Dharma Insight | Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville

Ruth King shares that “Racism is a heart disease, and it’s curable.” In this talk she shares insights from her new book, Mindful of Race, and her approach of blending mindfulness principles and meditation with an exploration of our racial conditioning, its impact, and our potential. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey shares that the Buddha offered a path and practices for his students to learn how to navigate and settle peacefully in relationship to the vicissitudes of life. All of us are subject to what he called the 8 Worldly Winds. They are gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure and pain. Most people spend their entire lives buffeted by the turbulence of these ‘winds’, never knowing the deep peace and restoration possible by learning how to work skillfully with these energies. Meditation teachers and practitioners all have their favorite methods and techniques. In this talk, Pat shares what he considers the most important aspect of practice. The methodology of how to conceptualize and work with the Worldly Winds in a way that brings deep peace and restoration of body and mind. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares that at a time when truth is a frequent hostage to those with the loudest or angriest voices, our insight tradition teaches truth-telling as a practice. The practice includes, but reaches beyond, the statement of facts. It involves consciously aligning with and embodying our deepest truths and values. Following a guided meditation, Susan Stone will explore how truth-telling is a sane and compassionate practice that leads us onward on our spiritual journey. This session is suitable for beginners as well as seasoned practitioners. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Jeanne van Gemert shares how the added dimensions of the Buddhist teaching expand our perspective and provide richness to our path. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares that the Buddha said his Dharma (teaching) is "good in the beginning, good in the middle and good in the end." Following a guided meditation, Susan will offer overview observations about the Buddha's graduated teaching. Grounded in the wisdom of loving, skillful and ethical approaches in daily life, the teaching expands to the mystery of formlessness. It is a transformative, lifetime journey, and it welcomes us at every stage. All is good. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey shares that every spiritual path worth it's salt has elements of practice. Real transformation requires this. There is no end-run around practicing. In a real sense, any skill you have learned..... you have earned. As humans, we are naturally inclined to move away from anything challenging and toward pleasure. That is how we roll. Given that, establishing a transformative spiritual practice is significantly supported by finding ways to bring elements of pleasantness into practice. This evening we will look at various ways to bring Joy and pleasant means into your practice such that it moves formal practice from being another improvement project to a 'looked-forward-to' time of your day that is restorative, calming and joyful. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone shares in this talk: in this fraught world, it is helpful to remember the Buddha's teaching of living in joy and love even among those who hate. When we look deeply into the teachings, we realize the way to do this requires us not only to cultivate lovingkindness and compassion, but to move into difficult territory that we almost instinctively resist—namely, our resistance to the inherent pain of Life. Following a guided meditation, Susan will offer a talk that explores the Buddha's 1st Noble Truth, the truth of suffering. The talk investigates how living in joy and love calls on us, as the Dharma teaches, to surrender, even as we work to alleviate suffering. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley shares that in the Mahanama Sutta, the Buddha teaches us how to cultivate the mind so that it becomes a fertile ground for true, deep and lasting awakening from the trance of suffering. In this talk, we will together explore his instruction to Mahanama, investigating the ways that this teaching offers practical encouragement and guidance with the mind's modern confusions and dilemmas. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey explores the view or perspective of how this creation operates will determine your level of happiness or suffering. If your view is a Wise View, a view aligned with nature you will suffer less and enjoy greater happiness. It is just that simple. The Buddha has declared that a Wise View is both the beginning and end of the contemplative path. Without the arising of even a tepid perspective that a contemplative practice might hold some benefit for you there is no further exploration. No contemplative practice ever gets started. If you are reading this description from our website there is already something turning in you. There is an interest, an inspiration, a curiosity to explore the possibility that there is benefit in a contemplative practice. That is your beginning. As your practice matures your view, your perspective, your weltanschauung becomes ever richer, nuanced and aligned with the natural flow. Suffering decreases and joy, love, compassion and peace abound. In this talk we explore the Buddhist concept of Wise View and how to cultivate the kind of perspective that serves you and all those around you. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

IMCC is pleased to welcome guest teacher, Caverly Morgan. She is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Peace in Schools and Presence Collective. She trained for eight years in a silent monastery and now teaches meditation through retreats, workshops, and online courses nationally and internationally. Peace in Schools has created the first, for credit mindfulness class for public High Schools and also offers mindfulness trainings for adults. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the final in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Sharon Beckman-Brindley, Susan Stone, Jeff Fracher, Teresa Miller, and Helen Farrar lead a discussion of the Brahma Viharas series. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the 9th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Susan Stone leads group practice and contemplation of Equanimity. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley explores how our practice can help us to work with relational or systemic conflicts and difficulties that may arise. You are invited to bring to mind a conflict or difficulty that is causing you some stress and that, at times, may seem unworkable - or rather, that seems to require something or someone outside of your own mind to change. We will offer guidance on some of the many ways that the Buddha invites us to work with these inevitable life challenges. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley presents this 8th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Equanimity is a middle path inviting deep presence with all of life. This fourth of the Brahma Viharas invites us to see with wisdom what is here, both internally and externally. Cultivating equanimity, we practice greeting it ALL with curiosity, kindness and compassion for self and others, nourished by joy in the unfolding of wholesome goodness in the world and in ourselves. Equanimity allows us to maintain our balance even in great difficulty as we see clearly both what's here and what's needed. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

