▶ Don't Get Stuck on Peace, See Everything as A Dream
A lively discussion on meditation and the Tibetan Lojong Practices for Training in Compassion. Portland, Oregon. Recorded on December 3, 2016.
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▶ I Can't Say, I Can't Say
In Berlin Michael talks about Zen Case 55 of the Blue Cliff Record Tao Wu's Condolence Call. He talks about the Yoga Sutra, not being afraid, and how an awakened person has a very wide palette of em
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▶ Carl Jung & Meditation Practice, Part 2 of 4
**BONUS** Michael explores what it's like to feel like two people; how Jung felt alone as a kid; the place of religious images in life as a child; how do we relate to the vastness of the unconscious a
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▶ 30 Minute Guided Meditation w/ Paul Haller
Zen teacher Paul Haller guides a gentle and clear meditation on noticing what it is to attend to experience. Recorded on retreat co-taught with Michael Stone, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, Califor
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▶ The Deep Request: 30 Minute Guided Meditation w/ Paul Haller
Followed by a talk on how meditation unfolds, and how to use the space of meditation to investigate experience. Recorded on retreat co-taught with Michael Stone, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, Cali
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▶ Life is Hard w/ Norman Fischer
**BONUS** Love and compassion are necessities for basic sustainability. Norman Fischer gives a lecture to a packed house in Toronto on the importance of love, care, and ordinary suffering. This episod
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▶ The Discipline of Relationship w/ Norman Fischer
**BONUS** Norman Fischer talks on not speaking destructively, not criticizing the faults of others, and working with conflict. This episode is from our archive and was recorded March 16, 2014.
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▶ You Can't Get Anywhere With Meditation! w/ Norman Fischer
**BONUS** Norman Fischer facilitates discussion about meditation, prayer, loss, compassion to oneself, and the liberation of sitting still even when it seems useless. This episode is from our archive
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▶ Letting Go of Control (Diamond Sutra 5)
There are hungers we just can't satisfy. So how can we open to desire without grasping? There's no satisfaction at the end of the money or fame path. Meditation is controlling your posture and mind in
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▶ Labeling Thoughts & Acknowledging What's Present (Diamond Sutra 4)
Michael talks about wedding Vows in community, labeling our thoughts so we can honour them, and how generosity is about the way we give our attention. The most profound gift we can give others is our
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▶ Attuning to Ourselves & Others (Diamond Sutra 3)
The benefit of our practice must be wider than the benefit to our body. How wide do you draw the circle of self? Self-soothing. Michael talks about a secure base and how to manage reactivity that's
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▶ How Does a Buddha Stand, Walk & Control Thoughts? (Diamond Sutra 2)
What does being alive feel like? Michael tells the story of Subhuti and the questions he asks the Buddha about how to practice. Haven't we been blessed with greatest of trusts? Aren't we all blessed?
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▶ The Diamond of Practice (Diamond Sutra 1)
The first in a series of six talks on the Diamond Sutra. Michael speaks on the three aspects of ourselves we can let go of through practice: Possessiveness (This is mine); Conceit (This is me); and Be
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▶ 25 Minute Guided Meditation on Mindfulness of Thinking
Shift away from the content of the mind to the process of thinking. Mindfulness of thinking while sitting like a mountain. Vancouver, 25 min.
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▶ Safety, Flight, Fight, and Freeze: Trauma & the Brain
Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity for meditation facilitation. Vancouver, 53 min.
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▶ Your Body is Trying to Support You: Self Soothing & Trauma Awareness
Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on self-soothing and trauma awareness during the Meditation Facilitation Training. Recorded in Vancouver, 59 min.
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▶ The Environment in Trauma Awareness ft. Molly Boeder Harris
Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity during the Meditation Facilitation Training. Vancouver, 25 min.
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▶ Trauma Sensitivity in Meditation, Mindfulness & Yoga ft. Molly Boeder
Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity during the Meditation Facilitation Program. Vancouver, 46 min.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #6)
1.) What was your first experience of solitude, and 2.) What were your first experiences of being with others? The best thing we can leave our kids is to show how we loved. Madison, WI.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #5)
Michael talks about how to protect yourself, how to cultivate a caring heart, and ways of praying without necessarily needing God. Madison, WI.
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▶ 15 Minute Guided Meditation on w/ Brian Williams
A 15-minute guided meditation on mudita (appreciative joy) with psychotherapist and dharma teacher Brian Williams. Co-taught with Michael. Enso Foundation, Kelowna.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #3): Transforming Blame, Cultiv
Michael unpacks Tibetan Buddhist teachings that use a series of slogans to transform our attitude into compassion. Enso Foundation, Kelowna, 45 min.
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▶ 15 Minute Guided Tonglen Meditation
This is instruction for a meditation practice called tonglen. Tonglen is a Tibetan term that means giving and receiving. In this practice you send out happiness to others and you take in any suff
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▶ Stabilizing Our Cluttered Minds In A Digital Age
Michael explores the way interruption technologies like phones and messaging etiquette, create hyper-arousal in the body and mind and de-stabilize emotions. He connects this research with practical
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▶ How To Meditate, Forgive, End Blame, And Stop Wounding Your Own Heart
How To Meditate, Forgive, End Blame, And Stop Wounding Your Own Heart by Michael Stone
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▶ Heaven Realms, Hell Realms, And Protection
First day of retreat Michael talks about walking meditation, bowing, and practice tips for going deeper on retreat. The talk ends with a beautiful description of Samadhi and how concentration can prot
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▶ Opening To Fear
During a Jewish-Buddhist retreat Michael speaks about fear of failure, fear of disappointing others and being scared of missing out. He begins by talking about the death of writer Oliver Sacks. 50 min
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▶ Mindfulness Of Breathing Part 9 - Turning the Body Into A Ballast
Final talk about relaxing the breath to settle the mind. Noticing how when we go on line to rest we end up over-stimulating ourselves and lose track of what we feel and our emotions become unstable.
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▶ Mindfulness Of Breathing Part 8 - I Want to Know What it's Like to be
Making space in our hearts for empathy, forgiveness and non-reactivity to emerge. How to practice with your breath when you feel crazy. Samadhi is the opposite of feeling fragmented. Port Moody, 30 mi
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▶ Mindfulness Of Breathing Part 7
Did you cut my shoelaces? Q & A about different forms of meditation for different people. Michael tells some funny stories about his son and practicing mindfulness in family. He also talks about m
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▶ Stabilizing Ourselves In The Digital Age
A public lecture about the effect of phones, the internet, and digital media on our minds and relationships. Michael offers very practical tools for managing our minds in an era of information overloa
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▶ Chanting For Ill And Dying Species
Chanting for Ill and Dying Species. On the last night of silent retreat in Cubjac, France, the community chanted outdoors for all ill and dying species. Based on a traditional Buddhist chant for human
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▶ Chanting Heart Sutra And Bodhisattva Vows
Chanting Heart Sutra and Bodhisattva Vows. Early morning chanting on silent retreat led by Caitlin Strom. 5 min. Chapin Mill, Batavia, New York. Photo credit: Andréa de Keijzer
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▶ Species Chant
Led by Jennifer Whitney and community, a recording of evening chanting for dying animals and vegetation. 5 min. Chapin Mill, Batavia, New York. Photo credit: Jill Willcott
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening - The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening - The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening - The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening - The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
...
▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening- The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
...
▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening- The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Ze
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▶ Moment To Moment Non-Stop Flow
On silent retreat Michael speaks about bowing, forms of practice, gratitude, extending meditation beyond the cushion, and appreciating the practice of others. Recorded at Chapin Mill, New York, on Dec
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▶ From Blame to Gratitude
Michael unpacks different kinds of blame, both inward and outward, followed by a description of projection and the link between blame and projection and how they cover over underlying feelings. Then h
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▶ All Roads Run Right Through the Capital
Deep listening, wisdom, and the ability to do extraordinary things. Salt Spring Island, B.C. Recorded in December, 2016.
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▶ Turning Things Around
Tibetan Buddhist Teachings for transforming what’s unpleasant, letting go of grasping, and the 3 treasures of awakening, reality and community. Portland, Oregon. Recorded on December 4, 2016.
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▶ Tonglen: Sending & Receiving Practice
A talk, followed by a guided meditation on inhaling suffering and exhaling peace. A practice of learning how to exchange your happiness for someone else’s suffering – how to train your heart to do wha
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▶ Don’t Get Stuck on Peace, See Everything as A Dream
A lively discussion on meditation and the Tibetan Lojong Practices for Training in Compassion. Portland, Oregon. Recorded on December 3, 2016.
