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15
Episodes
This is for anyone interested in learning how to mindfully meditate, or deepen practice. It is suitable for beginning and advanced students alike. It includes guided and silent sitting The focus of Doug's teaching is on the cultivation of compassion, loving-kindness and wisdom through the practice of being fully present for the ever changing joys and sorrows of life.
Episodes

Monday Jan 11, 2021
Awakening Through Understanding
Monday Jan 11, 2021
Monday Jan 11, 2021
As we begin this new year I invite you to join us to discover and/or renew our commitment to the path of awakening. It begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding. To start with, it asks a question of our hearts. What do we really value, what do we really care about in this life? Our lives are quite short. Our childhood goes by very quickly, then adolescence and adult life go by. We can be complacent and let our lives disappear in a dream, or we can become aware. In the beginning of practice we must ask what is most important to us. What do we care about most? What brings us to Dharma practice. We can explore, discover and remember our answers to these questions together.
"At the time of death, people who have tried to live consciously ask only one or two questions about their life: Did I learn to live wisely? Did I love well? We can begin by asking them now" Jack Kornfield
"Right understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the four noble truths that explain things as they really are" Joseph Goldstein
There will be time for silent and guided meditation, group sharing, and a Dharma talk.

Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Loving and Wise Intention
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
This podcast explores skilful intention through a guided meditation practice and a Dharma talk. Right or 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. It can be helpful to reflect as the year comes to an end on the values that guide our intentions and to cultivate the resolve to live by them. Right 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."
Anguttara VI.63

Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Freedom and Forgiveness
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
The name of this podcast is Heart of Freedom. It comes from the understanding that the heart of our practice is the direct experience of freedom and the realization of our true nature as love. The Buddha said: "Just as in the great ocean there is but one taste — the taste of salt — so in the Dharma there is but one taste — the taste of freedom" as translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Another way of understanding this comes from Matt Flickstein: "you are already free, don't believe anything to the contrary".
Maintaining resentment towards others or towards ourselves is one of the greatest impediments to working with our minds on the deepest level and realizing freedom. Resentment acts as a barrier that prevents us from seeing things as they really are.
This podcast includes silent and guided meditation, a Dharma talk, and a blessing circle. Please listen as we support each other in practices that invite relinquishing resentment and attachments to the past. Lily Tomlin referred to this as "giving up all hope for a better past"

Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Beginners Mind
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few" Shunryu Suzuki,
“Everybody knows that some things are simply impossible until somebody who doesn’t know that makes them possible.” — Albert Einstein

Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Mindfulness With Difficult Emotions
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
In this Dharma talk I explore ways we can work mindfully with difficult emotional states. This very difficult time in the world can be a catalyst for evoking what are sometimes referred to afflictive emotional states. Often the experience of fear, doubt, shame and anger are very seductive. They come laced with the endearing and sticky label “my”. The mind is identified with it as “my fear”. “my doubt” "my anger". This can feed into the cycle of negative self judgement for having the feeling, as if we choose to feel it. We unconsciously identify with the emotion. These strong afflictive emotional states have a common characteristic, they lie. With mindfulness, when we look deeply, we can discover: we never have experienced a single emotion or thought that has ever stayed. All are impairment Neither the worst feelings, nor the best stick around indefinitely When we tune into impermanence in which these feelings unfold, we break the identification with seeming solidity of the “suffering” as well as the “sufferer”. This practice is about establishing a familiarity and comfort with the “discomfort” associated with heavy emotional states. We don't have to make them go away, they go away by themselves. In this practice we will learn how to deepen and strengthen our capacity to do this. This frees us to respond to life from love, compassion and wisdom
"It’s very helpful to realize that the emotions we have, the negativity and positiveity are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully aware, and fully alive"
Pema Chodrin:

Sunday Oct 11, 2020
True Refuge
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
During these difficult times for many of us it can be helpful to remember that practicing Dharma is discovering for ourselves where we can find true refuge. There are so many places that we are drawn to seek it like power, money, fame or social position, relationships, family, children, sexuality, food, drugs or alcohol. We may know intellectually that these things are all unstable and impermanent places that do not lead to freedom, but we need the non-cognitive experience of meditation practice in order to find true refuge.. You are invited to join our gathering of lovely wise beings as we explore together what taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha actually mean in our practice and life.
“The biggest illusion about a path of refuge is that we are on our way somewhere else, on our way to becoming a different kind of person. But ultimately, our refuge is not outside ourselves, not somewhere in the future - it is always and already here.” Tara Brach

Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Self Compassion During Pandemic
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020

Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Right Intention
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
This podcast explores right intention through meditation practice, a Dharma talk and group sharing. Right intention is about coming home to ourselves and aligning actions with the deepest part of the human heart that is loving, wise and compassionate. It can be helpful with the support of spiritual friends to clarify the values that guide our intentions and to cultivate the resolve to live by them. Right intention is organic; it thrives when cultivated and wilts when neglected. Come give and receive support for this very important part of our practice.
"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & mind."
Anguttara VI.63

Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Working Mindfully With Grief
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020

Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Being A Good Friend To Yourself
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
This meditation and Dharma talk focus on friendship that's not based on any terms or conditions. This means being your own friend when you don't meet your own expectations about how you should look, feel, act or think. This practice is about learning to choose to be present in a loving, compassionate, openhearted way as often as possible for ourselves and others.
"The first step is developing an unconditional friendship with yourself. Unconditional friendship means staying open when you want to shut down, when it is just too painful, too embarrassing, too unpleasant what you see in yourself'
Pema Chödron
"Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork-all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled. Radical Acceptance does not mean self-indulgence or passivity. Instead it empowers genuine change: healing fear and shame and helping to build loving, authentic relationships. When we stop being at war with ourselves, we are free to live fully every precious moment of our lives" Tara Brach
This podcast includes meditation practices that cultivate mindfulness, kindness and a sense of our shared humanity.