Sharda Rogell's most recent Dharma talks (Gaia House)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) A short dharma talk with a guided meditation on investigating mental activity: thoughts and images

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Given during COVID -19, how to find balance within our heart and mind when emotions are strong.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Morning Teaching

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Mindfulness encourages releasing the hold of the discursive mind, and frees the attention to drop[ into the heart and body, revealing the source of true happiness.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Closing reflections for a nine day New Year retreat

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Mindfulness of dharma qualities.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) How to bring the mind to more balance and ease in the face of challenges.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) We can easily believe that perfection truly exists and if we can work hard enough we may reach it, until we see the pain in our striving and let go.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Bare attention and disengaging from story-making.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Once we strengthen the qualities of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom, this empowers us on the path to greater awakening.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Arriving On retreat. Body as a foundational support.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The five difficult mind states, classically laid out by the Buddha, that obstruct open heart and free mind, and the potential for deepening insight and wisdom.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) How do we relate to others while staying connected to ourselves, so we don't get LOST. The Power of Present Moment mindfulness.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) This talk is an offering of one of the discourses from the Majjhima Nikāya (MN 140) in which the Buddha gives a disciple named Pukkusāti, who has never met the Buddha and doesn't know he's talking with him) a powerful teaching on the destruction of all suffering.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Understanding the truth of suffering, or that things are generally unsatisfactory, we can loosen our grip and open more sensitively and respectfully to how things are.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We are shifting our perception from ordinary ways of seeing and knowing in a way that is in accord with the dharma, with insight into the way things are. Looking more closely at story-making.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) As we let go of the things we usually take as our refuge, the three refuges of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha begin to take on new life.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) When the small ego self begins to let go of it's self-centered position, the mind turns to the Dharma and sees the three characteristics of existence - impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and selflessness.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) In itself, consciousness is pure, but it gets covered over with difficult patterns that bring about suffering. When these patterns are seen and released, a sense of well-being and clarity ensues. Three attitudes to bring to our practice that can hep us along the path.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We wonderfully open to all aspects of our mind body experience wherever we go - not leaving ourselves behind.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Without wisdom and awareness, we can climb into our stories, both painful and happy stories, and not see how we are trapped and limited by what we believe is true. Looking at a bigger picture.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) This talks describes how to work with mindfulness of Dharmas-the transformation of dukkha (difficult states) to sukha (happy states) or the 7 Factors of Awakening.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Drawing from the Buddha's teaching on mindfulness immersed in the Body, we cultivate a steadying presence as we open to wiser frontiers of our heart and mind.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) How do we return "home" in every moment of our daily life? How our dharma practice shapes our life.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) NO matter how much I might wish for suffering to end, it will always be an intrinsic part of our existence. Opening to this truth, awakens our heart of compassion.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Life is messy. Unless we are well-established in the wisdom of equanimity, we will likely be blown around by the worldly winds of change.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) As we journey along the path, we move from an ego-centric view to a dharma-centric view, supported by deepening wisdom and lovingkindness.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Why come on retreat? As we orient to the present moment and reconnect with ourselves, we can begin to know what no longer serves us and let go. We open to a bigger picture of the way things are.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dharma Talk on Compassion

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) If we try to get the conditions of our life to match our expectations, we will be disappointed again & again. Understanding the Buddha's teaching on 'dukkha' helps us let go and see more clearly.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) As we shift from a self-centered view to a dharma-centered view, we enter the authentic truth of our experience, and see with new eyes, even when facing difficult mind states. What can support this turning?

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) When the heart releases naturally, the grateful heart opens with joy. This talk ends with a fifteen minute gratitude meditation.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The Buddha invites us to open to all experience just as it is. When we open, we deepen our experience to allow both pleasure and pain and enter the stream of life without resistance or grasping.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) With wise and clear intention, we invite the conditions for transforming our heart-mind. We directly attend to the prickliness of aversion and resistance and open to the way things are.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Mudita is one of the divine Abodes. The quality of the heart that feels happiness for others' good fortune. An introduction followed by a 20 minute guided meditation.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploring what covers over our innate goodness, including near and far enemies of loving kindness (metta), attached love and hate, and how to uncover the beautiful qualities of our hearts.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Brief talk and guided meditation

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dharma practice shows us how to awaken to the stillness of the unmoving mind, where joys and sorrows move freely through our heart.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploring energy (viriya) as a factor of awakening, how, along with mindfulness and investigation, it drives our practice. Importance of intention and letting go.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) What is Equanimity? It is the stillness within the flow of conditions and is accessible in one moment when we let go of our reactivity and grasping.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) There are ordinary people in our life that care about our well-being. This guided meditation supports us to recognise and receive their care. (Adapted from John Makransky, in Awakening Through Love)

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) A talk on how the Buddha's emphasis on loving kindness begins to dissolve the ego's confusion and awakens the heart to its natural expression of love.

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The Buddha's teaching on the four ways of undertaking things that clear show us how to generate more happiness and less suffering for ourselves, others and the world. Once we understand, it is possible to make choices for happiness.

(Gaia House) This talk also includes Catherine McGee

(Gaia House) Who am I When the Deluded Forces in the Mind Begin to Dissolve? Also, how to bring speaking and listening into our practice.

(Gaia House) Exploring how we compartmentalise things, people and experiences into good and bad, and get trapped in a solid self structure. How to free ourselves of this entrapment.

(Gaia House) How do we get bound up in unsatisfactory conditions and what is the way to release?

(Gaia House) There is an art to opening to experience. How do we do that without getting overwhelmed?