Through meditation and lecture, Gil Fronsdal outlines how the awareness of awareness is more important than the content of an experience.

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

• Giving too much importance to our experiences
• Being mindful of whatever is present in a given moment
• The authority we give to our fixations
• Dropping into the experience of the body breathing
• Knowing our feelings and thoughts and noticing when we are distracted
• A guided mediation from Gil to develop awareness of awareness

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.

“In some ways, it doesn’t matter that much where you bring your attention, what matters is that you’re using it. You can develop just as much clarity of mind and presence of mind on the rain sound as you can on your breathing, as you can on almost anything.” – Gil Fronsdal

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In this 2022 retreat session, Spring Washam and Sharon Salzberg take a deeper look at mindfulness, the foundation of the Buddhist tradition.

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In this episode, Sharon and Spring hold a discourse on:

• Working directly with our mind
• An opening body scan meditation with Spring
• The practice of Satipatthana and finding freedom through mindfulness
• Finding the end of suffering by examining our own body internally
• The importance of posture in meditation
• Viewing the present moment without distortion
• Our relationship to what is arising
• Toxic happiness and negation of the real
• Being with what is actually happening moment to moment
• Metta as an open, connected, interested quality of the heart
• A closing metta meditation from Sharon
• Recognizing the power of good that moves through us

About Sharon Salzberg:

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is one of the first to bring mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture over 45 years ago, inspiring generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is co-founder of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller, 

Real Happiness, now in its second edition, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness.

Her forthcoming release, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom, is set for release in April of 2023 from Flatiron Books. Her podcast, The Metta Hour, has amassed five million downloads and features interviews with thought leaders from the mindfulness movement and beyond.

Learn more about Sharon and order your copy of her new book at www.sharonsalzberg.com

About Spring Washam:

Spring Washam is a well-known teacher, author, and visionary leader based in Oakland, California. She is the author of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based meditation practices to diverse communities. She is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She has practiced and studied Buddhist philosophy in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism since 1999. She is a member of the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California where she was trained for over a decade.

In addition to being a teacher, she is also a shamanic practitioner and has studied indigenous healing practices since 2008. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, a one-of-a-kind organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom in South America. Her writings and dharma teachings have appeared in many online journals and publications. She currently teaches meditation retreats and leads workshops, and classes worldwide.

Spring currently teaches meditation retreats and leads workshops, and classes worldwide: springwasham.com and is cohost of her own podcast on Be Here Now Network, The Spirit Underground.

“There is something really important about us being willing to be with what is true, not with what we want, but the real experience. We wake up, there’s heartache, I didn’t want heartache but there it is. Can I be real with that?” – Spring Washam

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Sharing her recent near-death experience, Trudy Goodman explains how and why dharma practice is essential to facing death without fear.

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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Buddhist teacher Trudy Goodman shares:

• How even slivers of wisdom light up our life
• Her personal story of a near-death experience and choosing to live
• The imminence of death and knowing it can come at any time
• The extraordinary opportunity it is to be born
• The value in each moment we are aware
• The way that life takes care of life
• Learning to rest and not push
• Freedom from surrendering to the way things are
• How who we are is more important than what we do
• The way that pain concentrates the mind and tests our practice
• Appreciating all of the little moments that act as dharma doorways

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed

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.

“Who we are is more important than what we do. It just is. It’s really true that just being alive is a gift, even though there are moments when it doesn’t feel like that.” – Trudy Goodman

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Gil Fronsdal offers Buddhist wisdom on relating skillfully to our emotions and seeing them as messengers of our inner worlds.

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In this talk, Gil Fronsdal lectures about:

• Identifying emotions without getting lost in the story
• The necessity and benefits of feeling pain
• Knowing what's happening as it's happening
• How most of us are driven by our desires and aversions
• Simply knowing and how free our knowing can be
• Making room for our experiences
• How our emotions let us know what we should pay attention to
• Learning how our emotions live in the intelligent system of our body
• How reactivity blocks us from processing emotions
• Being in our body and allowing processes to unfold

“One of the primary functions of emotions is to let us know something is important. They’re knocking on the door of our capacity to know. They are not accidents, they’re not incidental, they’re not annoyances, they’re not unfortunate. They’re actually a very important form of which your inner life is presenting itself to you.” – Gil Fronsdal

This talk was originally published on Dharmaseed

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Professor and Investigator Dr. Quevedo is hosted by Jackie Dobrinska for a philosophical talk on interrelation and psychedelic therapies.

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In this episode, Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo and Jackie Dobrinska explore:

• The qualities of love within the heart
• How the chemical components of MDMA aid in social bonding and heart-opening
• Touching into transcendent realms and the divine
• The importance of our worldviews
• Navigating difficult experiences when using plant medicine
• Turning to sacred texts to glean understanding
• Ram Dass’ perspectives on psychedelics
• How the Bhagavad Gita can help us
• The Indigenous 7 generation teaching
• The efficacy of MDMA in PTSD treatment
• Awareness and appreciation for nature
• The importance of community and being in connection
• The uses of psychedelics beyond the medical model

This conversation was recorded as part of the Ram Dass Explorer’s club. To learn more and sign up to join a Ram Dass fellowship gathering near you, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship.

About Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo:

Sylvestre Quevedo is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a Principal Investigator in an FDA trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and UCSF. He earned his medical degree at the Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard School of Public Health. After postdoctoral training in family and community medicine at the University of Arizona, he spent four years developing community health center programs in underserved communities in Colorado, Washington and California. He returned to postdoctoral education with studies in law and public policy at the Stanford Law School, followed by internal medicine at Stanford and a fellowship in nephrology and medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar.

Learn more about Dr. Quevedo HERE.

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 inter-spiritual 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. 

