Nina Rao interviews Nani Ma about her deep devotion to serving her guru and her service work with Ganga Prem Hospice.

If you are interested in donating to Ganga Prem Hospice, you can do so through a donation to End of Life Care International with a memo specifying you would like it to go to Ganga Prem.

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This time on the Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast, Nani Ma shares with us:

• Her religious upbringing into Christianity
• Being pulled to India from a young age
• Seeking liberation from suffering and pain
• The story of meeting her guru, Babaji
• The beauty and power of the Ganges river
• Her daily routine and how she meditates
• How to deal with difficulties by watching our breath
• Reaching one-pointedness through chanting single-worded mantras
• Moving through the physical death of a guru
• Forming cancer clinics in India and Ganga Prem Hospice

About Nani Ma:

Nani Ma is from the United Kingdom and sought spiritual enlightenment at a very young age. One day, she realized that serving the multitude and helping the needy is also an aspect of spiritual practice. So, she started taking care of the terminally ill cancer patients in the hospital, guiding the people who are suffering from pain and death to embark on a new journey. Together with Dr. A. K. Dewan, she established the Ganga Prem Hospice. Ganga Prem Hospice is a spiritually-orientated, non-profit hospice for terminally ill cancer patients. The Hospice has been constructed at the foot of the Himalayas on the bank of the river Ganga.

Krishna Das is offering two benefit kirtan concerts in Rishikesh October 2024 - details on KrishnaDas.com/Events

“When we watch our breath, it slows down. The breath and the mind are connected. Either the breath slows down and the mind slows down, or the mind catches hold of one thing, which is the name, and the name has its power by itself. The name has its own power.” – Nani Ma

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Guiding listeners through the seven factors of enlightenment, Trudy Goodman shows us the play of awakening in daily life.

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In this episode, Trudy Goodman holds a talk on:

• Loosening our grip on self-involvement
• Living lovingly and joyfully in our daily lives
• The seven factors of enlightenment
• The things that torment us and connect us
• How nature offers metta to us
• Remaining poised amidst little catastrophes
• Equanimity and being balanced
• Trusting in the unfolding of reality

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide.

This 2011 talk was recorded at Spirit Rock Meditation center and originally published on Dharmaseed

“Being a Buddhist or practicing these Buddhist teachings is to live lovingly and joyfully without getting so caught or identified with the suffering self. And not just out in some fantasy mountain cave that we might imagine ourselves in or on meditation retreat at luxurious Spirit Rock or in the monastery, but in the midst of whatever we’re doing.” – Trudy Goodman

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Taking us on a pilgrimage through Buddhist teachings, Gil Fronsdal describes meeting the dharma in ourselves.

This recording from Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal teaches on:

• Meeting the dharma in ourselves through direct experiences
• Going into the world with a phenomenal capacity for non-harming
• Looking at what really motivates and drives us
• The story of the Kalama Sutta
• Recognizing what brings welfare vs. what brings harm
• Breath as a form of assurance and how our easeful, relaxed breath can be our teacher
• Hindrances and what keeps us removed from ourselves
• Coming home to our selves, our bodies, our sensations
• Allowing the flow of experience to move through us
• Releasing all of the things we hold onto

About Gil Fronsdal:

Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. Gil has an undergraduate degree in agriculture from U.C. Davis where he was active in promoting the field of sustainable farming. In 1998 he received a PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University studying the earliest developments of the bodhisattva ideal. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.

“It is so simple and so basically human, the capacity to recognize that we’re suffering or that we’re happy. In relationship to grand religious philosophies and ideas, it can seem maybe inconsequential to base one’s religious life on being able to recognize where is harm and where is welfare. But that relates at the heart to what the Buddha was pointing at. It points to something that we are able to experience and see and know for ourselves directly.” – Gil Fronsdal

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In a dharma talk on relative and ultimate reality, JoAnna Hardy discusses how to hold the complexity of life.

This lecture was recorded at the Insight Meditation Retreat for 18–32 Year Olds and originally published by Dharmaseed.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

In this episode, JoAnna Hardy offers a talk on:

• How and why we keep returning to our suffering
• Dominant paradigms and what is out of our control
• The way that the Buddhist experience introduces us to ultimate reality
• Relative reality and what is happening on the ground
• How we are all invited to be free via the Four Noble Truths
• The ways we struggle with trying to control other people
• Anatta, identity, and the way we hold onto our self-hood
• How we show up in the world through our speech, actions, and thoughts
• The Eightfold Path as the things we can control
• Paying attention to who we spend our time with

About JoAnna Hardy: 

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice. 

“I’ve really worked on this practice of looking at a person; I’m not only looking at them. I’m looking at probably thousands of people who stand behind them, who have created them, who have created their way of thinking, their way of being. Every teacher, every friend, every person they come into contact with creates this being that is in front of us.” – JoAnna Hardy

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In this recording from the Ram Dass Fellowship, Jamie Catto describes surrendering to the power of Yin in our daily lives.