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▶ Not Giving Up On Ourselves & Fully Inhabiting Our Lives
What’s happening right now in our lives can be the raw material that shows us the path of awakening & compassion. In Portland, Michael teaches from the Lojong Training in Compassion. Portland, Oregon.
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▶ Shame, Perfectionism, and the Pre-Cognitive Dimension of Trauma
Michael explores how mindfulness and meditation practice can heal shame and trauma and how these symptoms manifest in relationship. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Recorded on November 20 2016.
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▶ I Can’t Say, I Can't Say
In Berlin Michael talks about Zen Case 55 of the Blue Cliff Record “Tao Wu's Condolence Call.” He talks about the Yoga Sutra, not being afraid, and how an awakened person has a very wide palette of em
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▶ Superhero Practice: Balanced Energy, Improvisation, and The Vow to Se
A ship is safe in the harbour, but that’s not what ships are built to do. Michael talks about the ways that we can balance calmness with vitality, how not to be afraid of our power, and how balanced e
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▶ What Do You Do When People Fall Down?
Using a Zen koan about the Pang family, Michael talks about wholehearted activity, compassion, and throwing yourself to the ground when someone falls down. He ties this into the refugee situation in E
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▶ The Self Has No Self: What to do with the Ego?
Describing the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th limbs of yoga, Michael offers a very clear talk on the self, the ego and the emptiness of what we cling to. At the core of the personality we are trying to create
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▶ Allowing For Experience: Practicing Non-Separation
Michael lectures on the end of 2nd chapter of the Yoga-Sutra and then gets into a very precise mapping of what happens to the ego when you get into deeper states of calm and how to practice without di
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▶ I Saw You Fall, So I Helped
Based on a Zen story, Michael talks about wholehearted activity, compassion, and throwing yourself to the ground when someone falls. He ties this into the refugee situation in Europe, racism, and how
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▶ Effort, Monarch Butterflies, and Meditation Lessons in Farming
Caitlin Lambstrom gives a dharma talk on silent retreat about avoiding burnout, using effort wisely, getting rest, and being inspired by something greater than yourself. Salt Spring Island, Canada. 40
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▶ Ethics, Forgiveness, Breathing, and the Body
Michael speaks about the ways that being mindful of the body helps us make ethical choices and how our hostility and poor conduct only happen when we have lost track of the body. An interesting explor
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▶ Deeper & Deeper Patience
Michael speaks about composure, waiting 5 breaths when we are aggravated, and how patience is not about waiting for something, it’s really a matter of being where you are. The talk begins with a story
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▶ Healing Trauma Through the Body
Michael suggests that you need to get deeper than cognition and stories, in order to heal trauma. It’s what we have created in the wake of painful events, that need healing. Knowing when to name our s
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▶ Symptoms of Trauma
Michael details fear, dissociation, and shame, and how they impact the body, mind, and relationships. Very clear talk about the strategies we use to protect ourselves and create recognizable symptoms.
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▶ Forgiveness
**BONUS** A tender and personal talk Michael gives during silent retreat about his father, forgiveness, and how we need to practice forgiveness all the time. He talks about how, and why. He talks abou
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▶ Love: Sometimes We Can Really Show Up
**BONUS** If you are scared to die you can't forgive. An hour before New Year's Michael gives a quiet talk on the Heart Sutra and Forgiveness. When I hold someone's hand as they are dying I chant the
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▶ Learn How to Stop Breaking Things
**BONUS** Michael gives a talk on New Year's Silent Retreat on Dogen and how to practice meditation without memory and imagination. Learn to step back and turn your light inwards. Living in your small
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▶ Being Independent in our Practice
**BONUS** Michael Stone talks on silent retreat about how meditation works over the long-haul, how to practice with a teacher that encourages independence, and how to live without gain. This is the se
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▶ Speaking Up, Resilience, Non-Grasping
**BONUS** Michael Stone talks during the New Year's Silent Meditation Retreat about the depth of meditation, an old koan about bowing, Zen master Dogen, and Edward Snowden. This powerful talk wraps up
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▶ No Attributes: How Do You Know If Someone Is Awake? (Diamond Sutra 6
Because the Self is absent when we are awake, we cannot know if we are awake because we are one with our activity. So how do we know when someone is awake? Isn't it all projection? This is the final t
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▶ Life is Like a Funeral (Lotus Sutra 14)
Michael talks about the five kinds of fear, community and how it grows, a poem by Leonard Cohen, generosity, and then he reads his own poem about his mother. This talk is from our archive and was reco
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▶ 7 Factors Of Awakening (Pt.2)
Focusing on equanimity as a deep roundedness, Michael explores how to be balanced and creative without becoming indifferent. Equanimity doesn’t wear out. How joy, delight and tranquility arise in medi
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▶ Uncoupling The Senses: Patanjali’s Yoga - Sutra (in French translatio
Michael explores Patanjali’s teaching on pratyahara in both meditation and daily life. We don’t really understand why things happen in our life, and yet we hold so much in our bodies. He talks about s
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▶ Love, Death, And Oak Trees In The Garden
On silent retreat Michael Stone talks about the Zen koan Oak Tree in the Garden, as well as the meditation practice as a politics of love. He describes in detail the Buddha's death. Recorded at True N
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▶ Summer Silent Retreat pt.2
Michael Stone gives a focused and detailed thought about meditation technique and using your body to develop concentration. He goes through meditations on sound, the nostrils, the belly and approachin
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▶ Summer Silent Retreat pt. 1
When you have imbalanced attention how can you live an intentional life? Michael talks about being on retreat, two categories of thought, introduces the Dvedhavitakkka Sutta and talks about how deeply
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▶ Guided Meditation
All your life, you’ve been searching, without knowing it, for exactly this moment. Michael Stone gives a guided meditation on the city, the body and the breath. 25 minutes. Ottawa.
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▶ Hope Without Optimism
Hope Without Optimism. on Silent Retreat Michael Stone explores the Zen koan “Why Can’t the Tail Pass Through” along with thoughts on hope, optimism and despair. He describes “mindfulness as a politic
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▶ Waking the Political Body
Pascal Auclair co-teaches with Michael and explores the work of Joanna Macy and Aung San Suu Kyi and the work that reconnects. True North Insight. 1 hour.
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▶ Transforming Pain
Michael begins teaching on the Two Darts and explains
how physical and emotional pain are connected and how when we feel physical pain (first dart) it’s followed by a mental response (second dart). T
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▶ Practicing with the Devil
Practice is the opening of a path and letting go of rigid opinions. Michael’s final talk on the Kayagatasati Sutta on understanding
the role of Mara in practice. Mara is our inability to transcend ou
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▶ The Jhanas
Michael explains the basics of Jhana practices (4 stages of concentration) based on the the Kayagatasati Sutta in a workshop in Madison, Wisconsin. In stillness the landmarks for how we understand our
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▶ Mindfulness of the Body
In Madison, Wisconsin, Michael talks on the Kayagatasati Sutta exploring meditation on the body, how to work with the breath, and meditations on the dissolution of the body at death. Recorded May 17,
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▶ MU
Michael Stone gives his final talk at Centre of Gravity on the famous Zen Koan MU. Michael begins with discussing meditation on the breath and then goes deeply into seeing how practice is about being
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▶ Kushala 5
Life before and after Death. Michael Stone talks about deep memory, rebirth, and how when we have problems its usually because we have the wrong map. Spring 2014.
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▶ Kushala 3
The mind in meditation, dream yoga, and the Buddha's teaching on The Arrow. Michael Stone gives an in-depth talk on the Buddha's approach to embracing suffering, letting go, and how when we experience
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▶ Guided Meditation (40 min.)
