what commitment" as Terry Patten teaches? How can we develop "Active Hope" as Joanna Macy calls it. That is the topic of this week's exploration. The talk includes a powerful 20-minute conversation between Joanna Macy and Thanissara that took place a month before this recording.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-11-04
Showing Up for Reality with Humility and Grace:
Terry Patten's Last Teaching
50:16
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James Baraz
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Beloved Philosopher, Teacher and Sacred Activist Terry Patten sadly passed away a few days before this talk. His last book, A New Republic of the Heart, is an inspiring teaching on how to face the global crises we are in. As he went through his own final journey he shared how one can face death with courage, wonder, grace and trust. It was a blueprint for how to meet the pain and sorrow of the world with those same qualities. This talk includes a powerful, clear, deeply moving clip excerpt of Terry's last teaching a week before he passed plus some of his teachings that have touched so many.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-10-28
Am I Enough?
53:06
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James Baraz
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A great Zen treatise says that someone truly enlightened is "without anxiety about non-perfection." It's no wonder that, with such impossible standards that most people hold themselves to, they always seem to fall short. How is it that others can so easily see our goodness while we're often the last ones to see our "True Nature"? The talk includes a short excerpt of Ram Dass sharing his primary practice to remember who we really are.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-10-07
Emptiness and the Big Perspective
50:29
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James Baraz
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The Heart Sutra teaching famously states: "Form is Emptiness Emptiness is Form." This liberating perspective is the gateway to understanding the inter-connectedness of all phenomena and the spaciousness and freedom that comes from seeing our place in the bigger scheme of things. The talk includes a recording of Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweikart's moving account of the profound shift he experienced upon seeing the Earth from outer space.
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-09-30
Right Livelihood: Exploring Work as part of our Spiritual Path
54:17
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Della Z Duncan
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Della Duncan, a Renegade Economist, Right Livelihood Coach, and the host of the Upstream Podcast whose work is deeply inspired by Buddhist Economics explores the “Right Livelihood” virtue of the Buddah’s Eightfold Noble Path, both philosophically as well as practically in our own lives. For a supplement to the conversation, here is an article Della co-wrote on the subject with Mark Phillips, “Cultivating Right Livelihood: Work as a Spiritual Path and a Vehicle for Economics Systems Change.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-09-16
Anything Can Happen at Anytime: Working with Uncertainty
49:16
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James Baraz
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We explore the topic of dealing with uncertainty. Although we never know what lies ahead, at this time the feeling of uncertainty is highlighted in a more acute way globally than ever before. What will happen next with the virus and its variants? Will people get vaccinated or will the anti-vax information continue to influence people's choices? What about climate disruption? Will we collectively wake up to the reality in time to keep from heading over the cliff of self-destruction? What does the Dharma offer us to wisely work with this unknown reality?
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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2021-08-26
Dharma Songs: Listen to and Sing the Dharma
53:09
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Eve Decker
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Eve Decker and her mom, Eleanor Decker offer songs that convey dharma themes. Eve's mom, Eleanor, has been singing all her life, brought her kids up singing, and co-leads the Valley of the Moon Threshold Choir.Threshold Choirs are predominantly women and sing at the bedsides of the dying. Eve has been writing songs on dharma themes and collecting dharma-themed songs, for many years. Come sing your dharma!
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Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
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