Dharma Seed - Dharma Talks given at Common Ground Meditation Center

2016-10-30 Investigating The Five Hindrances Week 2 58:47
Mark Nunberg	Download Listen
Common Ground Meditation Center : Weekly Dharma Series

2016-10-28 No Self, No Problem 38:12
Anam Thubten	Download Listen
Common Ground Meditation Center : Weekly Dharma Series

2016-10-25 Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality - Week 6 63:17

Mark Nunberg

Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks

Tonight we will finish our discussion regarding the drawbacks and limitations of sensual experience. Please be prepared to share with your small group your own direct experience how the habits of fear, attachment, craving... create a sense of weight and suffering around our sense experiences. We'll spend the last two weeks looking at the "Escape" from the stress related to sense experience. Here is a good article to read written by a senior Buddhist nun in the Western Ajahn Chah lineage, Sister Siripann

Common Ground Meditation Center : Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality

Attached Files:

Renunciation: The Highest Happiness by Sister Siripanna (Google Doc)

2016-10-23 Past Lives, Cosmology, and All That Jazz 51:23
Nils Heymann	Download Listen
Common Ground Meditation Center : Weekly Dharma Series

2016-10-18 Course - Introduction to Mindfulness - Week 5 1:32:08

Mark Nunberg

Listen to tracks Show 3 Tracks

Common Ground Meditation Center : Course - Introduction to Mindfulness

Attached Files:

The Practices of the Divine Abodes: Kindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy and Equanimity by Mark Nunberg (Google Doc)

2016-10-17 Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality - Week 5 1:28:22

Mark Nunberg

Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks

We have now completed half of our course examining our experience of sensuality. As we have begun to reflect on the limitation of sense experience we want to specifically look into the limitations of what we might consider wholesome experience. What danger, if any, is associated with wholesome experiences? At the end of MN 13, The Discourse on the Great Mass of Stress the Buddha uses the example of meditative peace as a sense experience with the allure of gratification, with drawbacks and with an escape. So if even the deepest states of meditative peace have drawbacks what about the pleasant wholesome states that our minds are still dependent on? Are these experiences a set up for disappointment, stress and suffering? What has our experience taught us? Let's notice the ephemeral quality of our wholesome moments. Are they stable enough to provide lasting satisfaction?

Common Ground Meditation Center : Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality

2016-10-16 Investigating The Five Hindrances Week 1 55:07
Mark Nunberg	Download Listen
Common Ground Meditation Center : Weekly Dharma Series

2016-10-11 Course - Introduction to Mindfulness - Week 4 1:33:05

Mark Nunberg

Listen to tracks Show 3 Tracks

Common Ground Meditation Center : Course - Introduction to Mindfulness

Attached Files:

Strategies for Working with Obstacles to Mindfulness by Mark Nunberg (Google Doc)

2016-10-10 Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality - Week 4 56:14

Mark Nunberg

Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks

Please take this week to more clearly discern the gratification & allure of sense experience and the drawbacks & limitations of sense experience. Remember, the practice is to collect honest data. The purification of view that the mind has toward sensuality does happen because we want to shift our view, rather, it happens because the data that the mind collects through being mindful overwhelms older views/beliefs about sensuality and allows for a newer, more refined, wiser view to arise in its place. One theme you might use for your small group sharing is, what if any data has this mind or heart, collected in the recent past that demonstrates the limitations and drawbacks of sense experience? Some Additional Readings for Week 4:

Common Ground Meditation Center : Buddhist Studies Course - Understanding Sensuality

Attached Files:

Placeholder (File)
Mind Like Fire Unbound Chapter III 'Forty cartloads of timber.' by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Link)
What You Take Home With You by Ajahn Sucitto (Google Doc)

2016-10-05 Mindfulness of Breathing Week 4 55:34
Mark Nunberg	Download Listen
Common Ground Meditation Center : Weekly Dharma Series