Heart of Freedom Mindfulness Meditation Instruction

Awakening Altruistic Joy

This podcast focuses on altruistic joyfulness. This heart cultivation practice offers the possibility that even in the middle of whatever challenging physical, mental, or emotional state that is passing through we can look for and really take in the pleasantness that comes from living life in the present moment. Mudita or altruistic joy practice is not about denying pain, darkness, and sorrow. Rather, it works hand in hand with the practice of compassion, where we focus on opening our hearts to pain and suffering. Our joy is made all the brighter when we truly let ourselves feel how fleeting life is—how filled with loss and grief and terror. And that awareness of sorrow and impermanence helps sensitize us not only to our own joys but to the joys of others. Joy and mindfulness are linked together.
“Look past your thoughts, so you may drink the pure nectar of This Moment.” - Rumi
“The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.” - Tara Brach
 

Loving and Wise Intention

This podcast is an invitation to deeply reflect on our lives and the way we are living them.  Wise reflection can lead us to the understanding that thought and emotion lead to speech and action. The Buddha Dharma gives us tools to shape our destiny through consciously choosing which seeds of thought and emotion we really want to cultivate.  One of the Buddha's most penetrating discoveries is that our intentions are the main factors shaping our lives, and that they can be mastered as a skill. If we subject them to the same qualities of mindfulness, persistence, and discernment involved in developing any skill, we can perfect them to the point where they will lead to no regrets or damaging results in any given situation; ultimately, they can lead us to the truest possible happiness. Skilful intention is about coming home to ourselves and aligning actions with the deepest part of the human heart that is loving, wise, and compassionate. Skillful intention is organic; it thrives when cultivated and wilts when neglected.
"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & mind."  The Buddha (Anguttara VI.63)
"The Metta Sutta is basically a recipe for cooking Right Intention. Whenever there’s friendliness, joy, compassion, and equanimity there’s Right Intention. So, whenever we’re aware that there’s a Wrong Intention present, it’s recommended that we do a little metta or Four Immeasurables meditation" Thanissaro Bhikkhu
In this podcast we explore the Buddha's teaching on loving and wise intention through silent and guided meditation practice, a Dharma talk, and group sharing. 

The Courage To Be With What Is

This podcast explores courage in mindfulness practice.  The willingness to be with things that we find difficult, painful, scary, unpleasant, and/or unfamiliar is core to our spiritual practice.  For some of us even joy and pleasure are challenging to be present with at times. The end of dukkha (that which is difficult to bear) is found is the willingness to be present with it. This takes courage. To respond with courage is a fundamental part of awakening. Courage is not only needed to face some of the moment-to-moment aspects of daily life, but it is critical when we are turning toward dukkha in all its forms both internal and external. To live in truth requires courage. And courage arises from the practice of being present with the way things are. 
When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance. Pema Chodron from "When things fall apart".
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." Winston Churchill:
I hope you can join us for a lightly guided meditation, group sharing in a council format,  and a Dharma talk on courage in Dharma practice. 

Radical Gratitude Practice

This podcast focuses on the powerful practice of gratitude through both silent and guided meditation, a Dharma talk and a sharing circle.  I have found gratitude can be transformative.  As my practice has deepened there are more moments of gratitude which go beyond being thankful for receiving the bounties of life. It includes being grateful for challenges and difficulties, the moments dukkha (dissatisfaction, anguish, suffering).  With mindful, kind, and wise reflection dukkha can be experienced as an opportunity for spiritual freedom and compassion to expand.  It is important to understand that this is an experiential insight, not an external expectation or judgement imposed by the mind. It is the experience of freedom from the minds resisting and grasping.  In the deep experience of gratitude, there is no me, or you.  There is just our field of interconnectedness.  
 
"Cultivating, practicing, and sustaining gratefulness as an approach to life is radical – because it flies in the face of internal and external forces which want us to believe the big lie that we need to have more and be more in order to be happy" Kristi Nelson
 
"When we feel true gratitude, whether toward particular people or toward life, Metta (lovingkindness) will flow from us naturally. When we connect with another person through gratitude, the barriers that separate begin to melt."  Joseph Goldstein from his book One Dharma
“In certain temples that I've been to, there's actually a prayer that you make asking for difficulties - May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion*. Jack Kornfield
 Being grateful for not only life's blessing but also its suffering is a key component of living a spiritual life -- and more broadly, to a fulfilling and meaningful life.   