In this talk, Teresa Miller highlights key aspects of the Brahma Viharas and how they are inter-related. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the 7th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Helen Farrar lead group practice and contemplation of Sympathetic Joy. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Guided meditation and dharma talk by Pat Coffey. Various meditation forms are designed to enhance the strength of the parasympathetic nervous system -- the aspect of your nervous system that supports relaxation, joy and ease. The Buddha taught greater than four dozen meditation techniques. In this guided meditation and dharma talk Pat Coffey teaches several powerful methods that support the cultivation of greater tranquility. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the 6th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Susan Stone presents an overview of Sympathetic Joy. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the 5th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Jeff Fracher presents several practices that focus on buildling compassion. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

This is the 4th in a ten-part series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In this talk Teresa Miller presents a closer look at compasion. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Apr 3, 2018. During this series on the Brahma Viharas we've explored together the practice of loving kindness and some questions have emerged. Some have wondered about prayer or the meaning of "wishing." Others have been puzzled about a practice that actively encourages cultivation: "I thought we are just supposed to notice?" In this talk we explore more deeply the meaning and practice of "prayer" in our Buddhist tradition. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Mar 27, 2018. Sharon guided a discussion about lovingkindness and how to practice so that it becomes a living and deeply meaningful part of our own daily lives. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Salzberg gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Mar 20, 2018. Sharon reflects on real love and true happiness and how it can be cultivated. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Mar 13, 2018. This is the 2nd in a ten-part, series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Here, Susan Stone presents a closer look at lovingkindness. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Mar 6, 2018. This is the first in a ten-part, series focusing on active engagement with the four heart qualities that are a prominent part of the Buddha’s teachings. The qualities, known as Brahma Viharas, are lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Here, Susan Stone presents an overview that focuses on why, in these times of great violence, practicing the Brahma Viharas is a radical act that can enlarge and sweeten our lives. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey gave this guided meditation at IMCC on Feb 14, 2018. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Feb 6, 2018. In a large part your relationship to change determines the amount of joy, ease, happiness, angst and suffering you experience in this life. Tonight we will explore the very 'nature of nature'. The most profound truth of nature is that everything is moving and changing.....everything.....and that a deep internalization of this natural truth opens you to great ease and freedom. It is more than an intellectual exercise to know change intimately. There are many practices offered by The Buddha that are designed to support your deepening comfort with change. This program will include a meditation on Befriending Change. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Susan Stone gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Jan 31, 2018. Spiritual practice is onward-leading, as teacher Joseph Goldstein observed. However, we each face challenges as we practice, and often the movement can seem anything but onward. It can be discouraging. After a guided meditation, Susan Stone shares some of her practice challenges over time, Her account may serve to normalize your struggles and, perhaps, throw light on what she has experienced as the onward direction of practice. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Jeff Fracher gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Jan 23, 2018. What is true happiness and can we ever experience it? How does it differ from transient happiness or joy? This dharma talk explores the path to true happiness and offer strategies for achieving it. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Teresa Miller gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Jan 16, 2018. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Jan 09, 2018. "The purpose of life is to be happy." --Dalai Lama The Buddha developed and then taught about states of happiness: those that are dependent on conditions and those that are not dependent on any conditions at all. The path that he has given us is primarily a path to the latter: a happiness that is completely independent of conditions. Sometimes, however, when we offer the Buddha's teachings on ultimate awakening, it can appear that we are denigrating "lesser" kinds: the happiness of the simple pleasant: contact with the natural world, with belonging, with a healthy body and a mature and healthy and integrated mind. This talk will outline how these different kinds of happiness relate to each other. It will also attempt to help practitioners diagnose which "level" of practice might currently be in need of closer attention and practice. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Jan 2, 2018. “That gladness connected with what is wholesome, I call an equipment of mind for overcoming ill-will and hostility.” --The Buddha In difficut times we are encouraged to connect with the wholesome. In the words of singer-songwriter and Zen priest Leonard Cohen, we might best focus our energy to "ring the bells that still can ring." For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Helen Farrar gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Dec 12, 2017. Not being clear about how who “our people” have been—and are—can be a source of suffering, confusion, and conflict, subtle and not so subtle, both within and without. How can we open to that spacious field where all are “our people”? This talk will take a look at using our mindfulness practice to explore and hold kindly the life we were born into as a way of opening our minds—and our hearts— to “the other”, and to bringing more spaciousness and peace to ourselves and those around us. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Jeff Fracher gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Dec 5, 2017. Regret is central to the human experience, both for things we have done and things we have not done. How does the Dharma address the challenge of living with regret? How does excessive regret impede our progress on our spiritual path? The talk will offer a different perspective on living with the regret in our lives. For more information, please visit the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville website: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Nov 28, 2017. In our ordinary way of looking at things, we usually see ourselves and others through socially constructed perceptions and limited views. These do, indeed, have some practical utility. Nevertheless, if we misunderstand, we can identify with these perceptions and views in ways that can lead to much suffering for ourselves and others. This evening's talk will explore this process and will offer an invitation to soften our attachments to our perceptions and views as we open to a larger mystery. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Nov 21, 2017. Much of the time, we live, not so much in a real world, but in the filtered world made up of all of the perceptions, interpretations and stories we have learned over a lifetime. The Buddha referred to these as mirages that keep our own and others' suffering in place. Spiritual practice invites us to cultivate qualities of mind and heart that enable us to see with wider and wiser eyes. This talk explores how to do this - even at our holiday dinner tables. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Laura Good gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Nov 7, 2017. Laura discusses the teaching of the Second Arrow and how to "dodge the dart" with mindfulness. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Jeff Fracher gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Oct 3, 2017. Though the concept of ego has a specific connotation in the West, it has a very different meaning when referenced in Buddhism. We explore the concept of ego from a Buddhist perspective and discuss the ways in which it can impede our progress on our path. Tools for managing the ego will also be offered. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Susan Stone gave this dharma talk at IMCC on Sep 26, 2017. Susan Stone reflects on an experience with the negativity bias of the mind and how to work with it compassionately. She will also explore why we often resist needful life changes and why we need to step into them. At talk for all, whether you are new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Pat Coffey gave this dharma talk on Sep 19, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. Pat shares mediation practices that support our journey as "contemplative artists". For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Teresa Miller gave this dharma talk on Sep 12, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Jeff Fracher gave this dharma talk on Aug 22, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. None of us are spared the experience of loss in our lives. How do we respond to grief when we experience a loss? What do the Buddha’s teachings offer us in dealing with our grief? We will explore the teachings on grief and how to fully embrace life even as we grieve our losses. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Teresa Miller gave this dharma talk on Aug 8, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. What is ours to do in aiming toward the creation of beloved community? The Buddha’s teaching was a kind of framework to learn to be honest with ourselves and with what’s going on in our minds, in our bodies, in our lives. As always, the talk may provide guidance for living this moment and the ones to come – today and tomorrow – with awareness, and an intention to do no harm, to ease suffering. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk on Aug 1, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. In our practice, we regularly hear beautiful and wholesome instruction on presence, on peace and on mindfulness and concentration: "Be here now." When we actually sit on our cushions, however, especially after reading the morning headlines, or anticipating a difficult phone call, or following a challenging day at work or with those hordes of visiting relatives, or considering the white supremacy rallies in Charlottesville, we can easily despair as the mind and emotions wander about. This evening's talk will explore very specifically how our practice points us directly to peaceful and calm abiding - as well as to wise and skillful action - in the midst of life's inner and outer challenges. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Ruth King gave this dharma talk on Jul 25, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. Ruth King is a national Insight Meditation Teacher and Emotional Wisdom author and consultant. She is a guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, core teacher in the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the founder of Mindful Members Insight Meditation Community in Charlotte, NC. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Laura Good gave this dharma talk on Jul 18, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. In addition to being a producer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Laura is a longtime meditator. Combining these interests, she has studied Buddhist chanting from various traditions. In this session she provides an introduction to chanting and teaches several chants. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk on Jul 11, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. When life is challenging, internally or externally, we can find ourselves confused and uncertain about how to live our spiritual practice, how to proceed. While all of the Dharma is a guide, we can still be confused in the moment: what is mine to do? Here? Now? Tonight's talk will explore and hopefully strengthen our personal and unique ability to rest in this confusion as a perfect doorway to the clarity of the sacred. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Teresa Miller gave this dharma talk on Jul 4, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. We celebrate July 4th in the USA with words and symbols that express philosophical values of democracy and equality. Yet we are aware of explicit and implicit bias, a transparent disparity and inequity, that creates harm in our selves, our community, the world. In the face of suffering, how do we remember, and embody, our interdependence, in order to respond wisely and kindly? For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Jeffrey Fracher gave this dharma talk on Jun 27, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. While the Buddha taught extensively about compassion as an important part of practice, there is little mention in the Pali Canon about self-compassion. We will address why so many of us struggle with feelings of self-loathing. We will explore the topic of compassion toward ourselves and examine the specific ways we can incorporate a practice of self-compassion into our daily practice. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Kristina Weaver gave this dharma talk on May 30, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. Kristina reflects on Memorial Day and the recent events surrounding Charlottesville's Lee Park with the aim of providing encouragement for meditators to embrace a socially engaged practice. By learning to examine conflict with care, equanimity, and compassion -- and to anticipate the messiness of social change -- we can begin again and again in our efforts to support justice, peace, connection, and harmlessness for ourselves and others. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org

Sharon Beckman-Brindley gave this dharma talk on May 27, 2017 at the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville 2017 Spring Retreat at Serenity Ridge. For more information, please visit: imeditation.org