Guided meditation by Michael Stone, with focus on the tongue, palette, position of fingers, and subtle physical tricks to open the mind in Vipassana practice. Recorded on silent retreat at True North
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▶ Love, Death, and Oak Trees in the Garden
On silent retreat Michael Stone talks about the Zen koan Oak Tree in the Garden, as well as the meditation practice as a politics of love. He describes in detail the Buddha's death. Recorded at True N
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▶ Form & Emptiness: The Role of the Body in Meditation Practice
Michael Stone uses the teachings on emptiness to work with the body. He calls sitting physical practice and he describes yoga as psychological practice. Recorded at True North Insight in Ontario on
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▶ Bring Me Something That Isn't Medicine
Michael Stone opens a silent retreat talking about seeing everything as medicine and how meditation teaches us how to practice intimacy, even with old wounds. Recorded at True North Insight in Ontar
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▶ Martin Heidegger and Being With Others
Psychotherapist and philosopher Cathleen Hoskins visits Centre of Gravity and gives a talk on Heidegger, philosophy and psychotherapy. 1 hour. Feb 15, 2011
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▶ Eight Stages of Practice, Part 5
Appreciation. After surviving the dry place slowly our relationship transforms and appreciation arises. Appreciation leads to love and finally to letting go altogether. 1 hour. Feb 22, 2011
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▶ What is the Great Meaning?
Roshi Enkyo gives a morning dharma talk during weekend retreat at Centre of Gravity. Hart House, Toronto. 45 min. February 26, 2011
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▶ Roshi Enkyo O'Hara on Zen Poetry
An incredible talk by Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara on Zen Poetry and Practice during her annual visit to Centre of Gravity. Enkyo Roshi is the abbot of www.villagezendo.org in Manhattan. Hart House, Toronto
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▶ Why is Occupy happening now?
Judy Rebick visits Centre of Gravity to talk about the meaning of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Toronto. What is a movement? Why is this happening now? Recorded October 25, 2011.
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 2
Michael introduces the first section of the Lotus Sutra where the Buddha casts a light from the centre of his eyebrows and wakes up 18,000 worlds. Is this a reminder that the light of the awakening go
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 1
Michael teaches the basics of Mahayana Buddhism, defines what a Bodhisattva is, and explains the context of the Lotus Sutra. This talk has a good description of the history of Mahayana Buddhism as it
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 3
Upaya: Skill and Wisdom. It's not enough that our intentions are clear. Our actions need to make a difference. Being a Bodhisattva means serving all being and one's self and yet this can only occur wh
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 6: The Parable of the Prodigal Son
A son leaves his father and 50 years later the father finds ways of healing the son's low self-esteem. You don't have to be good or walk on your knees for a hundred miles, just love what you love. Cen
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▶ Not Being Possessive and the Gift of Fearlessness
Michael Stone gives a talk during the Precepts course about using our imagination. Centre of Gravity, Toronto. 1hr. Recorded March 17, 2011.
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▶ Basics of Buddhism, Part 1
Meditation is not a belief system. It's about being intimate with our lives. Michael begins his series on the basics of the Buddha's teachings. January 13, 2012.
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▶ The Stages of Meditation Practice
Michael begins talking about the snow and the possibility of human beings thinking and birds not being able to, and then ends up speaking about the map of what to look for in meditation practice over
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▶ The Stages of Meditation Practice, Part 2
Michael talks about how the person who is sick has the resources to take care of the parts of us that are not sick. This paradox is the entry point of maturing meditation practice and life. Recorded D
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▶ The Way Seeking Heart
Michael offers an introduction to the the five day silent New Year's Retreat. Recorded Dec. 28, 2010.
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▶ Learning from the Insentient
Drawing on Instructions to the Cook, Michael offers a talk on the teachings of the insentient. The snow and silence are teaching us. Can you give attention to the way the insentient teaches us? Record
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▶ Eight Stages of Practice, Part 1
Drawing on N. Fischer's essay on monastic practice & it's maturation Michael talks about 8 stages that we all encounter during any relationship. Also, how we get wounded & repeat our relational wounds
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▶ Eight Stages of Practice, Part 2
Drawing on N. Fischer's essay Michael explores how the honeymoon period of practice comes to an end and the ten obstacles that show up which we tend to miss in deep practice. Psychologically, there ar
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▶ Eight Stages of Practice, Part 3
Commitment and Flight. Michael goes through detailed instructions on sitting meditation posture and talks about lineage. Then he discusses our urges to run away when commitment arises and how commitme
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▶ Not Stealing (Asteya)
Michael teaches the Precepts Course and discusses not-stealing, right after his computer is stolen at the NYC airport. Not taking what is not given freely and being satisfied with what we have. Feb 03
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▶ Eight Stages of Practice, Part 4
The Dry Place. Michael begins talking about the reasons for bowing. Then he dives into what it's like to be caught in the dry place during relationship with practice and with others. Fear and it's tra
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▶ Brahmacharya ~ Wise Use of Sexual Energy, Part 1
Michael teaches the Precepts course on Using Sexual Energy Wisely.(Because there is group sharing part of this talk is cut off) 30 min, Feb 17, 2011
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▶ Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind
Book Launch at the Shambhala Centre on Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Yoga and Buddhism. Recorded Sept. 9, 2009.
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▶ How Do You Use All Your Hands & Eyes?
Part two of Michael describing how to enter the path of practice and become a committed student at Centre of Gravity. Recorded Sept. 15, 2010.
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▶ I'm on Fire: The Fire Sermon
Priya Thomas covers Bruce Springsteen's 'I'm on Fire'. Michael gives a talk on the way we burn with lust, hatred & delusion & how the Buddha offers a path of practice. Recorded Sept. 22, 2010.
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▶ When Thorns Grow in Our Practice
A talk and group exercise for working with thorns when they begin to grow on the branches of our practice and in our lives. Recorded Nov. 2, 2010.
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▶ I've Stopped: Can You?
Michael tells the story of Angulimala, a murderer who met the Buddha and changed his ways though was still stoned to death. This teaching illustrates how we are never free of karma and that our conduc
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▶ Asking the Master
Michael introduces Case 12 of the Mumonkon, The Master. He ties waking up with social action and the teachings of the Burmese Monks who visited the evening prior. A funny and lively talk with practice
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▶ Who Am I If Not This Mask?
Michael continues his month-long discussion about masks and how they shouldn't stick to your face. He gives the sangha some homework. Recorded Oct 11, 2010.
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▶ Your Inner Child Never Grows Up!
A talk by Michael on how even the best meditators have old wounds that need attention and how we need support for working with old patterns of our psychology that spiritual practices may not reach. Re
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▶ Spiritual Practice that Supports Community
A burning police car at the G20 and the power of shared attention. Letting go of fixed views opens us up to community. When we are attentive to suffering we are more tender and then the self is connec
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▶ Make this Country Safe for Poetry!
Annual Poetry Evening. Erin Robinsong, Sarah Selecky, Michael Stone read from their favourite poems. A wonderful evening of words to support practice. Recorded Nov. 30, 2010.
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▶ We Practice Because We Forget
A discussion and talk Michael gave at the Yoga Festival Toronto with local teachers and studio owners. Recorded August 21, 2010.
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▶ In Praise of Copying by Marcus Boon
Contemporary debates about intellectual property and the practices of meditation and yoga are both built around a questioning of ideas of property, ownership, self and other. In this talk, Marcus Boon
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 4 (Q & A)
Question and answer period with Michael after Lotus Sutra, Part 4 talk. None of the teachings are true! Even the ones about your own life.
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 4
Michael talks about Fukushima, Japan, Libya and how lucky we are to practice in a place that is safe. How Mahayana Buddhism developed after the death of the Buddha with an emphasis on serving others a
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 5: Upaya & The Parable of the Burning House
Michael begins by discussing death and Japan's earthquake. Using the image of the burning house and a father trying to save his children, he teaches how we need to leave our burning houses on our own
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▶ The Three Levels of Ethics : Literal, Compassionate, Koan
One of the last days of the 6 month Precepts course where we chant Heart Sutra followed by five students describing ethical values and a talk on Michael about 3 ways of thinking about ethics. And how
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 7: Time in the Lotus Sutra
How many kelps, ages, aeons, did the Buddha sit still before he could wake up? Why did it take so long? It takes a while for the light to shine into the darkest places. What is our relationship to tim
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▶ Guided Meditation ~20 Minutes
Michael Stone leads a guided meditation beginning with grounding the body, opening to sound, and feeling the breath as an anchor to present experience. May 2, 2011, 21 mins
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▶ Lotus Sutra 9: What Ideas Do We Have Lying Around?
Michael talks about Milton Friedman, Emmanuel Levinas, and how when we don't see another's face, face to face, it's easy to kill. This talk happens after Osama Bin Laden's death and the Canadian elect
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 11: A Jewel in Your Coat
A man falls asleep at a party and someone sews a jewel in his coat. Some have done this for you too. Can you realize your treasures? May 17, 2011. 45 mins.
