Dharma Seed - dharmaseed.org: Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia's most recent Dharma talks

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk examines sakkāyaditthi or self-view—the subtle way that we relate to experience from the vantage point of self. Through training and insight, sakkāyaditthi is eradicated at the first stage of awakening.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk is about sīlabbataparāmāsa—a subtle clinging to rites, rituals, precepts, and practices. We train in order to see and overcome this heady attachment to our practices (dāna, sīla, bhāvanā, mettā bhāvanā).

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk is about sīlabbataparāmāsa—a subtle clinging to rites, rituals, precepts, and practices. We train in order to see and overcome this heady attachment to our practices (dāna, sīla, bhāvanā, mettā bhāvanā).

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk examines skeptical doubt which, through our training and practice, is overcome at the first stage of awakening.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Going for refuge mirrors the process of waking up. We settle enough to know what we are experiencing (Buddha); we learn to let things be the way are (Dhamma); and we experience directly the happiness and release that comes from skillful behavior (Sangha).

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk addresses several potential difficulties in practice – attaching to ideas about mindfulness and concentration, thinking that nothing is happening in practice, feeling half here and half not, and the tendency to “do” the practice.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) The Buddha defines three kinds of conceit—conceit itself (māna), the inferiority complex (omāna), and arrogance (atimāna). Conceit is a player in giving rise to a sense of self and perpetuating it though ignorance. This talk offers practical guidance to help meditators see conceit and uproot it through understanding and insight.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk outlines the Buddha’s teaching on the three forms of craving—craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, and craving for non-becoming. Taraniya encourages the practitioner to use the retreat environment to observe craving in what may seem like minor or insignificant moments. These moments hold potential for major insights.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Given the conflicts, wars, and divisiveness over the past year, many people ask, “How do we practice with all of this?” Taraniya offers reflections on opening to difficulty, making practical adjustments in our lives to support inner balance, and increasing our capacity to manage mindstates through understanding and wisdom.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Here we look at fourth satipatthana and its specific instructions on what to see and how to see it—the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of awakening, and the four noble truths—with an eye to realizing how this practice helps us overcome self-view.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk examines popular strategies for behavior change such as willing ourselves into compliance and analyzing our history. And it contrasts these "old ways" with the strategies of Buddhist practices.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk includes real practice stories about working with the hindrances and seeing how we deconstruct the layers of self-view.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) The Buddha never denied or affirmed the existence of a self. He merely noted that when we relate to the body, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness with attachment, we suffer. Non-identification with the body and mind frees us.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Making full use of perception of the new year to skillfully look back to where we have been and forward to where we are going. .. and at the same time, collapsing time to the present moment.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk looks at how we tend to form views based on likes and dislikes... and how we extend our views to form value laden statements about the world, the people in it and even ourselves. We move away from the direct experience into a world of fabrication and delusion. Our ideas become more real than the experience they represent.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk examines how the mind names or assigns qualities or characteristics to the things we contact. How it relates and draws associations to similar things we have known...and what it is like to attach to that.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) What goes on in the mind when we remember things we have sensed, felt or thought in the past. It is through this activity of perception, and our attachment to it, that we have a very real sense of the past.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Perception is the function or activity of the mind through which we receive, sort and interpret sensory date. While it serves a very useful purpose... much of this activity is both unconscious and distorted. It is in our interest to see it meditatively and learn to relate to it skillfully.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Sangha for refuge. The classical refuge in Sangha involves going forth into monastic life and/or turning to elders for guidance along the way. The subtle refuge involves knowing directly the happiness that comes from keeping impeccable silā.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Dhamma for refuge. The classical refuge in Dhamma involves refuge in the teachings of the Buddha as set forth in the Pāli Canon. The subtle refuge involves taking refuge in things as they really are … understanding the subtle truths underlying all experience.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk examines both the classical and subtle meaning of going to the Buddha for refuge. The classical refuge in the Buddha involves refuge in the historic Buddha, while the subtle refuge occurs whenever we rest in the simple knowing of experience.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) The talk explores worldly or human happiness, celestial or heavenly happiness and transcendent happiness or Nibbana.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) Using a simple example of stress in every day life, this talk examines the Buddha’s teaching on the first noble truth – particularly, “having to associate with things we don’t like, be separated from things we like, and not get what we want.” It considers the insights that accompany opening to this truth.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) Opening to the uncertainty of life and learning to stop expecting things to be any way other than the way they are.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk examines the classical teaching on the wisdom section of the eightfold path—right understanding/view and right intention/attitude.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) Developing skill in meditation involves making peace with mental states so that we can investigate them properly and understand them correctly.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk examines how we attach to the meditation practice in a way that actually obstructs practice. More than anything else … difficulties in practice have to do with an incorrect understanding of practice rather than something we are doing or not doing.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) A practical understanding of the four foundations of mindfulness—seeing them as both meditation instructions and as a description of presence of mind.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) Though its role in the process of waking up is pivotal, intention is very subtle, rarely conscious, and outside the control of self. Purification of intention is made possible through calm awareness of the things we think/do/say, kindness, and non-judging.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) Over the years of practice we work with the precepts in a number of ways—using resolve and restraint, becoming acquainted with our karmic patterns and feeling the consequences of these, and strengthening skillful states by noticing what it feels like to do good, to behave well.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) We confront many obstacles in practice—our karmic conditioning, cultural conditioning, and resistance to the realities of anicca, dukkha, anatta. In order to surmount these obstacles, anyone who wishes to progress along the path, must act on faith and the factors that support that.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk is part of a five part series on the Sabbasava Sutta (MN2), one of the most important and practical suttas in the Pali Canon. It summarizes our deeply entrenched patterns of delusion and suffering and the methods by which these are managed and overcome.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk is part of a five part series on the Sabbasava Sutta (MN2), one of the most important and practical suttas in the Pali Canon. It summarizes our deeply entrenched patterns of delusion and suffering and the methods by which these are managed and overcome.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk is part of a five part series on the Sabbasava Sutta (MN2), one of the most important and practical suttas in the Pali Canon. It summarizes our deeply entrenched patterns of delusion and suffering and the methods by which these are managed and overcome.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) This talk is part of a five part series on the Sabbasava Sutta (MN2), one of the most important and practical suttas in the Pali Canon. It summarizes our deeply entrenched patterns of delusion and suffering and the methods by which these are managed and overcome.

