Bahiya Sutta: When You See, Just See
Date: 2023-09-07 Thursday
For this session we’ll be exploring the famous Bahiya Sutta, which is simultaneously about the high stakes of the path of awakening, and the possibility of attaining that goal. It also contains a simple Zen-like message, of the absolute immediacy of our practice.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Foundations: Fourth Foundation
Date: 2023-08-03 Thursday
For this session we’ll be exploring the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which is dhammas, sometimes translated as “’mind objects.”
This is a multi-part foundation, which can seem complex, so we’ll be focusing on what difference this fourth foundation can make in our hearts and minds. While in one way this fourth foundation can seem as a “list of lists,” in another it empowers us to find release, an open heart, just in the complexities that life inherently offers us.
Yes, this 2023 life is complex, but actually the essentials are just as they were 2,600 years ago at the time of the Buddha, and clarifying that helps bring us freedom now.
The four foundation of mindfulness are the Buddha’s core teaching on our practice of mindfulness, in the Satipatthana Sutta, #10 in the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikaya.) This sutta is an ever-revealing source of understanding, as we gradually deepen our mindfulness of all phenomena, and gain insight from that.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Foundations: Mind Qualities
Date: 2023-07-20 Thursday
For this session we’ll be exploring the third foundation of mindfulness, qualities of mind. One of the most elusive areas of our reality is the ever-changing aspect of our qualities of mind, whether grasping, aversive, restless, concentrated or other. In our mindfulness practice learning to apply mindfulness to these mind states is a great boon, lest they operate below the radar, influencing everything we think and do.
The four foundation of mindfulness are the Buddha’s core teaching on our practice of mindfulness, in the Satipatthana Sutta, #10 in the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikaya.) This sutta is an ever-revealing source of understanding, as we gradually deepen our mindfulness of all phenomena, and gain insight from that.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Foundations: Vedanas (Pleasant, Unpleasant, Neutral)
Date: 2023-07-06 Thursday
This week we’ll be continuing our exploration of the four foundations of mindfulness, by considering the second foundation…vedanas. This simple concept – that we instantly categorize sense door contact as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral – and automatically react, is far deeper than it seems at first.
In fact the category of vedanas is also one of the five skandas, the five factors that make up our sense of self.
Join us Thursday, and we’ll get a better sense of how mindfulness of vedanas can transform our lives, give us freedom no matter the condition.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Foundations: Body
Date: 2023-06-02 Friday
For the next four weeks, we’re continuing to explore the four foundations of mindfulness. For the upcoming June 1 meeting we’ll be looking at body, and why the Buddha so strongly emphasized body as an object of mindfulness.
The four foundation of mindfulness are the Buddha’s core teaching on our practice of mindfulness, in the Satipatthana Sutta, #10 in the Middle Length Discourses (Majhima Nikaya.) This sutta is worth repeatedly studying, because as we grow on the path, we will see aspects of the practice that we previously missed.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Foundations: Prelude
Date: 2023-05-19 Friday
For the next weeks, perhaps five, we’re going to exploring the four foundations of mindfulness. This is the Buddha’s core teaching on our practice of mindfulness, in the Satipatthana Sutta, #10 in the Middle Length Discourses (Majhima Nikaya.) This is such an important teaching to return to again and again, because it clarifies the very areas where we tend to be confused about the practice.
The journey of understanding what the Buddha is explaining to us, parallels our very journey of awakening.
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Renunciation and Awakening
Date: 2023-04-20 Thursday
This will be the second week of exploring renunciation. On April 6 we explored why renunciation isn’t self-denial, but rather shedding that which entangles. This week will be exploring how renunciation leads to the letting go of awakening, how renunciation is another doorway to freedom.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Renunciation and Daily Life
Date: 2023-04-06 Thursday
For the next two weeks we’re going to exploring renunciation: for the first week why renunciation isn’t self-denial, but rather shedding that which entangles; and for the second week, how renunciation leads to the letting go of awakening.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Seven Factors of Awakening 2: Joy, Calm, Concentration, Equanimity
Date: 2023-03-02 Thursday
The March 2 sit will be our second week exploring the seven factors of awakening. These seven are aspects of mind we may already be familiar with on the path, but they take on new light, and life, when considered in this context.
