Dharma Seed - Rodney Smith's Dharma Talks

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In Memoriam: Rick Woudenberg

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Rodney Smith's Dharma Talks

Rodney Smith

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More and more, the teaching practice takes me into the community where I engage directly with students. My focus right now is on bringing the continuity of the Dharma into the market place. Although retreating is an important form for self-knowledge, I find myself less interested in the immediate results of a retreat and more interested in helping students investigate their relationship to the ups and downs of their everyday life.

Nature, death and spontaneous freedom continually interweave themselves into my teaching. From the forest of Thailand, where I spent several years, I bring a deep awareness of the healing quality of nature into my teachings. Relaxing into our true nature allows us to realize what it means to be a human being. It is here we find a resting point, a counterbalance to the speed and turbulence of our culture.

My work in hospice brings a sense of urgency into my teaching. Working with the theme of death and dying reveals the here and now of life to us, how important it is to open to each loss, change and transition that marks our path. Life is precious. We need to awaken without hesitation.

Many of us crave to be more calm and centered. We know that life has more to offer than this fleeting material world. For each of us, the Dharma offers an immediacy of freedom for which we do not have to strive or wait. In practice, we can learn to relax deeply into the moment and rediscover spontaneous freedom.

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2011-02-22 Satipatthana Sutta, Third Foundation: Dividing the Mind Through Aversion 57:47	Download Listen
Aversion and desire work together to entrap the mind within its own projections and divide the whole into parts. The opposite of what I desire is feared and visa versa. Because the mind is a single whole, when we pit what we like against what we do not, repetitive aversive and desiring images noisily dance through the mind in opposition to the contentment of the abiding wholeness.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2011-02-08 Satipatthana Sutta, Third Foundation: Dividing the Mind Through Desire 54:27	Download Listen
Desire forms the sense of self by fracturing the mind into what it wants compared to what it has. In moving with what it wants, it has to dismiss or resist reality (what it has) and form its own imaginative response. The sense of self is part of that fantasy buildup and has a central role in keeping it going.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2011-01-25 Satipatthana Sutta, Third Foundation: The Divided Mind 59:26	Download Listen
As we study the Third Foundation of the Satipatthana Sutta we ask what is the mind and how does it seem to create a sense of self having the experience of an external world?
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2011-01-11 Satipatthana Sutta, Third Foundation: Awareness of the Mind 66:46	Download Listen
Mindfulness of the body gave us stability of focus and mindfulness of feelings gave us the mechanism for how we project ourselves onto the world. Now we are sufficiently prepared to look at the mind itself.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2011-01-04 A Blameless Life 49:08	Download Listen
This talk explores how ethical conduct fits into a continuum of practice as we move from the isolated state of projection through the relaxation of sila to the inevitable release of faith.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society

2010-12-21 Satipatthana Sutta, Second Foundation: Equanimity 52:20	Download Listen
Equanimity does not empower feelings to drive thoughts. It holds a feeling as a feeling and does not extend the feeling into a narrative on why this feeling is important. It does not add anything to the moment, allowing the moment to bloom on its own.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2010-12-12 "I Teach One Thing Only" 48:07	Download Listen
This "one thing" the Buddha taught and forms a continuum of practice that informs our motivation all along the way.
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center : Insight Meditation and the Heart

2010-11-23 Satipatthana Sutta, Second Foundation: Feelings Unleashing Thoughts 4:41	Download Listen
Feelings move quickly into a narrative that captures our attention and promotes further images, all with their own feelings and further story. The sense of "I" arises, and we are surrounded by feelings and reactions to feelings, giving us a sense of ourselves in time and space. We call this life.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2010-11-09 Satipatthana Sutta, Second Foundation: Neutral Feelings 58:18	Download Listen
Neutral feelings pervade our life when we try to maintain a high level of intensity for our life's purpose and meaning. Busyness is an indication of this dependency, but as soon as the energy decreases below an established threshold, our mind wonders, and we become dull, listless, and uninterested. Awareness has not waned in the slightest, but we have been conditioned to stop paying attention.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

2010-10-26 Satipatthana Sutta, Second Foundation: Unpleasantness Leading to Divisiveness 58:06	Download Listen
Once a moment is avoided, a world view of division and separation springs forth, accompanied by a compelling narrative that justifies the aversion. Now we are in full armor with the world as our adversary, tying us to a ceaseless argument with it.
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
In collection: The Satipatthana Sutta

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