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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Break
When I first started going to my teacher Eugene Cash’s meditation group at the Unitarian Church in San Francisco on Sunday nights, back in the late 90s, I did what a lot of enthusiastic young meditators do in groups like that: I skipped the break. Which is to say, after the silent meditation finished, I…
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The Noble Eightfold Path to the End of Dissatisfaction: Part 1, Right View
A new dive into the Noble Eightfold Path (8FP), the Buddha’s brilliant scaffolding for integrated individual and collective liberation. We start, as is traditional, with Right View: the turning of the heart toward reality and away from delusion. Right View is both the prerequisite for wisdom to arise and the manifestation of wisdom when it…
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4 Modes of Attention
One way to think about mindfulness and effort in meditation practice is to imagine a graph where the X axis is volition (doing things on purpose), and the Y axis is consciousness, or being aware of what’s happening. Here’s a talk on this model, some pictures, and a handout to put on the fridge. Meditation:…
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Samadhi & Nervous System Health
A talk I gave at Insight Meditation South Bay on samādhi in the context of the 7 Awakening Factors. After the cornerstone Factor, Mindfulness, this list is divided into 3 energizing Factors: Investigation of States, Energy, and Rapture; and 3 calming Factors: Tranquillity, Focus (samādhi), and Equanimity. If we read the list as a sequence…
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Impermanence
Three talks on the first of the 3 Characteristics, or Marks (tilakkhaṇa): Impermanence (anicca). As is our practice often lately, the meditations include the Refuge and Precepts pūja. A talk on the quality and practice of refuge, and how we both need a refuge from impermanence, and we take refuge in impermanence. (1.16.18) https://seanfeitoakes.dreamhosters.com/talks/20180116-satsang-refuge-from-in-impermanence.m4a Meditation: mindfulness of…
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The Whole Path
Opening 2018 with a talk on the “Whole Path” of Buddhist purification and liberation. I used the verse that is often chanted as a summary of the path (Dhammapada 183) as the basis. sabba-pāpassa akaranam kusalassupa-sampadā sacitta-pariyo-dapanam etam buddhāna-sāsanam Do no harmful actions, do what’s skillful, purify your mind. This is the legacy of the…
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Ditch your meditation timer (use it differently)
If meditation is part of your daily home practice, you probably keep time in some way. Peeking at the clock every 30 seconds is clearly not the point, so you have to have some structure for sitting with your eyes closed, right? Either you set an alarm (crickets seems to be a favorite lately, if…
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A new meditation and yoga retreat format
If you’ve sat a meditation retreat at Spirit Rock, IMS, Insight Retreat Center, or any of the other Insight Meditation spots around, you know the standard retreat schedule well: basically a day of alternating 45 minute sitting and walking meditation periods, dharma talk in the evenings. All in silence except for a 15 minute check-in…
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The practice of meditation
A series of talks looking at the practice of meditation in detail. We discuss different types of instructions, what’s happening in the nervous system, how to work with emotion, thought, and sensation, how the practice develops, and more. Part 1: Two broad styles of meditation instruction that differ in how we use our attention, and…
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Buddhist & Hindu Yogas are less separate than you think
A month of talks exploring the relationship between Buddhism and Yoga, or between the many “Buddhist and Hindu Yogas” plural. I wove in some history, but tried to stay close to actual practice issues. 1. Embodiment. (9.5.17) Meditation: Orientation through the senses 2. Focus & tranquillity: the practices of jhāna/samādhi, and the pleasure of Rapture…