Seattle Insight Meditation Society

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/669/Default.aspx

Before we can incline the heart out of hiding, we have to tend to the areas of our lives that still foster a lingering believe in our personal narrative.  Any mental and emotional logic that traps us inside our story has to be examined thoroughly because that state holds us within form. One area that keeps us stuck within our mental history is in our lack of forgiveness. Something in the past either happened to us or we did something that we were unable to forgive, and the story may still haunt us to this day.  How do we break  the hold the past has on us and free ourselves from this mental bondage?  We apply the same practice to this area as we do to any mental disturbance. We simple hold it within awareness as it is and allow it to burn itself out.   We have to be careful not to add any additional mental rationale or excuse, which will occur when the energy of the story overwhelms us. Simply face whatever occurred without alterations until the emotions and story become less intense and burdensome. Be careful not to infuse the story with additional guilt or shame.  This practice does not apply to traumatic events which are better handle under professional supervision, but it does apply to those many smaller transgressions that we carry with us throughout our lives. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/666/Default.aspx

The birthing of the heart will occur on its own if we genuinely want to know what is true -  not what is convenient, but what is true. This desire to know what is true is the irresistible force that cuts through ignorance, and sincerity defines the person who is compelled by this urge.  Our heart knows whether we are forcing sincerity or being naturally curious, and the sincere person does not try to feign sincerity when it is absent. Instead of trying to force the mind to always be honest, the sincere student is willing to look directly at the mind that is irresolute and wavering in its commitment to sincerity.  The hallmark of sincerity is not that the person is always forthright but that he/she is willing to investigate the mind when that trait is missing. "What is going on here?  What is blocking my wanting to know?"  Therefore, sincerity is not dependent upon wholesome states of mind, but is driven instead to align itself with the deepest truths it knows. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/665/Default.aspx

I have noticed over the years that many of us are curious about death and dying but most of us want to hold it at arm length. With increased dharma understanding and maturity, we begin to want to close that gap. To do so we have to bring death closer; we have to start living it without interruption. What we notice is that it is immediately accessible and ultimately friendly. Dying is not self-controlled; it is the ultimate act of surrender. It requires both releasing our need to control and the courage to face life without the influence of thought.  Our self-controlled life is lived by thinking our way through it, so death means dying into quiet. In your meditation place nothing between you and the quiet that surrounds you.  A single thought is too much distance between you and that quiet. Simply release the need to think (without pushing thought away) and live the quiet.  Now you are living your death. After the sitting see what interferes with continuing to live your death. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/664/Default.aspx

Topics: Mindfulness of Mind, Attitudes of Mind, Delusion and Wisdom, Well-Being Cultivating stable awareness of all experience is training in wisdom that reveals liberating insights into the nature of reality. We see that everything that appears, including ourselves, is simply the natural display of impersonal conditions giving rise to their lawful effect.  When the mind is supported by skillful view and is unclouded by confusion, greed or negativity, reality is accurately recognized. This is seeing our world through the eyes of the dhamma, and is the foundation for well-being and liberation.

Topics: Mindfulness of Mind, Attitudes of Mind, Delusion and Wisdom, Well-Being Cultivating stable awareness of all experience is training in wisdom that reveals liberating insights into the nature of reality. We see that everything that appears, including ourselves, is simply the natural display of impersonal conditions giving rise to their lawful effect.  When the mind is supported by skillful view and is unclouded by confusion, greed or negativity, reality is accurately recognized. This is seeing our world through the eyes of the dhamma, and is the foundation for well-being and liberation.

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/663/Default.aspx

Last year's series on Dependent Origination showed how we continually invalidate the true perception of reality by forming reality through our assumptions. We cover the present with the past and then pretend that we have a firm place within a world of known objects. This talk on integrity is the beginning of a new series called, "Birthing the Heart."  In this series we will be calling the heart out of hiding by directing our attention to the quiet that surrounds and holds all things. To live abiding within stillness, which is the culmination of a liberated mind, requires attention to several details. The first detail we will flesh out is integrity. Integrity is a central issue in dharma growth because stillness requires everything to be aligned within our hearts and minds. When some part of our mind is in discord, internal chatter ensues, assuring the veil of noise will project a very different world than seen though quietude. Our internal chatter holds our lives as we know them to be which is often rancorous and insatiable. An aligned perception is called integrity, wholeness of heart, or the state of being unimpaired. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/662/Default.aspx