The Five Priceless Jewels

On this podcast we focus on practices that develop the qualities of heart and mind which are known as the “five spiritual faculties.” They’ve been called “five priceless jewels,” because when they’re well developed, the mind is free from identification with greed, hatred and delusion. When the mind is no longer bound by those energies, then understanding and love have no limits. These five spiritual faculties turn into spiritual powers if we cultivate and develop them. We all have these faculties within and developing them means making them powerful qualities which become factors of enlightenment. As long as they are only faculties, they are potentials for enlightenment. When they’re strong and balanced, they generate the power which leads to spiritual freedom. The five are faith, effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. They’re all necessary. They all work together and interweave very closely. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men”.  Dr Martin Luther King"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then there will be true peace." Sri Chinmoy Ghose
 
This podcast includes guided and silent meditation, a talk, and a sharing circle

The Compassionate Response

This podcast is an exploration of  how In each mindful moment we can choose to respond rather than react out of habitual conditioning. Epidemics, the horrors of violence, wars, racism, sexism, homo and transphobia, global warming, physical and mental health challenges, financial uncertainty, relational distress, social isolation and more are all part of the conditions of life we may be impacted by.  We can react out of fear, anger, shame, and greed; or we can use these experiences to learn to respond with compassion and wisdom. It's not easy to keep practicing in difficult times. It takes perseverance and a supportive community.  Each moment we can begin again and remember our deepest values and intentions. As we learn to cultivate these wholesome mental emotional states for the challenges we face there can be a shift in our view.  We don't see ourselves or the world in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, or good and evil; we can see only dukkha (suffering, anguish, unsatisfactoriness)  and what leads to the end of dukkha.  When we deeply understand from direct experience dukkha and the end of dukkha, then we feel more love and compassion.  Then we can act in energetic and forceful ways, but without corrosive effects of greed, hatred and delusion.  
 

Freedom From Judging

How we meet each moment of life determines our well-being. When we are caught in or identified with judging, comparing, or fixing, our worldview contracts and we have fewer options for responding to the present moment.  Identifying how we relate to "ourselves" and to the "world", whether we tend to judge, compare, or fix, will help free us from our obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviors, which cause us, and others, suffering.  Working with these challenging patterns with mindfulness is tricky at times. We often try to change the mind as opposed to changing our relationship to the judging, comparing and/or fixing mind. This can reinforce the mind's mechanics and lead to more suffering. You are invited to listen to this podcast as we explore how to wisely and compassionately work with these patterns of mind.  
"Love without clinging, give without demanding, receive without possessing,perceive without projecting, witness without judging, focus without tension,work without strain, relax without laziness, play without competing, enjoywithout craving, reflect without imagining, serve without selfing, surrenderwithout hesitating, meditate without identity, guide without superiority, enterwithout self-importance, depart without regret, live without arrogance, existwithout self-image, awaken to the Real"Mooji
This podcast includes silent and guided meditation, a Dharma talk, and a sharing circle.

Kindness and Awakening Principles

This podcast explores some simple, but profound principles that lead to less suffering in life.  An example of such a principle is "we don't have to believe everything we think".  Much of the complexity and stress we experience is a result of the mind's thinking that is woven into stories about our apparent selves and "others".  As we live life here and now, there is increasing clarity and freedom from the mind's stories.  A formal mindfulness practice is an acknowledgement that if we aim to cultivate certain qualities of heart and mind, we access them more readily in daily life.  If you want to be more aware, responsive, emotionally balanced, compassionate or anything else, it takes effort.  It doesn’t require being perfect – when you hear that voice with the story of perfection taking over, it’s an opportunity to be mindfully free from its influence. 
This podcast includes guided and silent mindfulness meditation, group sharing, a Dharma talk, and loving kindness practice.

Accepting Imperfection

This podcast explores how our mindfulness practice can really come into fruition not when we get what we want, but when we don’t get what we want. That’s really where our growth flowers, when we face difficulties with mindfulness and compassion, and without believing the mind saying "it shouldn't be this way". If we value the difficult, every moment in our life matters. Every moment in our life is valuable. There aren’t any moments that we wish weren’t there if we turn towards the challenging moments.  So much suffering is caused by holding on to our ideas of how things should be.  Mindfulness practice invites (without judging or demanding) us to be fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the past and future and showing up for life, knowing that even our feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. 

Mindful Speech As Practice

On this podcast we will we explore focusing on mindful speech.  Conscious speech is always a rich domain of mindfulness. The invitation is not only to practice awareness of what we say and how we say it; but at a deeper level we can begin to notice the impulse, the driving force that propels us into speech and how our state of mind and our energy are affected before, during, and after speaking. This practice shifts the precepts from being a standard used to modify our behavior to a way of working with our state of mind, the source of all speech.
And no matter where it leads, no matter what abuses it may bring, I'm gonna tell the truth."  Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr
"At first, precepts [ethics] are a practice.  Then they become a necessity, and finally they become a joy.  When our heart is awakened they spontaneously illuminate our way in the world.  This is called Shining Virtue.  The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them". Jack Kornfield
 In his commentary on kind speech, Dogen (Zen Buddhist tradition) wrote, "‘Kind speech’ means that when you see sentient beings you arouse the mind of compassion and offer words of loving care. It is contrary to cruel or violent speech.... You should be willing to practice it for this entire present life; do not give up, world after world, life after life. Kind speech is the basis for reconciling rulers and subduing enemies. ...You should know that kind speech arises from a kind mind, and kind mind from the seed of a compassionate mind.... kind speech is not just praising the merit of others; it has the power to turn the destiny of the nation."
This podcast will include silent and guided meditation, group sharing and a Dharma talk on skillful speech.