I have always enjoyed working with practitioners who are continuing to deepen their practice. In the many long retreats I teach at both IMS and Spirit Rock, I feel free to pass on the deepest pointings I’ve found in the teachings of the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Those are my guiding lights in practice and understanding.
It is fun for me to take the most difficult concepts and put them into accessible language, to unwrap the mystery. So I try to find ways to explore the breadth of concepts like "emptiness" -- to see how the entire path can be explained in terms of this synonym for nibbana. One of my aims is to bring the goal of freedom into the here and now. This way practitioners get a taste of freedom, so they know what they are heading toward on their journey to liberation.
The tools of mindfulness and lovingkindness can be picked up by anyone. They are easy to understand and they bring immediate benefit to our lives. The essence of vipassana is ideally suited to western society, especially to the resonance between our psychological turn of mind and our quest for spiritual understanding.
Ignorance is the first link in the chain of dependent origination. The talk explores how formations are conditioned by ignorance to create three levels of obscuration, and how the path of sila, samadhi, and pañña works through them to touch enlightenment.
The Buddha pointed to seven meditative factors that when developed lead to liberation. This talk explains how the factors are developed, beginning with mindfulness and continuing through the arousing factors and the pacifying factors.
When we understand our experience in terms of the five aggregates, we see without the unnecessary overlay of self. This way of understanding is liberating.
Joy and happiness are essential aspects of the journey to awakening. This talk explores the role they play and how they can be developed through mudita, virtue, nature, generosity, concentration and insight