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▶ Introduction to Meditation: Sometimes Awake, Sometimes Asleep...
Sometimes Awake, Sometimes Asleep. Sometimes Sun, Sometimes Moon. Michael teaches during a one-day introduction to meditation workshop. How you can turn anything into a practice, even a bike lock. May
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▶ Lotus Sutra 13 : We Need Bodhisattvas
People who can rub our back and say it's ok and everything they do is jewelled. May 24, 2011. 45 min.
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▶ Burning House, Burning Marshmallows by Grant Hutchinson
Grant Hutchinson on Dogen's Mountains and Waters Sutra: the great mystery of our lives is spoken through language, the burning house, practice unpacks your knapsack, the monks are burning in Tibet, Ja
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▶ Lotus Sutra 15: There is No Such Thing as an Atom
Everyone continually breaks down infinitely. How fast can a young woman get enlightened, especially if she is underwater? Michael unpacks some parables to explore the story of an 8 yr old girl who wak
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 17
Grant Hutchinson and Carina Lof give a talk on Chapter 15 and 16 of the Lotus Sutra based on study group. Seeing what is actually in our lives not just what we want to see. If your kids won't take med
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▶ Lotus Sutra 16: The Empty Room
One day I can have such a killer exhale that I end as a puddle of bones on the floor and time passes instantly. A moving evening when Mike Holboom and Christine Koch give talks on Chapter 16 of the Lo
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▶ Lotus Sutra 14: Life is Like a Funeral
Five kinds of Fear. Michael talks about fear, community and how it grows, a poem by Leonard Cohen, generosity, and then he reads his own poem about his mother. May 31, 2011.
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 19 (2)
Discussion about contemplating someone in your life who you have a hard time seeing as a Buddha. Buddha Nature is your imagination and the way you can re-see people who have wounded you. June 28, 2011
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 19 (1)
There is nowhere you can stand that is not a place the Buddha hasn't practiced. The Buddha was enlightened right where you are standing. If you can see others as a Buddha you are a Buddha - even anima
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▶ Lotus Sutra, Part 20: Forgiveness as the Heart of Practice
The Deepest Practice a Bodhisattva can ever do is to listen deeply. The deepest thing we can ever experience is having a change of heart. Last evening at Bellwoods location. Recorded July 12, 2011
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: The Other Shore will Come To You
Centre of Gravity re-opens after summer break with a talk on the Yoga Sutra and Michael talks on meditation and also how to practice without making the other shore separate from us. Recorded Sept 12,
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▶ Sandokai, Part 1: Practice is Transmitted Through Intimate Relations
Michael talks in detail on the Chinese poem Sandokai during a 5-day Intensive at Centre of Gravity. Can you remain human? Can you see the way one-ness and difference support one another? Can you go be
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: Making the Unwanted Wanted
What is meditation? How do you settle your attention on a moving field? Michael talks on the second line of the 3rd chapter of the Yoga Sutra and how most of the world is operating in the realm of non
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▶ Sandokai, Part 2: Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness
The most esoteric practice is being a human. Michael talks on the relation between the absolute and relative, religious life and the everyday mess we're in. What does it mean to have Buddha mind? Do y
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▶ Sandokai, Part 3: Remember One-ness in Everything You Do
Michael gives a talk on the Sandokai during the 2011 autumn intensive. Michael talks about taking the meditation group to the courts to sit in court and bear witness, remembering one-ness in everythin
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: The Flow of Attention, Waking from the Dream
The mind in concentration is like a flame in a windless space. Michael describes what happens in the mind when concentration is so focused that hindrances and distraction don't arise. Michael parallel
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: Samskara and Neuroplasticity
Drawing on research with people who have healed from stroke, Michael Stone compares the Sanskrit term samskara with modern neuroscience and ties this into the genetic level of meditation practice. Med
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▶ Nov 1, 2011
Michael Stone begins talking about the death of his mentor, maverick Psychologist, James Hillman. When death comes the only thing that's important is your heart, not your accomplishments. So what real
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: A Moment in Time
What's happening is really just a moment in time. Can you see each thing in your life, even people around you or your car, as a moment in time? The mind is like a tourist constantly taking photos. Med
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: Superpowers
Meditation opens us up to levels of experience that are non-human. Michael Stone goes through Patanjali's description of superpowers and how they happen in meditation practice. Then he talks about cal
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: Compassion is a Superpower
It's cool to be kind - it's the new black dress. Lovingkindness is a ratio. If it's about you is about clinging. If it's only about the other you lose yourself. The best kind of love is actually condi
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: The Silence Museum
Michael comes home from practice in Thailand and talks about travels, not buying things in plastic, and details about meditation techniques. Some very good meditation instructions in this talk. Dec 20
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▶ Guided Meditation
Guided Meditation with a focus on the subtle body, breath, palette, tongue and skull. During first night of year-end silent retreat. Midland, Ontario. Dec 28, 2011. 45 mins.
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▶ Forgiveness
A tender and personal talk Michael gives during silent retreat about his father, forgiveness, and how we need to practice forgiveness all the time. He talks about how, and why. He talks about the pain
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▶ Love: Sometimes We Can Really Show Up
If you are scared to die you can't forgive. An hour before New Year's Michael gives a quiet talk on the Heart Sutra and Forgiveness. When I hold someone's hand as they are dying I chant the Heart Sutr
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▶ Yoga Sutra, Chapter 3: Devotion to Present Experience (Final Talk)
Treat each movement of the mind as something we devote ourselves to, like the beloved, and then forgiveness happens naturally. Meditation is about going to the places deeper than ourselves, the place
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▶ Pranayama, Part 1
Michael Stone & Grant Hutchinson teach the ways yogic breathing reset the nervous system. Topics include: Ujayii pranayama in detail, the palette, the spine and viola pranayama. How can the breath hea
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▶ Betrayal, Awakening, and Living in a Burning House
Roshi Enkyo O'Hara visits Toronto and talks on the Lotus Sutra. Are you willing to take the risk of going through that narrow door? Is your house on fire? Meditation is nothing. It's just a means to g
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▶ Basics of Buddhism, Part 2
Michael Stone gives commentary on Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths in a series on the basic teachings of the Buddha. Craving, Suffering, Enlightenment, and the 8-fold path. Craving closes down the p
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 1
Who Was Dogen? What were his main teachings? Michael Stone introduces the teachings of 13th century Japanese Zen master Dogen and his essay, Mountains and Rivers. Dogen loses both his parents and want
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 2
Michael Stone describes the way mountains and rivers influenced Dogen and the way they can teach us about our lives. Mountains and water teach us about time, flow, and solidity. Everything is nothing
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 3
Mountains are actually walking. If you can understand that mountains walk, you can understand impermanence. Nothing is as solid as you think. What, in your life, do you think is solid? Your body is li
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 4
How do we use words to say something meaningful about our lives? This is what Dogen tries to do.There is no outside or inside. There is just this. Being, is the ongoingness of this. This is all our li
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 5: A Love Letter to Meditators
Can we express with language what is most true for us? Maybe all philosophy is heading towards poetry. Michael Stone tells a story about finding the nectar of compassion in the centre of practice. Rec
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▶ Mountains & Rivers, Part 6
Water has its own integrity, like you. Every event is interconnected and empty, and yet, everything has its own integrity. You can't say exactly what a river is, and yet, it's not the same as every ri
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▶ Mountains & Rivers 7
Don't ignore what your life actually is. Practice tattoos us. Life stains us. Your life carves your face all the time. Michael reads section 17 - every action you do carves your life. So, how do you c
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▶ How to Sit is How to Act (Beginner’s Mind 5)
Just die. Working with concern. Axial age. During sitting practice, someone else opens the door. People who practice Zen seriously are always asking: what is this all about? Whatever you do, Buddha is
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▶ Throw Up and Bow (Beginner's Mind 6)
How do we bow? Everything becomes your teacher. Throwing up dualistic ideas. Teachers are heavy, students are feathers. The pain of panic wakes you up to what hasn't grown up. Sincerity. The sense of
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▶ I'm Dying, What Can I Do For You? (Notes on Dying 2)
The mind makes snapshots and creates categories, our patterns contain the world keeping us small and separate, mindfulness is the new Tylenol, dying as generosity, perhaps practice means simply catchi
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▶ Seeing the Background (Heart Sutra 1)
Beginner's mind threatens the part of us that wants to control experience. Knowing before knowing. Hakuin: wisdom is not separate from you. It's like beads rolling on a tray: sudden, ready, uninhibite
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▶ Peter Levitt Going All The Way
Peter Levitt, Zen teacher and award-winning poet and translator, discusses the Zen spirit of practice. Not letting anything push you off your path, of engaging whatever you encounter with the spirit o
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▶ Why Other People Suck (Heart Sutra 2)
Emptiness is not place or process. Mistaking emptiness is like catching a snake from the wrong end. Moving out of stories in order to feel. Five skandhas. How perception works. Two kinds of teachers.
