Power Of Balance by Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine has been practising 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 practising 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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Dynamics Of Emotion by Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine has been practising 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 practising 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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Many Kinds Of Thoughts by Shaila Catherine

In this Dharma talk, Shaila Catherine discusses a range of thoughts and mental objects that arise in meditation.

Unwholesome mental patterns can reinforce obsessive desires, identification, rigid opinions, and attachment to belief systems. What patterns are most common for you—planning, rumination, fantasy, rehearsing, daydreaming, judging, comparing, fixing, instructing?



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Mahakaccana; Clarifying The Most Cryptic Teachings by Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine concludes the lecture series on the Great Disciples, with a talk about the Venerable Mahakaccana. He was a monk famous for explaining difficult and perplexing teachings.

He addressed profound topics including the construction of I-making and mine-making, craving, conceit, views, mindfulness of sense perceptions, obsession with thoughts of past and future, and overcoming desire and lust. His methods of exposition became the basis of early commentary, and Mahakaccana became known as the first Buddhist commentator.



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Angulimala: An Ethical Transformation by Shaila Catherine

In this third talk in the lecture series on the Great Disciples, Shaila Catherine, tells the life story of Angulimala and his transformation from notorious robber and murdered to a peaceful, compassionate, truthful, and awakened monk. It is an inspiring example of the power of restraint, and the potential for redemption. Habits and dispositions do not need to control our lives. We can stop unwholesome, unhealthy, and harmful courses of conduct. We can purify our minds.



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Happiness And The Gladness Of Non Remorse by Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine is the founder of Bodhi Courses (bodhicourses.org) an online Dhamma classroom,
and Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation centre in Mountain View, California (imsb.org). She has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience, and 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, (Wisdom Publications, 2008). She has extensive experience practicing and teaching mindfulness, loving kindness, concentration, and a broad range of approaches to liberating insight.

Since 2006, Shaila has continued her study of jhana and insight under the direction of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw, and authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana (Wisdom Publications, 2011).



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Awakening by Shaila Catherine

Awakening is the profound aim of the spiritual life. Awakening is not described as a mystical goal,
we wake up to the four noble truths. We look squarely at the world and recognize that we cannot fix it, and through this clarity we realize the end of suffering. Enlightenment does not imply a separation from life, instead, it brings us to face the reality of lived experiences without resistance. Profound realization brings a deep equanimity and peace into every encounter; it is defined as the ending of greed, hatred, and delusion. Awakening is known through the result—the end of defilements, craving, and ignorance. This talk teases out the meaning of several difficult "D" words: disenchantment, dispassion, detachment. These terms do not imply an aversive response to experience, instead they play a vital role in the process of awakening. The talk explores profound spiritual experiences. It considers the danger of arrogance and conceit arising, clinging to, and corrupting enlightenment experiences. It discusses how to express, describe, and speak about our spiritual awakenings without identification.



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Recollection Of Heavens by Shaila Catherine

This is the final talk in the "Recollections" series.



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Recollection Of The Sangha by Shaila Catherine

This is the fourth talk in the speaker series entitled "Recollective Meditations."



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Recollection Of The Buddha by Shaila Catherine

The Buddha taught a broad range of meditation practice -- far more extensive than simply observing sensations and breath. Practitioners can use six classic meditation subjects to nurture calmness, focus attention, inspire patience persistence, gain confidence in the efficacy of the path, and contemplate the nature of kamma, action, and mind. The six recollections are: Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, Virtue, Generosity, and Heavens.


This is the first talk in the series, Recollection Of The Buddha and is by Shaila Catherine.




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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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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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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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Contentment With Voidness by Shaila Catherine

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 (www.imsb.org).



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