A reflection on the importance, the challenges, and the transformative power of being present.

Joseph's Dharma Story Part 2

Bring mindfulness into daily life is a challenging aspect of our practice. Using specific practices for daily life helps to bring the thread of mindfulness throughout our days.

The world spins around the alternating pairs of gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, and happiness and unhappiness. When we bring them into our awareness, we see how much of our time and energy is spent trying to create and hold on to the positive ones, and avoid or get rid of the negative ones. If we see with wisdom, we realize that these conditions are always operating no matter what we do, and that the skillful way to respond to them is to come to a clearer understanding of what actually brings us true happiness and a sense of well-being, and to cultivate that, rather than chase after gain, praise, fame, and superficial happiness.

The four divine abidings show us a way to hold all the joys and sorrows of life. This talk focuses principally on the qualities of loving-kindness, which overcomes isolation and connects us to all of life; and gratitude, as a form of appreciative joy that leads to greater contentment and well-being.

This talk explores two of the Buddha's discourses that teach how to establish equanimity associated with insight. He teaches us what leads to more happiness and what leads to more suffering, and essentially, how we can cultivate more pleasure in our lives.

The Buddha spoke of wise attention as the tool that uproots the underlying tendencies of our minds that cause suffering. This talk discusses various means the Buddha taught for practicing wise attention.

Questions and Answers

This is a 45 minute introduction and a guided meditation on Equanimity. By repeating certain phrases, we can decondition our reactive attitude and open our heart to the way things are.

This talk explores the third noble truth, or the end of suffering, also described as Nibbana. Nibbana is seen as a transcendent dimension of our being accessible in any moment. Practices that approach this unconditioned element are described also.