Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia has been offering instruction in Theravada Buddhist teachings and practices since 1990. She is a student of the Western forest sangha, the disciples of Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Chah, and is a Lay Buddhist Minister in association with Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in California. She has served as resident teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, taught many months at IMS's Forest Refuge, and served as a Core Faculty member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. She co-authored Older and Wiser: Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness, and Death and has written numerous articles for the Insight Journal of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