To learn more and sign up for the Ram Dass Fellowship, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship. To support this free offering, please consider leaving a donation at RamDass.org/Donate.

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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Jamie and Jackie explore:

• The difference between Yin and Yang
• Surrendering to the flow of Yin
• The benefits of yin parenting
• Listening receptively in love making
• Dancing as an example of Yin
• Curiosity as a quality of Yin
• The power of Yin in allaying our overworking imaginations
• Our culture’s avoidance of negative emotions
• The emotional plumbing system of the body
• Forging paths through the forest of worry and anxiety
• Embodying peace for the world
• A guided mindfulness meditation from Jamie
• Practicing loving awareness and self-love

About Jamie Catto:

Jamie’s mission is to make self-reflection hip enough to save us from ourselves. Jamie Catto is the director of the 2019 film Becoming Nobody, the quintessential portal to Ram Dass’ life and teachings (BecomingNobody.com). He is an author and musician running transformational workshops and events to reclaim all the treasure we edited away into the shadows and facilitate everyone daring to be more real, more fallible, more tender, more intimate. His mission is to create a world full of ‘walking permission slips’ where we all lighten up and enjoy the unpredictable human path together with humor, playfulness, and a healthy dose of irreverence. Jamie’s workshops and 1-1s provide a refreshing approach to inner work with the right dose of playfulness and depth. Keep up with Jamie on his website or on Instagram.

“So much of the treasure, creativity, lovemaking, parenting, laughing, dancing, the flow of the life is to be experienced when we allow ourselves to be moved and practice the qualities of Yin, which are curiosity, surrender, welcomeness, listening, spaciousness, all of those kinds of things where we let life live us and we become in the flow of the greater river of life.” – Jamie Catto

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Exploring mental constructs, Gil Fronsdal describes how we construct the relationships to our experiences.

This recording from the Insight Meditation Center was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

On this episode of the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal talks about these topics:

• A four line Buddhist chant in Pali
• The impermanence of all constructed things
• Mindfulness and the practice of noticing
• Exploring one’s relationship to the present moment
• Moving our attention with a deliberate calmness
• Meditation instruction as the antidote to relating negatively
• Our attitudes and how they affect our experiences
• Non-reactive awareness in order to avoid new constructions
• Identity and the stories we tell about ourselves
• Allowing “I am” to stand by itself

About Gil Fronsdal:

Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. Gil has an undergraduate degree in agriculture from U.C. Davis where he was active in promoting the field of sustainable farming. In 1998 he received a PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University studying the earliest developments of the bodhisattva ideal. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.

“To quiet these constructions is happiness. To be able to question these things, and slowly perhaps, maybe even imperceptibly, to allow these constructs to calm down, relax, not buy into them as much. Maybe not buy into them as much because we notice them.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Trudy Goodman explains how we can practice compassionate presence in all moments, even those that are uncomfortable.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Trudy Goodman delves into:

• How we often overlook the simple practices that will make us spiritually contented
• Meditating while doing ordinary things
• Retreats and being in the present
• Buddhist cosmology as representation of our own awakened qualities
• Offering compassion to ourselves and to others
• Tolerating the raw experience of being alive
• Getting caught in the ideal of being a spiritual person
• Naming and recognizing negative experiences like hate, lust, etc.
• Treating the content of each moment as a chance for presence and awakening
• Forgiving ourselves when our heart runs wild

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide.

Learn more about Trudy’s offerings at trudygoodman.com

“It’s this loving, caring attentiveness that gives us the courage to come so close to experience, even experiences we most wish we could turn away from.” – Trudy Goodman

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Renowned Buddhist teacher, Frank Ostaseski, discusses death, impermanence, and the principle of non-waiting.

Today’s episode was recorded as part of the Ram Dass Fellowship’s regular online gatherings. To learn more about the Ram Dass Fellowship and sign up to join a fellowship gathering near you, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship.

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 Hosted by Jackie Dobrinska, this recording from the Ram Dass Fellowship features Frank Ostaseski discussing:

• Creation stories and the shaping of humans
• Why the breath is so important (Including a guided breath meditation!)
• The five invitations and how these principles are designed to help you embrace life to the fullest
• Navigating life transitions, coping with loss, facing serious illness, or personal crises
• Heartfelt real-life stories combined with ancient wisdom
• How an awareness of mortality can be a supportive companion on the journey to living well
• Regarding death as a final stage of growth
• Not waiting as an antidote to regret
• The beauty of life when we recognize and accept impermanence

About Frank Ostaseski:

Frank Ostaseski, an internationally respected Buddhist teacher and pioneer in end-of-life care, has accompanied over 1,000 people through their dying process. Acclaimed author of The Five Invitations, Frank co-founded the first Buddhist hospice in America—The Zen Hospice Project. In 2005, he founded the Metta Institute, through which he has trained countless clinicians and caregivers, building a national network of educators, advocates, and guides for those facing a life-threatening illness.

