Dharma Talks

Video teachings with contemporary Buddhist teachers

2017 Archive

Mistaking a Stick for a Snake: What the Buddha Taught about Inherent Bias

Bonnie Duran

We form our identities around views and perceptions that are often distortions. These distortions can crystallize into racism and internalized oppression. Bonnie Duran, a professor of public health and a cofounder of the People of Color Sangha in Albuquerque and Seattle, will discuss the timeless Vipallasa Sutta, which contains one of the primary teachings the Buddha gave about undoing distortions of the mind, so we can start to remedy the flawed ways we see ourselves and one another.

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Family Awareness: A Relational Path to Freedom in Family Life

Bart van Melik

We all play roles in our families—the calm elder sibling, the generous uncle, the wise parent—and each role comes with a set of expectations. Join meditation teacher Bart van Melik, who teaches mindfulness in juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, and New York City public schools, as he uses the Buddha’s four noble truths to find new and supportive ways for us to approach the stresses we all face at home.

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Facing Fear

Marcela Clavijo

What are you afraid of? For many of us, the list is long. In this series, Tibetan Buddhist nun Marcela Clavijo introduces the four immeasurables—love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—which help us replace unhelpful habits of mind and behavior for positive states and traits. With practice, these teachings can help assuage our deepest fears, whatever they may be.

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The Oxherder’s Journey

Barbara Joshin O'Hara

What can you expect to find when you set out on a path of spiritual development? The answer is not as mysterious as you may think. In this dharma talk series, Barbara Joshin O’Hara, Sensei walks us through the classic Zen blueprint of the path to enlightenment: the ten oxherding pictures, which clearly lay out each step along the way to awakening.

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Acknowledging the Spiritual Bypass

Mindy Newman

In this retreat, mental health counselor and meditation teacher Mindy Newman will identify the places in our practice where we might inadvertently succumb to what is commonly referred to as “spiritual bypassing.”

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Making the Shadow Your Teacher

Dr. Jay Michaelson

The modern rendering of Buddhism’s first noble truth might be “shit happens.” But our struggles can be fertilizer for our spiritual practice instead of waste. Writer, scholar, and meditation teacher Jay Michaelson, Ph.D., will speak about four ways that embracing life’s “shit”—difficult emotions in particular—can open us up to the fullness of our experience.

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Zen and the Work of Everyday Life

Rev. Masaki Matsubara

How can we live meaningful, purposeful, and ethical lives in a world where injustice seems to multiply by the day? A 16th-generation Zen priest in the Rinzai lineage, Reverend Masaki Matsubara, Ph.D., will introduce ways to bring dignity into our own lives and the lives of others as he explores Zen Buddhism’s model for ethical engagement.

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Mindfulness of the Body

Ralph Steele

It seems obvious: we would not be able to practice without our body. And yet we often take the body for granted, viewing it as little more than a source of suffering rather than the precious opportunity for cultivation that it is. In this series, meditation teacher Ralph Steele renews our appreciation for the body by delving into embodied mindfulness, concentration, and insight practices from the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

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