Working With Psychological Obstacles by David Cohn

This is the third talk in the series "Where rubber meets the road", a series of talks by various speakers on the subject of mindful living.

This talk is by David Cohn who began practice at San Francisco Zen Centre in 1969 with Suzuki Roshi,
later becoming a disciple of Baker Roshi. A residential student at Tassajara, Green Gulch Farm, and City Centre until 1984, he was ordained as a priest in 1977.

The talk has a lot of background noise, especially at the beginning, including, briefly, a motor cycle which I am expertly informed by one of our sangha members is a Harley-Davidson!



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A Little Attention Makes All the Difference

This is the second talk in the series "Where rubber meets the road", a series of talks by various speakers on the subject of mindful living.

This one is by Misha Merrill who is a Zen teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Center. She received Dharma Transmission from his disciple, Les Kaye, in 1998 and has been the guiding teacher of Zen Heart Sangha on the Peninsula since 1993.





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Roles, Relationships, And Awakening by Shaila Catherine

This is the first in a series of talks by various speakers on the subject of mindful living entitled "Where rubber meets the road".

"This series of talks provides insight and practical advice as to how to take the wonderful and serene mind that we develop during our meditation practice into our daily lives, into our relationships with others. Sometimes, the deepest grooves in our minds are only stimulated in our relationships to others. Defilements and habits of the mind, such as greed, anger and delusion, arise in ways that they don't in other situations. Fortunately, these daily life encounters offer us opportunities to practice, to see ourselves more clearly, and to become more free. This is the liberating power of awareness and mindfulness."



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Pet The Lizard, Feed The Mouse, Hug The Monkey by Rick Hanson

This talk is by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., who is a neuropsychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author. His books include Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture.

He is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. He has several audio programs and his free Just One Thing newsletter has 100,000 subscribers.



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Buddhist Perspectives on Right View

This is a series of five talks on the subject of "Right View", the first aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path, by Shaila Catherine, founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a Buddhist meditation centre in Silicon Valley.

She is the author of "Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana."

1 What is Right View



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2 Cultivating Liberating Understanding



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3 Opinions And Truth



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4 What Must Be Known



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5 Danger Of Fixation



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The Hindrances, Restlesness by Andrea Fella

Andrea Fella has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1996, and, under Gil Fronsdal's guidance, began teaching meditation classes in 2003. She is particularly drawn to intensive retreat practice, and has done a number of long retreats, both in the United States and in Burma. During one long practice period in Burma, she ordained as a nun with Sayadaw U Janaka. Andrea is especially drawn to the wisdom teachings of the Buddha. Her teachings emphasize clarity and practicality.



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The Ten Thousand Idiots by Ed Brown

Edward Espe Brown is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest. Edward was ordained in 1971 by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who gave him the Dharma name Jusan Kainei, which means "Longevity Mountain, Peaceful Sea." He is famous for also being a chef, co-founder Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, has written many books on "Zen cooking" and in 2007, was the subject of a critically acclaimed feature-length documentary film entitled "How to Cook Your Life", directed by Doris Dörrie.



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I Making & Mine Making Constructing Self by Shaila Catherine

Now here's a coincidence, I had already selected this talk on the basis of its subject and length and then when I started to listen to it Shaila states that she is touching on a theme that was begun by a guest speaker, David Loy. As you can see it was David who delivered our previous talk!

Shaila Catherine has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught since 1996 in the USA, and internationally. Shaila has dedicated several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand, completed a one year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. Shaila Catherine has been practicing under the guidance of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw since 2006, and authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to western practitioners. She is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a Buddhist meditation centre in Silicon Valley




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Why We Love War by David Loy

David R. Loy (born July 27, 1947) is a Buddhist philosopher who writes on the interaction between Buddhism and modernity. He has been practicing Zen since 1971 and is an authorized teacher in the Sanbo-Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. David has taught at the National University of Singapore and Bunkyo University in Japan. From 2006 to 2010 he was the Besl Family Chair Professor of ethics/religion and society at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

His books include:-

Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy;
Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism;
A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack;
The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory;
Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution;
Awareness Bound and Unbound: Buddhist Essays;
The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy (with Linda Goodhew, his wife);
The World Is Made of Stories. Co-editor,
A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency (2009).



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Somebody Anybody Nobody by Lila Kate Wheeler

The Buddha said that "within this fathom long body, are the world, the origin of the world, the
ceasing of the world and the path leading to its cessation"

This talk by Lila Kate Wheeler explores the world of our bodies and the mind's relationship to it. The world where the problem arises and the solution is discovered is in no other sphere than the every day world of ours with all its frivolities, corruption, delusions, superstitions and ostentation.



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Once, Long Ago by Rodney Smith

Another two talks by Rodney Smith in which he discusses making sense of our spiritual journey by
looking at two historic events.

( part 1 Of 2)



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( part 2 Of 2), Awakening



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Who Do I Think I AM — Self, Not Self, And The Dharma by Tony Bernhard

Tony Bernhard is one of Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leaders. He sits on the board of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and on the Spirit Rock Program Committee. He hosts sitting groups in Davis and teaches regularly throughout the Bay Area.

Tony has a bit of a rambling style but there's some real nuggets of Dharma in this talk.



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The Flame Of Now by Rodney Smith

This talk by Rodney Smith examines the simplicity of practice.

Our thoughts place us on the periphery of "Now", but a question ensues, "do we want what Now offers?"


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What You Think is Not a Help for Realization by Ed Brown

The above talk was used at a retreat day held by the Newport Soto Zen group on Friday 28th of March.



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What do I Really Want by Martin Aylward

Martin Aylward began practising Dharma at the age of 19, spending several years in Asian
Buddhist monasteries and with Himalayan hermits. Martin is Co-Founder and Resident Teacher of Moulin de Chaves Meditation Centre in South West France, and reflecting his interest in engaged Dharma practice, has a new website, and is beginning to offer retreats, called Work Sex Money Dharma. He has been teaching internationally since 1999.



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Meditation, Mindfulness And Meditative Inquiry by Martine Batchelor

In this talk Martine examines the different aspects of practice.

She speeaks of her own experience in Korea where she was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1975. She studied Zen Buddhism under the guidance of the late Master Kusan at Songgwang Sa monastery until 1985.



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Five Talks by John Peacock

JOHN PEACOCK is both an academic and a Buddhist practitioner of nearly forty years. He was initially trained in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition in India and subsequently spent time in Sri Lanka studying Theravada. He has lectured in Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, and at present he is Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and teaches on the Master of Studies programme in MBCT (Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy) at Oxford University. He has been teaching meditation for over twenty five years and is a Gaia House guiding teacher.

A Radical Message For The World



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Distortions of Perception



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How Often Are You Human In A Day



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The Brahma Viharas



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The above talk was used at a retreat day held by the Newport Soto Zen group on Friday 31st of January. The following talk by Rev. Master Daishin was also used.

Acceptance



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Reverend Master Daishin Morgan is a disciple of Jiyu-Kennett and has been a Zen monk for thirty-six years and abbot of Throssel Hole since 1982. (At Throssel Hole Abbey, all ranks and both sexes are addressed as 'Reverend' and are referred to as monks and priests.) The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, of which Throssel Hole is a member, describe themselves as being in the Serene Reflection Meditation tradition (Ts'ao-Tung Ch'an in China and Sōtō Zen in Japan) and Buddha Recognizes Buddha is firmly in that tradition, drawing heavily on the teachings of Sōtō founder, Dōgen Zenji (1200 – 1253).



And this is the final talk in the series by John Peacock.................

What is meditation?



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