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) The Sabbasava Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 2 (All the Taints), deals with the eradication of the three taints: desire for sensual pleasure, desire for being, and ignorance. The taints are defilements brought about and strengthened by unwise attention. The seven methods are: Seeing, Restraining, Using, Enduring, Avoiding, Removing and Developing. This talk begins a five part series on this sutta. It addresses Seeing.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Through meditation we become more skilled at identifying mental states - discovering what we are experiencing and learning to relate appropriately.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk looks at experience through the lenses of the Buddha's teaching in the five aggregates. We take a close look at the ways we cling to feeling, perception and formations.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk looks at experience through the lens of the Buddha's teaching on the five aggregates. We take a close look at the ways we cling to the body, feeling and consciousness

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) When we snap out of states we often ask: how did I get here? How we answer depends on our levels of non-attachment and insight.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk address the apparent conflict in practice between opening to the way we are and, at the same time, aspiring towards freedom.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Through practice we learn to relate with non-attachment to the condition of the body and mind as well as the conditions of our lives. We do this through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, the cultivation of samadhi, and the gradual eroding of self-view. Then we are well-positioned for insight.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Examines the tendency to seek gratification through the senses and the tendency to be preoccupied with objects of the mind.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Explains how intention operates and how it is not self.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Refuges and Precepts

(Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) The talk includes stories about learning generosity through giving to monks and nuns during the daily dawn walk (pindapad) in Thailand … that is, eeing how this opens a logjam in the heart and one experiences the sheer joy of giving. This talk also outlines and gives examples of the different kinds of giving as listed in AN 8.31 and 8.33.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk defines what constitutes the five spiritual faculties and what it takes to develop them. It offers a hands-on understanding of how faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, when developed, lead to freedom.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk explains the skillful use of resolve and restraint. It also examines the open-hearted acceptance of who we are and what arises within us.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk examines the Buddha’s Teaching on intention. It walks through how we identify with all the five aggregates.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk address the experience of wisdom as understanding the noble truths and the law of karma which results in a mind/heart that has replaced greed, hatred, and cruelty with non-attachment, kindness and compassion.