Seattle Insight Meditation Society

The insubstantiality of personality view. Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

The universal story of anicca, impermanence. Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

"Anicca is remarkably liberating." Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

Dukkha, translated as "messy space." Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

With our thoughts, or volitional impulses, we create our world. Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

The first dimension of self-view: personality view. Christina Feldman explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

The second dimension of self-view: māna. Christina explores what the Buddha means by the development of liberating insight on both a personal and universal level.

Guest teacher Christina Feldman offers a talk on unbinding the heart, or renunciation in the Pali Canon. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/647/Default.aspx

Let us explore the link of becoming a little more. We and the world arise together through the link of becoming. The feeling tone provides the inception point, the tear in the fabric of the formless, through which we and the world of form emerges. We come out naming and forming, with body and senses fully functioning, and a consciousness filled with content and states of mind - all thoroughly convincing "us" that we are someone interacting with "something."  This manifestation needs to maintain momentum or it would be only a momentary fluctuation of personhood. Thought provides that continuity allowing ignorance to misperceive the sense-of-self as continuous. Thought establishes time and time and memory build a past and future whereby the sense-of-self can substantiate its existence.  Thoroughly exploring thought allows a natural quieting that begins to disassemble the mental construction of "I." This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/646/Default.aspx

With the link of Becoming the sense-of-self is now fully alive within the dynamics of the mind.  It does not exist outside of the mind as it likes to believe but as a working confluent whole with the other links of Dependent Origination. The sense-of-self wants to assume the "someone" who is receiving the desired object so it can chase after them, but to do so it has to spin the deception that it is the owner of the mental phenomena. To be perceived as the owner, the sense-of-self fractures the perception into the subject and object: me and my mind, or me and the object I want.  Once the deception is complete it must continue to think in terms of past and future to keep the illusion going. If the mind becomes quiet, the past and future ends and the whole of the mind falls into the present where sparation cannot be maintained. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/637/Default.aspx

Training in Compassion (3 of 3)

(The recording begins as Zoketsu Norman Fischer is already speaking.)  

Training in Compassion (2 of 3)

Zoketsu Norman Fischer's talk is on his new book "Training in Compassion," based on an Indo-Tibetan text including 59 practice slogans for generating compassion and learning how to live with grace among others in a difficult world. The text is well known in the Tibetan Buddhist world, but Norman's commentary has a distinctly zen flavor. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/638/Default.aspx

When the energy of self-formation moves through desire to clinging, there is a dramatic change in intensity. The grasping feels like a compelling need of the organism. We may feel that we must have this experience in order for life to be worthwhile, and we are usually willing to do whatever is needed to obtain it. The energy is very tightly bound to the sense of survival. The Buddha grouped the areas of clinging in four broad categories: (1) pleasurable experiences, (2) views and opinions, (3) rites and rituals, and (4) belief in self. When we see the ferocity of our need to procure and defend our right for pleasure, our personal and political opinions,  the indoctrinated beliefs in our religious views and practices, and the obstinate way we defend our self-image, we begin to understand the entrenched positions our egoic state stands upon. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/636/Default.aspx