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Dharma Talks
given at Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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2015-09-24
On effort
67:21
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Patrick Kearney
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Here we examine the nature of effort in meditation practice. We see how the traditional understanding of meditation as war is not necessarily an effective way of conveying right effort (sammā vāyāma) in the contemporary world. We find that our relationship to time is central to finding right effort, and how the work of meditation can become play. Finally, we see how the Buddha teaches different strategies fit different situations, and that right effort takes different forms in different contexts.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-22
The sweet essence - Part 2
62:34
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Patrick Kearney
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In the second part of Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, Mahā Kaccāna unpacks the process of delusion and drivenness to reveal the not-constructed (asaṅkhata), nibbāna itself. He does this by showing that what we take to be the solid ground (ṭhāna) upon which we build ourselves and our world turns out to be no thing at all. That beneath this web of concepts there lies a realm beyond concept, beyond language, yet so intimate that it is always available to us. It is available, now.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
:
Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-22
On dukkha & dukkha nana
1:25:19
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Patrick Kearney
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We explore how the ordinary experience of dukkha becomes dukkha ñāṇa, understanding of the universal characteristic (samañña lakkhaṇa) of dukkha. We look at the how the perception of impermanence (anicca-saññā) creates anxiety when the heart intuits the groundless of experience, and how the unfolding of this anxiety is mapped by the dukkha ñāṇas of classical Theravāda Buddhism. Finally, we see how the experience of dukkha gives way to that of not-self (anattā), when the heart stabilises through the maturity of mindfulness (sati) and equanimity (upekkhā).
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-17
Preparing the fire
66:12
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Patrick Kearney
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Tonight we follow the Buddha from Isipatana, just north of Bārāṇasī, to Uruvelā, on the near side to the Nerañjarā river. At Bārāṇasī he converts some of the commercial elite of the city, and when he has 60 arahant students sends them off on missionary journeys. The Buddha himself goes on a targeted mission to convert a community of dreadlocks-wearing (jaṭila) ascetics to his teaching. He does so by “shirt-fronting” Uruvelā-Kassapa, the senior leader of this community, with his shamanic powers, in order to prepare the way for his third teaching.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
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Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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2015-09-12
The four truths
1:16:26
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Patrick Kearney
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Having opened the hearts of his five companions with his teaching of the middle way, the Buddha now teaches the four truths of the noble ones (cattāro ariya-saccāni). These are: dukkha; its arising; its cessation; and the path leading to its cessation. This discourse centres on dukkha and craving (taṇhā), because the Buddha is concerned here with what coloured his own practice before his awakening – his sense of drivenness, of trying to get in the future something missing now.
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Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre
:
Month Long Retreat led by Patrick Kearney
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