Dharma Talks
given at Insight Meditation Community of Richmond
Publicly available talks can be browsed here in the order indicated by
the "Sort Order" selection. Talk titles and discriptions can also be
searched by typing in a search word (or words) in the search box and
clicking "Search Titles and Descriptions". With multiple words, only those talks
containing all the given words are displayed.
We often hope something outside us will do the purifying for us. The Buddha gently redirects: we need to do the inner work. This talk is based in the Simile of the Cloth sutta (MN7) and explores what that inner purification actually requires, and how wisdom makes it possible.
Drawing on the Buddha's Simile of the Cloth (MN7), this talk explores how greed, aversion, and delusion stain the mind and obscure clear seeing. We look at how these defilements manifest in meditation and everyday experience, and how to meet them with awareness rather than resistance.
Every moment of experience arrives simple and bare, but the mind rarely leaves it that way. This talk explores SN 35.95, the Māluṅkyaputta Sutta, and Māluṅkyaputta's insight that suffering is not in what we experience, but in what we add to it.
This talk explores the life of the Buddha from his early years as Prince Siddhattha through his awakening under the Bodhi tree. Through his search, struggles, and realization, we uncover insights into suffering, striving, and the Middle Way.
Drawing from their new book "This Messy, Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership", devon and nico share practical insights on bringing mindfulness and compassion into the beautiful complexity of intimate relationships. A guided meditation is followed by a teaching.
From a simple moment of contact, the mind can create a lot of mental proliferation (papañca), leading to stress and conflict. This talk shows how to interrupt that process through clear, present-moment awareness, drawing on the Honey Ball sutta (MN18), and the Buddha's teachings to the wanderer Bahiya (Ud 1.10).
