Seattle Insight Meditation Society

Ignorance, or "ignoring" the facts, begins the conditioned chain of events known as Dependent Origination. Our refusal to acknowledge and look is the essential first cause of the sequencing of conditions that leads to struggle and separation. To reverse this process all we have to do is be amenable to seeing what is in front of our eyes. This, together with our willingness not to turn away from the implications of what we see, are the sole requirements necessary for the interruption of the links of causality. Awareness ends the belief that the world is static and fixed. We usually gloss over the continual unfolding and disarray we call, "our living experience," so we can use ignorance as a life preserver and steady our position by fixing it within the world.  How much of this unfixed universe we are willing to see will be determined by our sincerity, but the seeing, and therefore the ending of struggle, is always possible. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/614/Default.aspx

The Vedanas: Working with Pleasure and Pain

How can we prepare the mind to facilitate a loving relationship with each moment's experience?

Love is a conditioned experience.  Realistically, in order to love we need insight into love's nature and the three characteristics it shares with all phenomena.

Learning to be open to all elements of our own experience of love, including those elements which cause difficulty and suffering.

As we keep looking, we see that many ideas about love are at play in our hearts and minds.

In a long term relationship there needs to be some sense of safety.  How do we reconcile this with the necessity to be vulnerable to what is real and alive?

We all experience moments of unconditional metta (lovingkindness) and love of members of our immediate family. The joy and pain of falling into the euphoria and romance of erotic love may be well known to you too. Then by adding a spiritual practice to your life, you will have been introduced to the possibility of a spiritual dimension to love. Learning to recognize the similarities and distinctions of the varieties of love is essential to successfully walking the householders’ path of liberation. Instruction in mindful awareness and recognition of the elements of love will be offered. Suitable for everyone who has experienced love or who has been enthralled, curious or disappointed by it. Come and see how it is for your self. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/611/Default.aspx

As we move through the links of Dependent Origination, one of the key areas for exploration are the linkages of craving, clinging, and becoming. What starts out as a simple feeling of pleasantness suddenly erupts into a needy and tumultuous sense-of-self. Dependent Origination explains the causal factors and conditions that led to full addiction and the reaction that followed.  D.O. shows us how we carry over the remembrance of previous encounters that sets us up for our current display. Once the present is colored with the past, we carry the momentum of the past into that current relationship. An object is no longer seen for what it is (always neutral) but for what it has become through memory.  We then chase after our memory like a cat would chase his tail, believing that the object is the same as the memory. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/610/Default.aspx

Dependent Origination asks us to see the world from a vastly different perspective than our normal understanding. It exerts that fundamentally nothing exists independently, and everything is co-dependent upon everything else.  Most of us do not see the world in this configuration. Normally we think of ourselves and all other objects as having separate existences. Let us loosen our grasp on seeing life as separately existing and ease ourselves into the symphony at play. Notice that coincidences and chance occurrences are part of the wonderment of inseparability. Nothing is happening randomly by accident.  Although even a philosophical understanding of this eases our individual burden, it is the realization of tis fact that dramatically effects our lives. When we see we are not separate from the world around us, we release the need for a personal and binding narrative, and the formless sacred comes into view. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/609/Default.aspx

Dependent Origination is the way the Buddha understood the arising of individuated forms in the world. The question D.O. attempts to answer is how the world and the sense-of-self come into existence. That is, what are the causal conditions of separation? Why do we see the world as we see it? The first two talks in this series are overviews of the sequential unfolding of D.O. and the remaining talks examine each of the twelve individual link within this chain. Conditioned causality is the fact that many conditions conspire to allow a single internal or external event to arise.  Western thought usually focuses on a single cause, but with increased insight we see that causal factors are limitless.  No one person or one event "made us angry," the whole universe was the reason that anger arose. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/603/Default.aspx

The practice of cultivating our heart and mind is up to us. Let the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, be our guide. For more information about Anushka: http://www.anushkaf.org.

This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/604/Default.aspx

Insights remain a dormant potential but not a formative actuality until they are put into action. Action validates the insight and establishes our intention to move in line with its truth. Action overcomes doubt and aligns our cognitive system with our spiritual transformation. It is the essential component for moving our spiritual journey forward. Too often our insights get lost within our conditioned habits and are never brought into the light of day, and therefore never fully position our mental and physical systems to the Dharma. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/601/Default.aspx

Rodney answers questions from the sangha. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/599/Default.aspx