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▶ Vacuum Cleaner (Heart Sutra 3)
What's underneath language in sitting practice is self-acceptance. Avalokiteshvara, the paragon of compassion and Shariputra, are both in you. Pain compass. Form and emptiness. Waves are the practice
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▶ Peter Levitt Interviewed by Sheryl MacKay
Sheryl MacKay from CBC Radio's North by Northwest interviews Peter Levitt about Eihei Dogen. Originally recorded September 4, 2011 and published on CBC here.
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▶ Give Yourself a Break (Heart Sutra 4)
Self liberation. Thoughts without a thinker. The Buddha talks about the All. What is taste? Spiritual air miles. Bukowski has a bluebird in his heart. Three kinds of burnout. A talk by Michael Stone a
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▶ Feel the Fear (Heart Sutra 5)
We’re all practicing in nirvana right now. Waves of the mind. Like beads rolling on a tray: sudden, ready, uninhibited. “What a shame, when you draw a snake, to add a leg.” Buddha lists 5 fears. Some
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▶ Radical Open-ness
A riveting talk on Animals and non-violence. Dr. Lauren Corman teaches classes in the area of Critical Animal Studies, which engages an intersectional approach to the question of the animal. As such,
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▶ Yippie! Sit Buddha! (Heart Sutra 6)
Our practice helps others practice. Emptiness is just everything, just as it is right now. Dukkha is restlessness - we want more or we don't want. All reading is translation. The Heart Sutra as magic
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▶ Carl Jung & Meditation Practice, Part 1 of 4
Michael Stone talks about Jung and Freud's split, dreams, work, the unconscious as a process of compensation, madness and meditation, and what it's like going into cellars. Recorded September 4, 2012.
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▶ Carl Jung & Meditation, Part 2 of 4
Michael Stone explores what it's like to feel like 2 people; how Jung felt alone as a kid; the place of religious images in life as a child; how do we relate to the vastness of the unconscious and mem
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▶ Carl Jung & Meditation Practice, Part 4 of 4
Michael Stone talks about feeling the breath; the limits of Jung's ideas of images; how to go beyond internal dialogue and how Jung falls apart for 2 years and how he deals with it. Recorded on Septem
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▶ Carl Jung & Meditation Practice, Part 3 of 4
Michael Stone explores happiness; how the Buddha saw a self as creative and not destined by fate or individuation. Become who you are. As we drop into practice, happiness is a bi-product, not a goal.
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▶ The Middle Path & The Basics of Buddhism
Michael's talk on the core teachings of the Buddha and how they relate to being a self, letting go, repeating the past, investing too much in the future, and being stuck. Centre of Gravity. (end of ta
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▶ Bring Me the Rhino, Bring Me What's Broken
Can you bring your broken self into your life? Michael shares the personal and nervous story of asking his partner to marry him in France. Recorded Oct 23, 2012.
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▶ Ashtanga Yoga Invocation: Steps and Counter-Steps
Listen to the sangha chant the Ashtanga invocation in detail. Michael explains how to look at the nature of thoughts and see how they change but also the way they have no power except for what we inve
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▶ Strain in the Heart : When You Die You're Going to Meet All Kind of T
Do you have a mind that can meet what's unpleasant? Michael talks about meditation, Carl Jung, and what it means to be bored and not special. Someone becomes a dharma student when they can see that th
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▶ Lights Unto Ourselves: Buddhist Practice and Anti-Authoritarian Aspir
Joshua Stephens explores how we create suffering, waging war with good and evil, and how it is reflected back to us by political and economic institutions on a daily basis. In this unprecedented momen
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▶ Lights Unto Ourselves, Part 2: Buddhist Practice and Antiauthoritaria
Q and A with Joshua Stephens: a great discussion about Occupy Wall Street, Anarchist movements, and Buddhism. Recorded Nov 6, 2012.
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▶ Threads of Yoga, by Matthew Remski
A talk by Matthew Remski. Recorded Dec 11, 2012.
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▶ Show Me Something That Isn't Medicine.
Guns are horrifying, a temple in an urban world, seeing everything we encounter as medicine. Michael Stone gives the last talk at Centre of Gravity before moving to a new location. Medicine and diseas
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▶ Learn How to Stop Breaking Things
Michael gives a talk on New Year's Silent retreat on Dogen and how to practice meditation without memory and imagination. Learn to step back and turn your light inwards. Living in your small grass hut
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▶ The Whole World is Upside Down.
We get a gleaming new husband or wife and then they don't turn out how we think they will! What we think is stable and reliable turns out to be unreliable. Michael talks about Birds' Nest Roshi who g
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▶ You Are A Long Distance Train
Michael's powerful final talk of 2012, during silent retreat. There is a true person who is constantly coming and going from the portals of your face. Who is that true person? Recorded Decemeber 31, 2
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▶ Conscientiousness and the practice of attentiveness.
A dharma pep-talk by Michael Stone. Has the powerful but ineffable energies of strong emotions, attachment and aversion reduced us to slavery? A gruff old man takes up yoga and experiences momentary f
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▶ Powerful Emotions and S.A.I.N.
Michael talks about the birth of his son Olin Winter a few days ago and then gives a series of simple and practical practices for working with strong emotions. Based on Chpt. 4 of Shantideva, A Guide
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▶ How to Work with Strong Moods.
Michael discusses Chapter 5 of the Shantideva and the way negative emotional mood swings cannot hold together for very long without thoughts. How we have to inject stories into our moods to keep them
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▶ You Crushing Elephant Mind
What should we do with our anger? Venting anger is one of the worst ways to cool down. Outbursts of rage typically pump up the emotional brain's arousal, leaving people feeling more angry, not less an
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▶ Intensifying Relationships and the Politics of Love
Michael talks about the difference between mindfulness and being self-conscious, Shantideva's practices for exchanging your self with others, and suggestions for long-term practice. Recorded March 12,
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▶ The Ivory Tower of Love
It's harder to practice conditional love than unconditional love. Try loving one person for a very long time. Michael gives a talk on Shantideva. When we're kids our parents can meet our needs but lat
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▶ Buddhism before Religion.
Michael talks on the key teachings of the Buddha separated from the institutionalization of religion. He discusses the subjects of teacher-student relationship, trusting yourself, and the middle path.
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▶ Patience is a Practice of Attunement.
Long-term practice requires patience more than discipline. Practice frustrates our results oriented mind. You need patience to stay with life for the long haul. The paradoxes of karma. Recorded April
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▶ What Can We Know?
Michael reads some core teachings of the Buddha that describe the limits of what we can know. How can we practice deeper than creating new beliefs? Recorded in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. April 8, 2013.
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▶ Relax Your Mind
Michael Stone talks on the importance of relaxing your mind and how patience and relaxation give rise to enthusiasm. Talk is based on chapter 8 of Shantideva's Guide to a Bodhisattva's Way of Life. De
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▶ Emptiness, The Self, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Nar
Michael Stone gives a talk on the ways Mindfulness meditation can help with the spectrum of mental illness and also some signs to watch out for as practice deepens. Recorded at Centre of Gravity in To
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▶ I Always Wanted You: A talk by Poet & Zen Teacher Peter Levitt
A talk about Zen and Intimacy with Poet and Zen teacher Peter Levitt. Peter visits Centre of Gravity in Toronto to talk about Dogen, Allen Ginsberg, and how we need to return to ourselves. Recorded A
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▶ Buddha's Last Word
Michael offers a moving account of the Buddha's death, and how after the death of the Buddha there was tremendous pressure to institutionalize his teachings. He also describes some Zen koans that poin
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▶ Oyster Swallows the Moon
Michael Stone gives a talk based on the koan Oyster Swallows the Moon exploring how we need to respect our hard shell, learn how to open, and practice simplicity. He also talks about consumerism and i
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▶ The Glare Behind You
Michael works with a koan called This Buddha, That Buddha, in which he talks about how to stop. Our culture needs to stop. Michael compares calming practices and insight practices. Recorded on Sept 17
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 2
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 3
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 1
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 2 part 2
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 4
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Renunciation & Relationship, Talk 5
During a six day retreat in Copenhagen, Michael talks on love, betrayal, commitment, the dry stage, and letting go. These talks are based on Norman Fischer's essay on the eight stages of relationship.
