Loving The Enemy by Anushka Fernandopulle

Anushka Fernandopulle teaches Vipassana meditation in the San Francisco Bay Area and
around the US. Anushka has trained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition for over 20 years in monasteries in Sri Lanka & India as well as urban US settings, and is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher's Council. Anushka has an MBA from Yale School of Management and works with organizations as a consultant and with individuals as an executive/leadership coach. More about her dharma teaching and work can be found at www.anushkaf.org



DOWNLOAD

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).



DOWNLOAD

Freeing Yourself From The Inner Critic by Mark Coleman

Here's a series of three talks by Mark Coleman on the subject of our "inner critic".


Mark Coleman has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1984. He is a Spirit Rock Meditation Teacher and has been teaching Insight Meditation retreats since 1997. He also leads wilderness meditation retreats from Alaska to Peru, integrating mindfulness meditation with nature. He is author of Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery. Mark is a psychotherapist, life-coach and mindfulness consultant to corporations. He is an avid outdoor enthusiast and passionate about combining the forces of meditation, silence and nature.

Talk One


DOWNLOAD

Talk Two


DOWNLOAD

Talk Three


DOWNLOAD

The Buddha's World View by Bhante Bodhidhamma

This is another talk by Bhante Bodhidhamma who recently visited us here at the West Wight Sangha.

The talk discusses the process of Dependent Origination and how we perceive the "World". It is one of the best explainations of the complex subject of Dependent Origination that I have heard.




DOWNLOAD

The Five Hindrances To Enlightenment by Ayya Anandabodhi

Ayya Anandabodhi first encountered the Buddha's teaching in her early teens, which ignited a deep interest in the Buddha’s Path of Awakening. She has practiced meditation since 1989, and lived in Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries in the UK from 1992 for 18 years.

In 2009 she moved to the U.S. on invitation of the Saranaloka Foundation, to help establish Aloka Vihara, a training monastery for women, where she now resides. She took leave of the Ajahn Chah lineage in 2011, in order to take full bhikkhuni ordination. The teachings and example of Ajahn Chah continue to be an influence and inspiration in her practice and teaching.



DOWNLOAD

The Way Goes Nowhere by Will Kabat-Zinn

This talk by Will Kabat-Zinn proved somewhat controversial with half the listeners disliking the speaker's style and thinking the content lightweight while the other half of the audience feeling that Kabat-Zinn was making some deep points in an engaging way.

The only thing is to hear for yourself (it is slow to get going).

Will Kabat-Zinn has practiced Vipassana meditation intensively in the U.S. and in Burma for over ten years. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and teaches regularly at SF Insight, Spirit Rock, and at meditation centres around the country. For eight years Will taught meditation and awareness practices to incarcerated youth in New York City and Oakland. He is the son of Jon Kabat-Zinn who is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.



DOWNLOAD

Simplicity & Sympathy by Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He began his training after graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967. Then he joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Public Health Service in northeast Thailand, which is home to several of the world’s oldest Buddhist forest monasteries. He met and studied under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. After returning to the United States, Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein. He is also a founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Centre in Woodacre, California, where he currently lives and teaches. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings with the Dalai Lama and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father and activist.

His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. They include, A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Teachings of the Buddha; Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; Living Dharma; A Still Forest Pool; Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart; Buddha’s Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace and his most recent book, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are.



DOWNLOAD

The Promise Of Awakening by Howard Cohn

Howard Cohn, has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 25 years. He has practised meditation since 1972, has led vipassana retreats since 1985, and is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Centre.

In this talk he describes  the "fruits" of practise and how it engages us with the entirety of reality.



DOWNLOAD

Freedom From Opposites by Martin Aylward

In this talk Martin Aylward examines the link between holding opinions and the tightening of the mind around the extreme ends of the spectrum of experience and how we can gain freedom from these opposites.



DOWNLOAD

No Self by Anam Thubten

This talk is actual the one I took along for the monthly Friday retreat day held by the Newport

Soto Zen group. It is by Anam Thubten and is about how Nirvana is reached by the abandoning of identities.

Born in 1968 and raised in the remote Golok region of Amdo, in north­east­ern Tibet, Anam Thubten was rec­og­nized at an early age as the incar­na­tion of the great yogi Anam Lama Choying Phuntsok (also known as Anam Tsetsampa). The young tulku began his for­mal Buddhist stud­ies at the age of 10. In the course of his stud­ies, in the Nyingma tra­di­tion, he devel­oped a spe­cial affin­ity towards a very inspir­ing teacher and her­mit named Lama Tsurlo. Lama Tsurlo’s kind­ness and wis­dom gave him the firm base to advance in his Dharma prac­tice. In 1991, Anam Thubten Rinpoche escaped Tibet and fled to India.



DOWNLOAD