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/661/Default.aspx

If we review where the exploration of Dependent Origination has brought us this year, we will notice four perceptional shifts that D.O. has encouraged. The first is that through D.O. we perceive there are an infinite number of influences on every event and that existence itself arises from multiple factors, and therefore there is no separate existences. Everything is tied together through the web of relationship. But D.O. moves it even further by its second perceptual shift in which it shows how the web of somethingness was generated by the mind from nothing. Out of nothing, form arises and becomes the world of connected relationships with "me" arising within it.  The "how did that happen," is explained by D.O., as the links build upon themselves to reveal a world of appearances that have no inherent substance. The third perceptual change from D.O. is a variation of the second in which the world arises directly from "my" projections. In essence the world does not have a fundamental existence of its own.  It is dependent upon "me" and what I know, for it to be. The fourth shift is the acknowledgment of struggle that is inherent in the arising of form from formlessness. We are birthed from that struggle and ultimately must grow old and die because of it. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/660/Default.aspx

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/659/Default.aspx

Birth and aging inevitably lead to dying and death. The Buddha suggests this pattern can be broken by waking up to the sequencing of Dependent Origination. We cannot prevent the body from dying but we can opt out from the paradigm in which "I" die along with it. When we live encased within the idea of "me," with the "me" as real as the physical form we embody, then as the body ages we will fear our death. Interestingly enough, by eliminating everything that lives within the cycle of birth and death, we find our way out of death. Investigating what remains after death or what cannot be born or age can begin to move us away from dependency on form. We cannot rest our answer on the visible world because all we see will be taken away.  If _what_ we see dies, perhaps the invisible _seeing_ itself holds the deathless. What is it that sees out of our eyes? Again, not what we see, but the seeing or awareness itself. Awareness gives us the capacity to see, but awareness cannot be seen. Though awareness cannot be seen, it can be intimated through a felt-sense of the body. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/658/Default.aspx

An exploration of ill will, metta and emptiness. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/657/Default.aspx

As we move from birth to aging, the sense-of-self is dragged along in time, and we begin to notice the effects of memory and accumulated experiences on consciousness. Aging can create a burdened and heavy toll, but when used correctly this maturation process can culminate in wisdom and help us understand Dependent Origination. Maturation brings perspective and when coupled with dharma practice, it reveals the limitations and struggles inherent in our desires and aversions and begins to free us from many of our youthful oppressive states of mind. It can also slowly season our intention toward moving into the here and now. But aging can also be a time of great protest and bitterness. Our life did not turn out the way we wanted, and we now see only death in front of us.  We must close this bitterness gap quickly, or it will define our later years. If bitterness arises, ask, "In the present what is left unfulfilled? What is left to do?  In the present, how has the past betrayed me?"  Our bitterness cannot enter the present, because the present sees the past and future as thoughts arising in the present. Here then is the final step of our maturation. Do we want to carry ourselves through time and arrive at our death with all the scar tissue time gives us, or do we want to enter the timeless present and leave ourselves behind? This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/656/Default.aspx

Becoming, the previous link in Dependent Origination, is not continuous; it moves from birth to birth to birth as the necessary conditions come together that foster its arising.  It is useful to get a sense of the birthing experience of self and what the conditions are that bring this about.  Instead of trying to catch your origin, which is a little like trying to observe the first moment after your mind wanders, get a sense of how you inflate, relative to the strength and intensity of the thoughts you have. Notice in times of relative quiet how the egoic sense of you is markedly diminished, and at times of reactivity or heightened enthusiasm, the sense of you is large and noisy. Don't explain this away by saying that "you" became noisy and self-righteous because you care about the issue. Take the personal out of the observation and just notice your relative size as a phenomenon related to the noise of your thoughts and emotions. As this increases, so does that; as this diminishes, so does that. Now contemplate this question: how does the noise of your inflation move in accordance with desire and clinging? This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/648/Default.aspx