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▶ Lack, Impermanence and Not Self
During a workshop in France, Michael teaches on the 3 characteristics — a teaching found in both the Yoga and Buddhist traditions. This talk is in both French and English. Antibes, France. Recorded Oc
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▶ Mindfulness, Memory, and Fantasy
Looking at early Pali texts, Michael tries to recover the original and fuller meaning of mindfulness from its current usage in the west. Mindfulness establishes the presence of the object and thereby
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▶ Adverse Effect in Meditation Practice
Neuroscientist Willoughby Britton, PhD. and Michael Stone, present a detailed workshop on dangers on the path. In this talk Dr. Britton explores loss of identity, gender difference in meditative effec
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▶ The Jew in the Lotus
Michael Stone and Rabbi Miriam Margles discuss the intersection of Jewish practice and Buddhism. Rabbi Margles explores internalized anti-semitism and Michael talks about his attempts to bring practic
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▶ Gentle with Each Other, Dangerous Together, with Joshua Stephens
Often when we see Buddhist practice put into conversation with radical social transformation, commitments like forgiveness, patience, and non-attachment appear in one of two ways: as pillars of self-c
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▶ Radical Politics, Buddhism, Forgiveness
A Q & A discussion with Joshua Stephens. Centre of Gravity, Toronto. November 12, 2013. 40min.
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▶ Gratitude in Jewish and Buddhist Practice
Michael Stone and Rabbi Miriam Margles co-teach a popular retreat integrating Jewish & Buddhist practice. Michael gives an afternoon talk reflecting on God, gratitude, mind, compassionate action, and
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▶ How We Practice in Family
Michael Stone and Matthew Remski read personal letters they wrote to each other as expectant fathers. The letters explore their process as fathers, as parents, and as two people integrating spiritual
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▶ Loneliness and Impermanence
Michael Stone explores the bleakness of loneliness, the puzzle of modern isolation, and how to work with being alone and feeling lonely. Centre of Gravity, Toronto. Novemeber 26, 2013. 50 min.
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▶ Ashtanga Yoga Put To Work In The World
Michael Stone talks at Yoga Shala Calgary on the importance of paying attention, youth, and how deep yoga is a political practice. Calgary. December 1, 2013. 1 hour.
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▶ When You Have No One, No One Can Hurt You
Michael talks on loneliness, paying attention, and the importance of small ideas that can network and build a new culture. Centre of Gravity, Toronto. December 3, 2013 1 hour.
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▶ Being Independent in our Practice
Michael Stone talks on silent retreat about how meditation works over the long-haul, how to practice with a teacher that encourages independence, and how to live without gain. This is the second last
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▶ Speaking Up, Resilience, Non-Grasping
Michael Stone talks during silent retreat on the depth of meditation, an old koan about bowing, Zen master Dogen, and Edward Snowden. This powerful talk wraps up 2013. Sugar Ridge, Midland. December 3
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▶ Why Can't the Tail Get Through?
Even when we advance in spiritual practice, something is always missing. Maybe nirvana is about having troubles without falling into defence or burnout? Michael also gives a strong critique of the eco
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▶ Driving Our Questions Deeper
Michael explores two questions: 1.) Who Are You? and 2.) What Should You Do? Using th old Zen koan What's the price of rice?'Michael talks about wrestling with questions, compassion, empathy, and how
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▶ Gotta Make A Living, Part 1
Michael offers teachings from the Buddhist tradition on how to make a living, and how to make ethical decisions around money in a financial world that revolves around extraction and exploitation. Reco
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▶ Gotta Make A Living, Part 2
Michael talks about how our work should be energetic, industrious, diligent and skilful. We should live within our means and keep good company. When you really, really want something you might ask: Ho
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▶ Life is Hard: Love and Compassion are Necessities for Basic Sustainab
Norman Fischer gives a lecture to a packed house in Toronto on the importance of love, care, and ordinary suffering. Recorded March 14, 2014.
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▶ The Discipline of Relationship
Norman Fischer talks on not speaking destructively, not criticizing the faults of others, and working with conflict. Recorded March 16, 2014.
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▶ You Can't Get Anywhere With Meditation!
Norman Fischer facilitates discussion about meditation, prayer, loss, compassion to one self, and the liberation of sitting still even when it seems useless. Centre of Gravity at Hart House, Toronto.
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▶ Noting in the Empire of Selfies
A wide ranging talk on using language in meditation practice, labelling thoughts, and the way kids and adults use language to mediate their internal states. By Michael Stone. Recorded April 8, 2014. [
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▶ Bring Me Something That Isn't Medicine
Michael Stone opens a silent retreat talking about seeing everything as medicine and how meditation teachs us how to practice intimacy, even with old wounds. True North Insight, Ontario. Recorded Apri
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▶ Form & Emptiness: The Role of the Body in Meditation Practice
Michael Stone uses the teachings on emptiness to work with the body. He calls sitting physical practice and he describes yoga as psychological practice. True North Insight, Ontario. Recorded April 18,
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▶ Guided Meditation (40min)
Guided meditation by Michael Stone with focus on the tongue, palette, position of the fingers, and subtle physical tricks to open the mind in Vipassana practice. Recorded on silent retreat. True North
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▶ Thinking Is Optional
How to work with your thoughts through labeling practice. Meditation Facilitation Program, London, 40 min. michaelstoneteaching.com
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▶ The Unnecessary Suffering We Cause Ourselves
Using mindfulness of thinking to hold mental states more lightly. Meditation Facilitation Program, London, 50 min. michaelstoneteaching.com
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▶ Letting Go of Expectations & Having the Last Word
Michael begins teaching concentration technique by aligning attention and the body. Recognizing expectations we have for ourselves and others and how grasping creates suffering. Not allowing others to
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▶ Blending Traditions: Yoga & Buddhism
A community talk at Tassajara Monastery with Michael Stone & Zen teacher Paul Haller. They each share some of their biography and field questions about practice. Paul shares from his 40 years of Zen p
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▶ The Deep Request: 30 min. Guided Meditation with Paul Haller
Followed by a talk on how meditation unfolds, and how to use the space of meditation to investigate experience. Recorded on retreat co-taught with Michael Stone, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, Cali
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▶ 30 min. Guided Meditation with Paul Haller
Zen teacher Paul Haller guides a gentle and clear meditation on noticing what it is to attend to experience. Recorded on retreat co-taught with Michael Stone, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, Califor
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▶ No Attributes: How Do You Know If Someone Is Awake? (Diamond Sutra 6
Because the Self is absent when we are awake, we cannot know if we are awake because we are one with our activity. So how do we know when someone is awake? Isn't it all projection? Spirit Loft, Toront
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▶ Letting Go of Control (Diamond Sutra 5 of 6)
There are hungers we just can't satisfy. So how can we open to desire without grasping? There’s no satisfaction at the end of the money or fame path. Meditation is controlling your posture and mind in
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▶ Labeling Thoughts & Acknowledging What's Present (Diamond Sutra 4 of
Michael talks about wedding Vows in community, labeling our thoughts so we can honour them, and how generosity is about the way we give our attention. The most profound gift we can give others is our
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▶ Attuning to Ourselves & Others (Diamond Sutra 3 of 6)
The benefit of our practice must be wider than the benefit to our body. How wide do you draw the circle of self? Self-soothing. Michael talks about “a secure base” and how to manage reactivity that’s
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▶ How Does a Buddha Stand, Walk & Control Thoughts? (Diamond Sutra 2 of
What does being alive feel like? Michael tells the story of Subhuti and the questions he asks the Buddha about how to practice. Haven’t we been blessed with greatest of trusts? Aren’t we all blessed?
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▶ The Diamond of Practice (Diamond Sutra 1 of 6)
Michael speaks on 3 aspects of the ourselves we can let go of through practice: Possessiveness (This is mine); Conceit (This me); and Beliefs about what the self is (This is what I am). He connects th
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▶ Can You Return to the Breath?