They are:
Mindfulness (sati, Sanskrit smṛti). To maintain awareness of reality, in particular the teachings (Dhamma).
Investigation of the nature of reality (dhamma vicaya, Skt. dharmapravicaya).
Energy (viriya, Skt. vīrya) also determination, effort
Joy or rapture (pīti, Skt. prīti)
Relaxation or tranquility (passaddhi, Skt. prashrabdhi) of both body and mind
Concentration (samādhi) a calm, one-pointed state of mind,[1] or "bringing the buried latencies or samskaras into full view"[2]
Equanimity (upekkhā, Skt. upekshā). To accept reality as-it-is (yathā-bhuta) without craving or aversion.
For this second session we’ll be focusing on Joy, relaxation, concentration and equanimity, after exploring the first three in the last gathering.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Seven Factors of Awakening 1: Mindfulness, Investigation, Energy
Date: 2023-02-16 Thursday
For the next two weeks, Feb. 16 and March 2, we’ll be exploring the seven factors of awakening. These seven are aspects of mind we may already be familiar with, but they take on new light, and life, when considered in the context of awakening.
They are:
Mindfulness (sati, Sanskrit smṛti). To maintain awareness of reality, in particular the teachings (Dhamma).
Investigation of the nature of reality (dhamma vicaya, Skt. dharmapravicaya).
Energy (viriya, Skt. vīrya) also determination, effort
Joy or rapture (pīti, Skt. prīti)
Relaxation or tranquility (passaddhi, Skt. prashrabdhi) of both body and mind
Concentration (samādhi) a calm, one-pointed state of mind,[1] or "bringing the buried latencies or samskaras into full view"[2]
Equanimity (upekkhā, Skt. upekshā). To accept reality as-it-is (yathā-bhuta) without craving or aversion
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Cultivating Wholesome Mind States
Date: 2022-11-17 Thursday
For November we’re exploring the wholesome and unwholesome mental qualities, and what we can do to cultivate the wholesome, and reduce the unwholesome. This is an important doorway onto the path, because our states of mind dictate how we understand the world, ourselves and each other.
Here’s one link with some perspectives on these teachings.
For this upcoming sit, we’ll explore cultivating the wholesome mental states, and how this can be a boon in our lives and our practice.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Reducing Unwholesome Mind States
Date: 2022-11-03 Thursday
For November we’re going to be exploring the wholesome and unwholesome mental qualities, and what we can do to cultivate the wholesome, and reduce the unwholesome. This is an important doorway onto the path, because our states of mind dictate how we understand the world, ourselves and each other.
Here’s one link with some perspectives on these teachings.
For this upcoming sit, we’ll be starting with exploring reducing the unwholesome, a core consideration in our progress on the path.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Learnings from a Monastery
Date: 2022-10-06 Thursday
Just getting back from a week at Abhayagiri Monastery, in the California hills north of the Bay Area.
For this sit I’m planning to offer some thoughts and perspectives on monastic life, on the fruit of dedicated practice, that hopefully you’ll find beneficial. Many things were uniquely impressive about these monks, and affirming of the transformational power and depth of our practice lineage.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Dharma, Monastics, and Happiness
Date: 2022-09-15 Thursday
For this we’ll be exploring a delightful list of positive attributes of monastics, at the time of the Buddha. There’s a lot to learn and absorb here, especially when we see how free and happy those monastics were.
The particular sutta MN 89, includes these lines:
"Here I see monastics living in concord,
with mutual appreciation,
without disputing,
blending like milk and water
viewing each other with kindly eyes.
