Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Parayana Vihara)

(Parayana Vihara)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) This closing talk distills the sixteen steps of the Ānāpānasati Sutta into what's most portable for daily life — calming the body, calming the mind, opening the heart, and letting go — offered as one continuous gesture rather than four separate teachings. We'll explore simple, concrete tools for carrying retreat-mind into ordinary moments, and extend the practice into patience and sīla as it meets daily relationship and speech. The talk closes with reflections on love, belonging, and letting go: what becomes possible once the hands are finally empty enough to receive what is already here.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) This closing talk distills the sixteen steps of the Ānāpānasati Sutta into what's most portable for daily life — calming the body, calming the mind, opening the heart, and letting go — offered as one continuous gesture rather than four separate teachings. We'll explore simple, concrete tools for carrying retreat-mind into ordinary moments, and extend the practice into patience and sīla as it meets daily relationship and speech. The talk closes with reflections on love, belonging, and letting go: what becomes possible once the hands are finally empty enough to receive what is already here.

(Gaia House) A meditation, reflection, and (just the) responses to questions on the distinct expressions and paths of hedonic, eudaimonic, and nibbanic happiness, it's relationship to pleasant abiding, our deepest values, ethical conduct, and release.

(Karuna Buddhist Vihara) This dhamma talk, guided meditation, comments, questions and responses was offered on July 18, 2026 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00 - 25:05 GUIDED MEDITATION 25:05 - 54:10 DHAMMA TALK 54:10 - 1:29:02 COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & RESPONSES

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) In this guided meditation, the breath becomes a frame - a halo around whatever picture we slot into it - as we move through the third tetrad's four ways of looking at the mind. We'll settle into the stillness already underneath the mind's activity, the way silence sits beneath sound; let a basic gladness surface, an inward brightness already present rather than something we have to chase down; gather the mind into a felt sense of wholeness and integration; and finally practice the small, ordinary liberations already available to us - the fist opening, the self growing quieter, a way of looking that's already free.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) In this guided meditation, the breath becomes a frame - a halo around whatever picture we slot into it - as we move through the third tetrad's four ways of looking at the mind. We'll settle into the stillness already underneath the mind's activity, the way silence sits beneath sound; let a basic gladness surface, an inward brightness already present rather than something we have to chase down; gather the mind into a felt sense of wholeness and integration; and finally practice the small, ordinary liberations already available to us - the fist opening, the self growing quieter, a way of looking that's already free.

(Aloka Earth Room) Short Reflection on the '5th' Vipallasa & Guided Meditation including a poem by John Soos | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene IV | Online Wednesday-Morning

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Cambridge Insight Meditation Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Drawing on Bhikkhu Anālayo's scholarship on the Ānāpānasati Sutta, this talk explores the second tetrad of mindfulness of breathing: the four steps in which joy, happiness, and the subtler mental formations become doorways into deep practice. We look at why pleasure, met clearly, has always belonged on the path, and how the Buddha's own early memory of ease under a rose-apple tree pointed him toward awakening long before any formal practice did. Along the way we'll draw on the words of contemporary BIPOC and queer dharma teachers on what it means to actually receive joy in the body, and explore practical instructions for steeping in wholesome pleasure and calming it without losing it.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) A main way to understand generally our practice is by seeing it as combining (1) avoiding “unskillful” or “unwholesome” actions and states of mind (and knowing how to practice when they arise), and (2) developing skillful or wholesome qualities. We explore different aspects of this way of seeing our practice: Understanding its relationship to the teaching on wise effort; seeing the core unskillful quality as reactivity (dukkha) in its two forms as grasping after the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant, each in myriad ways; and developing positive qualities like concentration, mindfulness, kindness and compassion, generosity and the other paramis, and the Seven Factors of Awakening. We examine some of the complexities of practicing with reactivity, with a main one being that reactivity is often enmeshed with discernment; I can be judgmental and caught in reactivity, for example, as an activist who sees injustice clearly, with discernment. This calls therefore for transforming the reactivity, so we can make use of the discernment skillfully. We also look into some examples of both forms of practice, both in meditation and in the flow of daily life. The talk is followed by discussion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin with a brief introduction to the theme of this evening’s talk on the foundations of our practice—avoiding “unskillful” or “unwholesome” actions and states of mind (and knowing how to practice when they arise), on the one hand, and developing skillful or wholesome qualities, on the other. There is then a guided practice, linked with the talk theme, focused on developing (1) concentration (samadhi), (2) mindfulness (sati), and (3) awareness of reactivity, developed in part by noticing how we relate to what is moderately pleasant or unpleasant.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Karuna Buddhist Vihara) This dhamma talk, guided meditation, comments, questions and responses was offered on July 11, 2026 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00 - GUIDED MEDITATION 27:02 - DHAMMA TALK 56:21 - COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & RESPONSES