As the breath becomes smooth and slow, the mind settles and we become less interested in wanting “an experience.” Be kind to yourself, cultivate an un-agitated heart, and live a life that connects. Lo
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▶ Anxiety & Meditation
Michael explains how we can cultivate a field in which anxiety can arise and change, surrounded by spaciousness. We have forces of good inside us, we aren't fated to live out our history, and we are l
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▶ The World Is Its Own Magic
Michael talks about the magic mantra that ends the Heart Sutra. Transforming fear, cultivating compassion, not-knowing, how mantras work. London, 1 hour.
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▶ Labeling & Noting Thoughts
How to meditate when your are thinking a lot. Michael also explores language and emotions in children and how this gets internalized in adults. A very clear talk on mindfulness practices for transform
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▶ The Ego, The Self, and the Existential Dimensions of Settling the Min
Drawing on Freud, Jung, and the Buddha, and various ways of understanding what the ego is, how it develops, and why working with settling thoughts becomes a spiritual practice over time. Vancouver, 30
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▶ Not Identifying With Your Moods
How to become interested in how the mind functions rather than being caught in the content of our stories. Meditation is a physical practice and we use breathing to settle the mind and heart. 40 min.
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▶ 25 min. Guided Meditation
Shift away from the content of the mind to the process of thinking. Mindfulness of thinking while sitting like a mountain. Vancouver, 25 min.
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▶ Guided Corpse Pose for Safety
If you feel unsafe or unstable, this is a gentle 10 minute guided meditation in corpse pose, for taking care of yourself. Vancouver, 20 min.
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▶ Safety, Flight, Flight, and Freeze: Trauma & the Brain
Molly Boeder-Harris co-teaching w/Michael on trauma sensitivity for meditation facilitation. Vancouver, 53 min.
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▶ Your Body is Trying to Support You: Self Soothing & Trauma Awareness
Molly Boeder-Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity during the Meditation Facilitation Training. Recorded in Vancouver, 59 min.
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▶ The Environment in Trauma Awareness
Molly Boeder-Harris co-teaching w/Michael on trauma sensitivity for meditation facilitation. Vancouver, 25 min.
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▶ Trauma Sensitivity in Meditation, Mindfulness & Yoga
Molly Boeder-Harris co-teaching w/Michael on trauma sensitivity for meditation facilitation. Vancouver, 46 min.
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▶ Home Base: Guided Meditation (20 min.) on Mindfulness of Thinking
Vancouver, 20 min.
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▶ Mindfulness of Mental States
In Meditation Facilitation Program Michael explores how: mind states are not inherently fixed; you can hold mind states lightly; moods are phenomena, not who you are, and; you can sculpt your attitude
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▶ 15 Minute Guided Meditation on Breathing
Let the exhale relax your body; Let the inhale still you. Vancouver, 15 min.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #7): Practice the Basics
A bodhisattva is someone who doesn’t get used to violence. How to train our hearts to be awake so our hearts don't build plaque. Comox, B.C. 1 hour.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #6): Trusting Yourself, Getting
1.) What was your first experience of solitude, and 2.) What were your first experiences of being with others? The best thing we can leave our kids is to show how we loved. Madison, WI.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #5): Do Good, Avoid Evil, Know
Michael talks about how to protect yourself, how to cultivate a caring heart, and ways of praying without necessarily needing God. Madison, WI.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #4): Compassion in a Tough Worl
Michael starts out linking Aylan Kurdi’s body washing up on shore in Greece, with unemployment, austerity, and our interconnection. How do we wake up in the middle of confusion? He then talks about em
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▶ Mindfulness of Feeling Tone
Michael teaches the 2nd foundation of mindfulness and how all of our experiences comes down to pleasant and unpleasant tone in the body and how important it is that we know how to feel the unpleasant.
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▶ Mindfulness of the Breath & Taking the Backwards Step
Learning how to be present with an un-agitated heart. Meditation teaches us to be wiser with what’s difficult. Embodying our meditative practice by learning how to stop and see clearly. Meditation Fac
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▶ Guided 20min. Meditation on Receptive Breathing
Guided meditation with Michael Stone. Meditation Facilitation Training, Vancouver, 20 min.
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▶ Appreciation & Joy
Michael teaches a group of clinicians (with Brian Williams) on the Buddhist teaching of Mudita – Appreciative Joy. He speaks of the ways that joy is contagious and how we can train to notice it more o
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▶ Guided Meditation on Mudita (Appreciative Joy) with psychotherapist &
Co-taught with Michael. Enso Foundation, Kelowna, 15 min.
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #3): Transforming Blame, Culti
Michael unpacks Tibetan Buddhist teachings that use a series of slogans to transform our attitude into compassion. Enso Foundation, Kelowna, 45 min.
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▶ 15min. Guided Tonglen Meditation: Giving Love/Receiving Suffering
This is instruction for a meditation practice called tonglen. Tonglen is a Tibetan term that means giving and receiving. In this practice you send out happiness to others and you take in any suffering
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▶ Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #1)
Michael teaches Tibetan practices for training in empathy: Turning what’s arising into the path, see everything as a dream, don't get stuck on peace, rest in an open mind, and after meditation just be
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▶ Making Friends with Your Mind
Meditation, how the mind functions, and contra-indications for meditation are the subject of this talk. Michael explores karma and also the delay of gratification, borderline personality, and the diff
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▶ Digital Era Lecture Q & A
Discussion about technology in culture and its effect on us personally and socially. Semperviva, Vancouver, 50 min.
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▶ Stabilizing Our Cluttered Minds in a Digital Age
Michael explores the way “interruption technologies”, like phones and messaging etiquette, create hyper-arousal in the body and mind and de-stabilize emotions. He connects this research with practical
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▶ How to Meditate, Forgive, End Blame, and Stop Wounding Your Own Heart
Final talk of 2015 Michael gives a far-reaching overview of meditation techniques, which he then ties into the goal of practice: Being your own teacher. A great talk to end a silent retreat and the ye
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▶ Standing Motionless
Michael talks about the goal of practice as being yourself. He tells the Zen story of T’ing being slapped and explores trusting yourself, not telling black and white stories about those we love and ha
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▶ Heaven Realms, Hell Realms, and Protection
First day of retreat Michael talks about walking meditation, bowing, and practice tips for going deeper on retreat. The talk ends with a beautiful description of Samadhi and how concentration can prot
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▶ Jewish Prayer
Rabbi Miriam Margles leads beautiful morning prayers (in Hebrew & English) during the Jewish-Buddhist retreat exploring the intersection of practices & teachings from both traditions, co-taught with M
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▶ Opening to Fear
During a Jewish-Buddhist retreat Michael speaks about fear of failure, fear of disappointing others and being scared of missing out. He begins by talking about the death of writer Oliver Sacks. 50 min
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▶ Mindfulness of Breathing Part 9
Final talk about relaxing the breath to settle the mind. Noticing how when we go on line to rest we end up over-stimulating ourselves and lose track of what we feel and our emotions become unstable. P
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▶ Mindfulness of Breathing Part 8
Making space in our hearts for empathy, forgiveness and non-reactivity to emerge. How to practice with your breath when you feel crazy. Samadhi is the opposite of feeling fragmented. Port Moody, 30 mi
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▶ Mindfulness of Breathing Part 7
Did you cut my shoelaces? Q & A about different forms of meditation for different people. Michael tells some funny stories about his son and practicing mindfulness in family. He also talks about mindf
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▶ Mindfulness of Breathing Part 6
In Port Moody, B.C., Michael talks on finding the sane part of the breath, seeing how all thoughts pivot around a construct of me, and how to cultivate a non-reactive mind. Also, the way there are man
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▶ Mindful Breathing Part 5 (Anapanasati)
In Copenhagen, Michael goes into detail about emptiness, working with shame, connecting with the emotional body in order to transform traumatic scars, and how to connect with the depth of the breathin
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▶ Mindful Breathing Part 4 (Anapanasati)
In Copenhagen Michael maps out how meditation based on concentration can bring intense pleasure and joy (piti) and how for some students these levels of concentration (jhana) can reveal deeper levels
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▶ Stabilizing Ourselves in the Digital Age
A public lecture about the effect of phones, the internet, and digital media on our minds and relationships. Michael offers very practical tools for managing our minds in an era of information overloa
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▶ Mindful Breathing Part 3 (Anapanasati)
In Gotenborg, Michael maps out the first two levels of concentration (jhanas); the importance of not being too awake; and a very different approach to working with strong emotions like anger but leavi
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▶ Mindful Breathing Part 2 (Anapanasati)
In Gotenborg, Michael explains the first level of concentration that emerges when the mind settles (first jhana). Also: distinguishing concentration from mindfulness in the Buddhist and Yoga Sutra tra
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▶ Mindful Breathing Part 1 (Anapanasati)
In Gotenborg, Michael offers instruction on the Buddha’s teachings of mindfulness on the breath: learning how to let the breath be natural; what happens when joy arises and various energies appear in
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▶ Chanting for Ill and Dying Species
On the last night of silent retreat in Cubjac, France, the community chanted outdoors for all ill and dying species. Based on a traditional Buddhist chant for humans, we translated it for other living
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▶ Chanting Heart Sutra and Bodhisattva Vows
Early morning chanting on silent retreat led by Caitlin Strom. 5 min. Chapin Mill, Batavia, New York.
