Four Practices

A guided meditation exploring the nature of our experience of time, followed by a talk and discussion.

Telling of the story of the quarrel at Kosambi as well as discussions around the importance of community and how to make community stronger

As we start the New Year we explore Wise Intention, the basis of all karma and the second link of the 8-Fold Path. Clarifying your Intention is different from making a New Year's Resolution or going for a goal. It's what gives energy and power to our vision for practice.

At the end of the year, we reflect on endings and new beginnings. James offers some reflections on Ram Dass, beloved teacher and mentor, who passed away on Sunday, December 22. Then the community shares an end of year ceremony for increasing wholesome states and weakening unwholesome states.

This talk explores some questions of an "open heart." Can we bring both into our awareness the question, "is it possible to open further?" Where it is a stretch to feel compassionate and unguarded, is forgiveness needed, is self-care and healing needed? Do we always recognize the easy-open freedom of a heart that is fully available and unhindered? Do we take those states and the people connected to those states for granted?

An appropriate topic for this time of year. Many subthemes fall under this theme, such as how to be mindful of abundance and scarcity, feeling connected with others, and the nourishment of renunciation.

Sometimes our shyness or concern about what others think keeps us from expressing our gifts and making as meaningful a contribution as we can. In seeing through the constructed sense of self—the understanding of Anatta—those thoughts lose their power and don’t get in the way of expressing our true nature.

In past weeks I've been pulling inspiration from the Satipatthana Sutta, the foundational teachings on mindfulness. I've been linking them to some of it's underpinning truths of change, impermanence, suffering, and freedom from it. I'd like to continue on this thread for tomorrow's talk and bring in the third foundation, the foundation of the mind.. We'll explore how, when we aren't lost in it, the mind is a fascinating subject for our attention. When we understand our mind more fully, we can more fully understand who we are. We'll use this theme to understand better the truth of self and not-self.

mindfulness of the body and how it helps us understand and navigate change