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Dharma Recordings

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Courses

January 1, 2024

Losing Yourself: How to be a Person Without a Self with Jay L. Garfield

Jay L. Garfield investigates one of the most pervasive and pernicious of illusions: the sense that we are selves. How do we come to see ourselves as selfless without falling into a nihilistic view that we don’t exist at all, that we have no agency, or no responsibility? The answer is to come to see ourselves as persons. Over four sessions, Jay explores what it is to be a person, but to lack a self, and the understanding of human life and morality that this enables.
January 1, 2024

Finding Sea Legs in Saṃsāra: An Online “Householder” Retreat with Bill and Susan Morgan

Bringing mindfulness into our daily lives is a significant challenge. Even when we get a taste of clarity while on retreat, our insight and resolve tend to weaken in the busyness of our multi-tasking lives. This retreat is specifically designed to address this disheartening practice dilemma. It is intended to support the integration of a meaningful meditation practice into the flow of our everyday lives. During this precarious time, with fear and anxiety and uncertainty running high, making meditation supportive and relevant to our lives feels more important than ever.
January 1, 2024

A Secure Core of Compassion and Awareness for Insecure Times with Lama John Makransky

Co-sponsored by Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Foundation for Active Compassion. This practice, called Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT), was adapted from Tibetan Buddhism by John Makransky into a form that is fully accessible to people of all backgrounds and world views. SCT has three modes of meditation that are introduced in this on-line program: the receptive mode, the deepening mode, and the inclusive mode.

Events

Poetry as/and Practice: A Conversation with Jane Hirshfield

  • Jane Hirshfield, one of America’s foremost poets, is also a long-time Buddhist practitioner. For Hirshfield, who lived for years at a Zen practice center, the attention cultivated through reading and writing poetry is itself a meditative practice. As a poet practitioner, she follows in a long tradition of Buddhists who have turned to poetry to express their experience and wisdom and to help others along the path.

“Meditation Sickness”: Classical & Modern Approaches to Adverse Effects with Dr. Pierce Salguero

  • Mindfulness and other types of Buddhist meditation are now routinely being practiced by large segments of the population in many Western countries. However, recent psychiatric studies have shown that about 10% of participants will encounter psychological imbalances or psychosomatic ailments when engaging in intensive meditation.

Poetry as/and Practice: A Conversation with Joseph Goldstein

  • In recent years, Joseph Goldstein has made poetry a part of his practice. In this, he joins many other Buddhist teachers and practitioners who turned to the language of poetry to express their experience and wisdom and to help others along the path.

Becoming A New Saint: A Conversation with Lama Rod Owens

  • Explore the path of how we might emerge as warriors from our broken hearts. Saints, spiritual warriors, bodhisattvas, zaddikim—no matter how they are named in a given tradition, they all share a profound altruistic wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Each of us can be a new saint,” says Lama Rod Owens. “In our pain, our trauma, and all our complexity, we all can—and must—awaken the virtue of our compassion for the benefit of our communities, our planet, and our own souls.”

Women, Wisdom, and Practice: A Conversation with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

  • Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is an inspiring figure for Buddhists worldwide for her practice, work on behalf of nuns, and teaching. Her powerful presence and wisdom are the fruits of many years of practice—including twelve years in a remote Himalayan cave—and the work of institution building necessary for educating nuns.

What is Buddhist Medicine? with Dr. Pierce Salguero

  • Dr. Pierce Salguero is a scholar specializing in the history of Buddhist medicine. He is the author of Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious & Skeptical and A Global History of Buddhism & Medicine, among many other books. He has a Ph.D. in the History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Buddhism, Asian medicine, and history at Penn State University’s Abington College near Philadelphia.

Black, Baptist, and Buddhist: A Conversation with Jan Willis

  • Jan Willis and BCBS Director of Studies William Edelglass explore Jan’s life and Buddhist engagement, drawing particularly on her memoir, Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist, as well as her more recent collection, Dharma Matters: Women, Race, and Tantra. This program is freely offered.

The Map of Wisdom: Joseph Goldstein on the Core Buddhist Teachings

  • There are a number of core Buddhist teachings that we encounter in the early discourses. How do the ideas of impermanence, dependent arising, non-self, the Four Noble Truths, karma, compassion, and other essential teachings relate to each other? How do these core Buddhist insights complement meditation practice and support progress on the Path?

Grief, Translation, and the Wonder of Friendship: A Book Launch Conversation on Chenxing Han’s ‘one long listening’

  • How do we grieve our losses? How can we care for our spirits? How is it that 不知最亲切: not knowing is most intimate? one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care dances with these questions as it weaves together letters to a dying friend, bedside chaplaincy visits, and memories of a migratory childhood. In this book launch conversation, Chenxing Han, author of one long listening and Be the Refuge, is joined by Dr. Paula Arai, Eshinni and Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and author of numerous books, including Painting Enlightenment and The Little Book of Zen Healing.
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Related resources

The Insight Journal

The Insight Journal was started in 1994 and is dedicated to exploring some of the insights that a Buddhist inquiry uncovers about ourselves, our world, and our fellow beings.

The Daily Sit

The Daily Sit, offered through zoom, is facilitated by Bill and Susan Morgan and their students.

Bhikkhu Anālayo Offerings

Bhikkhu Anālayo Offerings is a list of teachings freely offered by our resident scholar and monastic.

Bookshop and Library

BCBS Bookstore BCBS receives 10% of all sales made through our online bookstore through Bookshop.org. This applies to all books bought through our site, not just those on our highlighted lists.
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Deepening Practice,
Building Community.

Deepening Practice,
Building Community.

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