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▶ Species Chanting
Led by Jennifer Whitney and community, a recording of evening chanting for dying animals and vegetation. 5 min. Chapin Mill, Batavia, New York.
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▶ Enso
Rose Riccio gives her first dharma talk on retreat exploring the Ox-herding images and how there are 84,000 gates into practice, and you only have to
enter one. 30 min. Chapin Mill, Batavia, New York.
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen ko
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen ko
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen ko
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen
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▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen ko
...
▶ Intimacy, Transmission & Awakening: The 10 Ox Herding Pictures (Part
Michael gives a series of 6 profound talks during silent retreat on the Zen Ox-Herding images & poems. You can feel the depth of this retreat in these talks that range from Buddhist philosophy, Zen ko
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▶ 7 Factors of Awakening (Pt.2)
Focusing on equanimity as a deep roundedness, Michael explores how to be balanced and creative without becoming indifferent. Equanimity doesn’t wear out. How joy, delight and tranquility arise in medi
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▶ 7 Factors of Awakening (Pt.1)
Michael describes the basics of mindfulness practice as a practice of spaciousness, non-reactivity, and conduct in our lives. Practice isn’t so much about finding peace but discovering spaciousness. M
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▶ How Illness Deepens Us
Michael gives a talk in Wisconsin on the ways illness strengthens our heart. Dongshan was ready to die. He said goodbye to everyone. They wept and wept. Then he jumped out of the casket and gave them
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▶ Buddhas on Blades of Grass
One 2nd day of retreat Michael talks on another Dongashan where he asks his students if they can go to a place where there are no weeds. Michael’s commentary is that weeds are not the problem and that
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▶ Just This Is It
On retreat in Wisconsin Michael talks about a Zen story where a teacher describes his teaching as “Just This Is It.” Guilt, remorse, devotion, you can’t really see yourself, finding your true path. Ch
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▶ How We Rescue Each Other
Michael begins with talking about finding simplicity in meditation practice; stepping back from the details of thinking to notice the subjective experience of awareness; and then he launches into a
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▶ Master Ma is Unwell (Part 2)
Rage, nonviolence, and embracing what’s unbearable. Michael begins by talking about embracing the limits of our lives and then explores how to be with what is unbearable without turning it into dest
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▶ Master Ma is Unwell (Part 1)
A master is dying & a student asks him how he is feeling. Michael uses this Zen story to explore letting go of expectations and blame. He also talks about being too diffuse or too sharp in our reactiv
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▶ Hatha Yoga (2)
Michael explains how kundalini, moksha and other Hatha Yoga terms are metaphors for awakening. He then talks about intimacy, creativity and the false self. A very clear talk about common haha yoga ter
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▶ Hatha Yoga (1)
During a 5-day intensive Michael explores key terms from a 15th century text on yoga and talks about mental habits, yoga postures, and the ways that the habits of mind and body are actually the path.
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▶ Uncoupling the Senses: Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutra (in French translation)
Michael explores Patanjali’s teaching on pratyahara in both meditation and daily life. We don’t really understand why things happen in our life, and yet we hold so much in our bodies. He talks about s
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▶ Your Life Is Wide Open Field: Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra (in French trans
Michael translates Patanjali’s teachings on ethics, posture, steadiness, and not holding onto anything. He also speaks about greed, anger and non-duality. Antibes, France. 1 hour. (translation: Cecile
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▶ SIT UP HERITAGE CBC Regina Interview
Michael Stone is interviewed by CBC Regina about SIT UP HERITAGE - an outdoor urban day-long retreat in Regina's Heritage Community. Recorded May 2015.
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▶ Family Wakes Us Up Book Launch
Michael reads from his new book and then opens up in a very personal talk about fathering, his doubts about the nuclear family, co-parenting in a split-family, his relationship with writing about fam
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▶ Mind Your Life
Sofia Forman gives her first dharma talk on trust, death and her process of practice. Silent New Year’s Retreat, Chapin Mill, New York, 35 min.
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▶ Save A Ghost!
Michael speaks about modern Buddhism as a “culture of awakening,” and then talks on the Zen koan “Save a Ghost.” We are broken. That’s why meditation is an ambulance service for love. Mindfulness is a
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▶ Reverence
Michael Stone gives a talk at the New Year's Silent Retreat in New York on depression, mental health, the negativity bias in the brain, and how we can have reverence for every moment of our lives. H
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▶ Taking Love to the Street with Judy Rebick
Join renowned activist Judy Rebick and Buddhist teacher Michael Stone for an evening of discussion about the intersection of spiritual practice and social action. What inspires social action? How do w
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▶ Copenhagen 6: Still Working on Love
When someone is enlightened, what are they enlightened about? Michael uses the dhammapada to talk about caregiving, taking care of yourself, and then he offers a list that sums up a new way of thinkin
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▶ Copenhagen 5: See Your Life As Creative Practice
Michael explains how interdependence, in Buddhist psychology, begins at the level of perception. We can have many versions of ourself, we are a novel. Importance of the ego. If you numb negative emoti
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▶ Copenhagen 4: Being Dear to Oneself
Michael tells the story of King Pasenadi and other Buddhist teachings on caring for ones-self as a means to not hurting others, instructions for meditation on impermanence, aware of awareness, and not
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▶ Copenhagen 3 pt.2: Ethics in Our Lives
Students from Denmark, Germany and Sweden talk together about working with ethics in the realms of sexuality, marriage, family and work. Copenhagen 50 min.
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▶ Copenhagen 3: The Fire that Feeds Our Life
Michael comments on the Buddhist text The Dhammapada exploring projection on teachers, noticing rigidity, and understanding the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Copenhagen. 65 min.
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▶ Copenhagen 2: Letting Go of Hostility and Resentment
Michael uses the Dhammapada to explore letting go of hostility, it’s effect on kids and families, and his separation. Copenhagen 30 min.
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▶ Copenhagen 1: The Path of Your Heart
Each moment is a new beginning. Michael talks on speech, actions and opens up about his struggle with depression. He also speaks of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s overdose. Copenhagen. 1.2 hours.
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▶ The Four Tasks
1. Embrace Life, 2. Let go of Craving, 3. Stop & See, 4. Act. Drawing on the academic work of Richard Gombrich and Stephen Batchelor Michael gives a focused talk on the core concepts/memes of Buddhism
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▶ How Do You Know if Your Practice is Working?
Michael offers a practical list of psychological changes that happen when you practice: 1. self transience, 2. body becomes sacred, 3. resilience, 4. reliable self-esteem, 5. insight. 4th talk in a se
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▶ Questions and Response Session on Meditation Practice
Michael talks about working with the breath, mantras, language, yoga, feelings in the body, releasing the sense of “me,” and the importance of collaboration in political change. Hollyhock, Cortes Isla
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▶ Craving, Love & Reflections on Suicide
Drawing on the Buddha’s first teaching, Michael talks on craving to be someone, craving to fill something, craving to not-exist, and craving for stimulation. He ties this to greed and the ability to o
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▶ Summer Silent Retreat pt. 4
Michael explains Nirvana, the Deathless, Buddhist practice without religion, and a re-thinking of the core teachings of the Buddha. Michael draws on Stephen Batchelor’s idea of The Four Tasks that we
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▶ Summer Silent Retreat pt.3
When you’re feeling Stuck. Michael gives a talk on the “killing” energy of Mara, the power of being blocked and unfulfilled. He talks about how the Buddha worked with being attacked by the hell realms
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