Dharma Seed: dharma talks and meditation instruction

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We begin by reviewing some and expanding last week's introduction to practicing to transform the judgmental mind, including clarifying our language and the way that in English "judgment" can ambiguously mean either an expression of the judgmental mind or a non-judgmental discernment. We identify examples of the judgmental mind, and point to how it can be understood in terms of the sequence of contact to grasping (and pushing away) in the Buddha's teaching on Dependent Origination, how negative judgments (in the sense of the judgmental mind) typically come out of unacknowledged or unprocessed pain. We also point to how our practice with the judgmental mind, as it goes deeper, begins to identify "limiting beliefs," often from childhood, that generate our most chronic judgments. We end the talk with naming a number of ways to practice with the judgmental mind. The talk is followed with discussion.

(Aloka Earth Room & Parayana Vihara) Somatic practice followed by a guided meditation

(Common Ground Meditation Center)

(Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley) Beginning by establishing awareness of the body, then connecting with breathing and opening to spaciousness and ease