We often have the idea that thoughts are our enemy during meditation. If only we could get rid of all those thoughts, then we would be good meditators. But actually, this is a misconception, since thinking is part of being a human being. In this talk we learn how to befriend the thinking mind, so it can be a companion, instead of an enemy.

Explore mindfulness of breathing as a foundation for vipassana, as well as a practical tool we can bring into daily life.

The human tendency to want can range from highly unskillful or harmful forms of grasping and compulsion, through ordinary desires of life, into beautiful forms of aspiration and care. Buddhist teachings show how we can develop the more skillful forms of desire, such as wanting to be ethical, to practice meditation, or to awaken. Interestingly, moving into skillful wanting is an act of letting go.

In the Simile of the Cloth sutta, the Buddha describes liberation as going beyond mere "purity" to an inner freedom from mental limitation.

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.

Recognizing and Cultivating the Wholesome

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.

An introduction to the retreat theme of Awakening the Pure Heart.

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 Buddha’s life after his awakening, his first teachings, and the wisdom he shared near the end of his life.