“The defining characteristic of a medicine carrier is his/her relationship with the medicine. These are not just chemicals or herbs, these are sentient beings that you’re in communication with.” – Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo

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In a stimulating talk on reincarnation, ego-death, and other dimensions, renowned Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee bridges this world and the next.

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This week, teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee returns to explore:

• The unknowable essence of death
• Lessons and instructions from the Upanishads
• Dying to the ego before we die to this physical world
• The transcendent dimension of our own being
• Having choice in the afterlife if one transcends their ego in their life
• How relationships with spiritual teachers can last lifetime after lifetime
• Reincarnation and unfinished spiritual lessons
• Journeying through other dimensions
• Death as a friend and destination
• How easy it is to be caught in the distortions of the world
• Learning the lessons of our individual souls
• Being surrounded by an all-embracing light

About Llewellyn:

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is the author of Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart, and the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Check out his new podcast Working With Oneness.

“The further one travels along the spiritual path, the more life and death are intertwined. The mystery for me has always been how life covers over so much of our true nature, which

death reveals.” – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Describing writing as an act of faith, author Anne Lamott offers a workshop on connecting to our inner longing for creativity.

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This week, Anne Lamott joins the BHNN Guest podcast to teach: 

• Following our creative lives and childhood callings
• Meeting our creativity half-way
• How all of us start at the beginning
• Making time for writing in our lives
• Figuring out what it is we want to write and making a list
• Owning everything that was done to us and everything we have seen
• Accepting that our first drafts will not be wonderful
• Why we should not worship perfectionism
• Finding a writing partner or local writing group
• Taking everything sentence by sentence
• Paying attention to ourselves and all that dwells within us

To read the poem Anne recites, Monet Refuses the Operation, click HERE.

About Anne Lamott:

Anne Lamott is the New York Times best-selling author of many books, including collections of essays, novels, and long-form non-fiction, including the classic writing manual Bird by Bird and child-rearing memoir Operating Instructions. In addition to being a novelist and nonfiction writer, Lamott is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Keep up with Anne on Instagram.

“Isn’t that amazing what is inside you that wants you to midwife it? It needs a doula. It needs you. It has no pens. It has no paper. It needs you to birth it. So here is what you do, you stop not writing.” – Anne Lamott

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Live from Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Trudy Goodman offers insight on skillfully working with the breath by infusing mindfulness with lovingkindness.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Buddhist teacher Trudy Goodman discusses:

• Keeping the breath company with our attention from start to finish
• The breath as a rudder to navigate our inner experience
• Staying attuned and connected to the movement of the breath
• Finding safety and relaxation in our breath
• Alternative practices for those with asthma or other breathing concerns
• Studying the birth and death of experience
• How the Buddha practiced mindfulness of breath during his great awakening
• Feeling the breath within the breath
• Returning to the breath when our attention strays

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed

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

“We’re really looking at and studying the birth and death of experience, how a breath arises, moves, and passes away.” – Trudy Goodman

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This week, Buddhist Teacher Gil Fronsdal explores our quality of well-being and how we can cultivate ease, happiness, and contentment on the path to inner liberation.

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In this talk on cultivating well-being through Buddhist practice, Gil touches on:

• Happiness as something we do not pursue, but cultivate by creating and recognizing conditions for it
• The “three breath journey” meditation practice, which helps to shift perception and be present
• Developing clarity and ease through mindfulness practice
• Transforming challenging emotions and experiences by befriending them non-judgmentally
• Physical presence and awareness in the body as a part of cultivating well-being
• Experimenting with different mindfulness techniques to find what brings you joy and ease

“We create the conditions for happiness, and we learn to recognize the conditions that bring it forth. But we try not to be the cause of happiness, but we are cultivating happiness and well-being.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Describing the man-made wall between humans and divinity, Llewellyn reminds us of our own divine nature and how to access the light.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, returning guest teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee discusses:

• “The Wall” between ourselves and the Divine
• The spiritual merging of the lover with the beloved
• Separation as a consequence of human consciousness
• Llewellyn’s book, Darkening of the Light
• The slow process of spiritual life and lifting the veil
• The wall that has been built between humans and divine
• How Christianity eradicated pagan beliefs and strengthened the wall between worlds
• Communism and capitalism as the twin demons of the world
• Accessing the light through our higher spiritual centers
• Going beyond the world rather than dismantling it
• Re-learning how to be sincere, responsible, and open
• Our shared evolution and a better, possible future

About Llewellyn:

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is the author of Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart, and the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Check out his new podcast Working With Oneness.

“The Sufis describe how we need a separation between the worlds, 70 veils of light and darkness or the glories of his face would burn away everything. As I know from my own experience, the light of the divine is too dazzling to perceive it directly. Its energy is too strong. This is one of the reasons why spiritual life is a slow process, a gradual lifting of the veils as one develops spiritual strength, becomes more and more able to bear the light.” – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Reflecting on the inevitable truth of suffering, JoAnna Hardy explains what we do have jurisdiction over: our action, speech and mind.

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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, JoAnna Hardy explains:

• Recognizing the first noble truth of suffering all around us
• Breaking down what we cannot control in life
• How resistance toward the inevitable causes suffering
• Reflecting on our ability to control our internal world (priorities, attitudes, etc.)
• How our speech and actions are in our jurisdiction
• Cultivating a wise, steady, and skillful heart and mind
• The mind as our sixth sense
• The way we latch on to the stories we tell ourselves
• How one mind-state can feed into another
• Retraining the phenomena of our habits
• The relief we can feel when we let go of what we cannot control

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.

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

“When we sit here and deeply pay attention to this process of the mind, it’s so fascinating. What is under my control, what can I control? Pay attention every time you have a mind moment to what you do with it and to it, and how you hold it, and what you decide your next mind moment is going to be.” – JoAnna Hardy

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