"Here I see monastics smiling and cheerful,
sincerely joyful,
plainly delighting,
their faculties fresh,
living at ease,
unruffled,
subsisting on what others give,
abiding with mind [as aloof] as a wild deer’s."
After setting up the context of this sutta we’ll explore the above section line-by-line, with plenty of time for dialogue.
What’s engaging about this sutta is how it puts the fruit of the practice, how we can be in life itself, in human and tangible form.
In short, it’s about being happy.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind
Date: 2022-09-01 Thursday
For this sit, we’ll be considering a priceless teaching best known in Tibetan tradition, the “Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind.” This is a very precious teaching because it encourages us to not waste time…to use our extraordinary good fortune of life in a human body, to pursue the spiritual path as best we can.
While this is technically a Tibetan teaching, it’s also perfectly suited to encourage us on any aspect of the Buddhist path, including the Theravada.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Third and Fourth Noble Truths
Date: 2022-08-04 Thursday
The four noble truths are one of the first teachings of the Buddha and at the bedrock of Buddhist understanding in all traditions. This is a good time to open into these four: the unsatisfactory nature of un-awakened life, the reason why we’re not awake or free, the possibility of freedom, and how to become free.
Knowing these four deeply is important for long-term practitioners, to keep our sight focused on what’s at the root of this path. It’s often said if we truly realized these four, we’d be freed. The four also are very important for people newer to the path, to clearly see the way ahead.
Last week we explored the first two, and on Aug 4 we’ll review the first two briefly, for anyone who wasn’t there, and continue to the second two. In a sense these last two are the most uplifting of the four, because in them the Buddha shows us the possibility of awakening, or freedom from clinging, and then how to do it.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Finding Depth in the Three Jewels
Date: 2022-06-16 Thursday
For this talk we’ll be taking a deeper look at what’s called the “Three Jewels”: Buddha, dharma and sangha.
As many of you know, “taking refuge” in the three jewels is traditionally considered the doorway to entering the Buddhist path. While this might seem somewhat formalistic, actually there’s enormous depth there, in the way our inner connecting with these three can bring light, love and energy to our practice, even when things seem bleak. The three jewels are like a compass of the heart.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
Untangling the Proliferation of Mind Called Papanca
Date: 2022-05-19 Thursday
This session we’ll be exploring papanca, a Pali word for mental proliferation. Whether you know it or not this is a subject you’re likely familiar with, because mental proliferation, the buzzing swarm of thoughts sometimes referred to as “monkey mind,” very often accompanies us in our meditation.
Pardon the mixture of metaphors, but both of these fit. By better understanding papanca we can learn what it means and doesn’t in terms of our mind activity. We also can learn when to apply antidotes and when to apply mindfulness, and in effect how to bring papanca onto the path.
This evening will complement the last session, when we explored purifying the mind.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
The Essential Importance of Purifying the Mind
Date: 2022-05-05 Thursday
For this next meeting of Eastside Insight we’ll be exploring purifying the mind, one way to understand the path and our walking on it.
In particular we’ll be looking at MN 7, the “Simile of the Cloth.” How we think, the attitudes we accept and cultivate, are at the root of our well-being, and at the root of how we find peace, happiness and clarity on the path.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.
No Enemies
Date: 2022-04-21 Thursday
One of the greatest understandings of the Buddha, which he embodied in the midst of his own perilous times, is that there are no enemies. No matter what, he saw the potential in people for awakening, which as we saw during last session could include even hardened criminals.
Now, as we watch the war in the Ukraine, and face the possibility of worse to come, it’s important that we bring this teaching of “no enemies,” into our hearts.
We’ll consider these questions. This is a chance to look deeply into our own instincts to demonize, and how we can instead cultivate compassion, even for beings whose actions are damaging, in these most difficult of times.
Click here to listen to or download the talk on the Seattle Insight page.