(Karuna Buddhist Vihara) This talk was given at East Bay Dhamma in Berkeley on July 11, 2026. It covers Dhammapada verses 157-166 on the Self.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Cambridge Insight Meditation Center) When news of the world is challenging and there is uncertainty for everyone, letting reality in can feel impossible or scary. Yet Buddhist practices are designed to support exactly this, though maybe not all at once. Supported by each other and those who have gone before, bolstered by an innate determination to be free, we practice skills and arts of goodness. Compassionate ethics protects ourselves and others. Meditation turns awareness toward direct experience, open to its textures. Things might start to shift a bit. One practitioner may sense honesty and compassion growing as they admit some limitation. Another might see space for choice where they hadn’t imagined choice was even possible. There are lots of possibilities.

(Aloka Earth Room) Short Reflection on the 4th Vipallasa & Guided Meditation including a poem by Mary Oliver | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene IV | Online Wednesday-Morning

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) This talk explores Samadhi as absorption and as momentary concentration

(Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided Metta for neutral being

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The instructions supports the mind to incline towards ease with breathing and wholehearted attention

(Parayana Vihara)

(Gaia House) A meditation, reflection, and (just the) responses to questions on the theme of interdependence, it's relationship to interconnection, the fundamental importance of intentions and reflection in awakening, and what really brings happiness.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The talk describes the five hindrances and how to meet them in concentration practice by 1. gently ignoring, 2. bring in antidotes, 3. meeting with RAIN approach

(Karuna Buddhist Vihara) This dhamma talk, comments, questions and responses was offered on July 4th, 2026 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00 - 33:46 DHAMMA TALK 33:46 - 1:12:27 COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & RESPONSES

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Instructions point to the importance of inviting a attitude of friendliness and patience in mindfulness of a breathing practice

(Auckland Insight Meditation)

(Auckland Insight Meditation)

(Aloka Earth Room) Short Reflection on the 3rd Vipallasa & Guided Meditation | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene IV | Online Wednesday-Morning

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge)

(Insight Santa Cruz)

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Parayana Vihara)

(Benicia Insight Meditation) We explore the nature of doing and not-doing, both in meditation and more generally. We begin with emphasizing the importance for the Buddha of diligence, skillful effort (one of the factors of the Eightfold Path), and doing. Yet there also is a clear place for what we can call “not-doing,” for example, in cultivating mindful receptivity to experience. We examine as well how being a “doer” is so central to many of our identities, whether in our roles or work or even in our meditation. We also look to how we often experience a kind of not-doing in everyday life in “flow” experiences in different aspects of life. Finally, we show how accessing the depths of human experience commonly requires a profound not-doing, as we find brought out, for example, in Taoism, some of the Buddha’s teachings, and Tibetan Mahamudra and Dzogchen. The talk is followed by discussion.

(Benicia Insight Meditation) In the context of the basic instructions on developing first concentration (samadhi) and then mindfulness, we interweave guidance on emphasizing doing, or more active effort, and not-doing, including through opening more receptively, and some other short practices.