About Jackie Dobrinska:

Jackie Dobrinska is the Director of Education, Community & Inclusion for Ram Dass’ Love, Serve, Remember Foundation and the current host of Ram Dass’ Here & Now podcast. She is also a teacher, coach, and spiritual director with the privilege of marrying two decades of mystical studies with 15 years of expertise in holistic wellness. As an interspiritual minister, Jackie was ordained in Creation Spirituality in 2016 and has also studied extensively in several other lineages – the plant-medicine-based Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Sri Vidya Tantra, Western European Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, the Wise Woman Tradition, and others. Today, in addition to building courses and community for LSRF, she leads workshops and coaches individuals to discover, nourish and live from their most authentic selves. 

Learn more about Jackie’s work at asimplevibrantlife.com.

“I think when we embrace impermanence a certain grace can enter into our lives. We can treasure experiences, we can feel deeply, all without clinging. We’re free to savor and touch the texture of every passing moment.” – Frank Ostaseski

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In a reflection on absorbing the power of compassion, Matthieu Ricard shares his meditative story with Rohan Gunatillake.

This episode was originally aired on Meditative Story, a podcast that combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of mindfulness practice – all surrounded by breathtaking and cinematic music. You can find Meditative Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more!

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

Matthieu Ricard takes us on a meditative journey through:

• Exposure to extraordinary people
• The correlation between intelligence, creativity, and human goodness
• How documentary images of Tibet inspired Matthieu to experience the far east for himself
• The smells, sounds, and sensations of entering India for the first time
• Meeting Kangyur Rinpoche and experiencing an aura of peace
• Leaving after his PhD to study full time with Kangyur Rinpoche in India
• Allowing presence to permeate our minds
• Actualizing the Buddha nature

About Matthieu Ricard:

Matthieu Ricard is a Nepalese-French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. He is also the author of Notebooks Of A Wandering Monk. He has spent years of his life in the presence of some of the world’s greatest mindfulness practitioners and felt the weight of their powerful compassion. Learn more about Matthieu and his work HERE.

About Rohan Gunatillake:

Rohan Gunatillake is a writer, entrepreneur, and host of the podcast Meditative Story. By artfully crafting meditations to compliment each guest’s story, Rohan blends mindfulness with narrative to create a unique listening experience, encouraging listeners to use someone else’s transformative moment as the basis for their own. He’s also the founder of the best-selling app Buddhify, and author of Modern Mindfulness: How to Be More Relaxed, Focused, and Kind While Living in a Fast, Digital, Always-On World.

“We do not need words. We do not need to analyze or even comprehend. The quality of the presence is self-evident. It is best to just experience it, let it permeate your mind and become a part of you. Ultimately, it is up to each practitioner to actualize the Buddha nature dwelling within each of us.” – Matthieu Ricard

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Focusing on the ways that Buddhism points us inward, Gil Fronsdal explains the dharma in a brief and accessible way.

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In this guest episode, Gil lectures on:

• Emptiness within Theravada Buddhism
• What happens after our basic necessities are met
• How we are versus what we do
• Becoming free from doctrines
• The importance of practice and heightened sensitivity
• Suffering and the cessation of suffering
• Skillful actions and improving the quality of inner life
• The portability of inner wealth
• The limitations of obsessing over the self
• Craving and how we can hold sensations without clinging

“You can experience suffering in all of many forms and you can experience the liberation and freedom from it, the absence of it. The guideline here is what you can know for yourself. The inner life, the quality of your life, what you can know for yourself, that’s really what this tradition is pointing to.” – Gil Fronsdal

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In an entire episode of guided practice, JoAnna Hardy leads listeners deeper into the sensations of the body.

This dharma talk was recorded at Insight Meditation Society – Retreat Center and originally published on Dharmaseed.org.

In this episode, JoAnna guides listeners towards:

• Stabilizing the mind and slowing down
• Paying attention to the sensations of our bodies
• Noticing the things our bodies come into contact with
• Recognizing pain, being with it, and redirecting our attention if necessary
• Understanding our choice in how we have experiences
• A walking meditation practice
• Remaining connected to the bodies we inhabit

About JoAnna Hardy: 

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs.

Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice. 

“In this flesh suit of muscle and bone, we can get to know the sensations. What do those sensations feel like without the mind telling us what they feel like? What are the sensations of pain in our body? Tingling, prickly pressure, tension, being curious to knowing it. One of the options can be that we redirect our attention somewhere else in the body.” – JoAnna Hardy

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