Podcasts about living dharma

Today we explore the story of the Buddha's awakening through a mythic lens with Buddhist writer and teacher, John Tarrant. We touch into topics like Zen koan, grief, death, art, and how this timeless parable of the Buddh's story still resonants for thousands of years. John Tarrant is a Zen teacher, writer, and poet who has studied koans for over forty years. He is director of the Pacific Zen Institute and teaches culture change in organizations. Tarrant holds degrees in human sciences and English literature and a PhD in psychology. For twenty years, he was a Jungian psychotherapist working on dream analysis. He is the author of several books, including The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life and Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life and his most recent book The Story of the Buddha. He lives among the vineyards near Santa Rosa, California. Topics 00:00 Introduction 00:52 Introducing John Tarrant 02:07 Discussing 'The Story of the Buddha' 03:36 The Mythic Universe and Dreamlike Qualities 08:25 Illustrations and Artistic Choices 10:24 The Living Dharma and Personal Reflections 15:23 Modern Life and Spiritual Growth 18:26 Embracing Suffering and Death 22:19 Catholicism and Mysticism 27:57 The Light Inside the Dark 33:48 The Power of Noble Conversations 34:10 Craving and Contentment 34:44 Collective Grief and Environmental Collapse 36:05 The Enlightenment of a Samurai 38:07 The Buddha's Awakening and Interdependence 40:09 Dreams and Their Significance 42:59 Meditation and Connection with Animals 51:00 The Intimacy of Not Knowing 54:54 Returning to the Fire 56:13 Sharing the Dhamma Resources John Tarrant's Website: Tarrant Works The Story of the Buddha by John Tarrant: Shambhala Publications Roberto Calasso: Explore Roberto Calasso's Works Sounds of SAND #113 Ancient Rhythms Podcast: Pat McCabe & Francis Weller Sounds of SAND #98 Glissando of Consciousness: Andrew Holecek Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life by John Tarrant The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life by John Tarrant Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

Trechos dos livros “Living Dharma” e “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom”, de Jack Kornfield. Jack Kornfield (nascido em 1945), é Ph.D. em Psicologia Clínica, escritor e professor do movimento Vipassana no Budismo Theravada americano. Kornfield é descendente de judeus e tem quatro irmãos, seu pai era um cientista, o que o levou a se interessar por cura, medicina e ciência. Depois de se formar na universidade de Dartmouth College em 1967, Kornfield foi para a Tailândia, onde trabalhou em equipes de medicina tropical no vale do rio Mekong, e lá conheceu e se tornou um monge discípulo do mestre da floresta Ajahn Chah. Em 1972 Kornfield retornou aos Estados Unidos e após algum tempo fundou a Insight Meditation Society e Spirit Rock Meditation Center, os dois dos maiores centros budistas dos Estados Unidos. Jack treinou muitos dos professores de Vipassana na América e organizou e liderou reuniões para professores budistas em todo o mundo. Sendo um dos responsáveis por introduzir a atenção plena no Ocidente, Jack trabalhou para tornar o budismo acessível aos ocidentais, combinando bondade amorosa e autocompaixão com a prática da atenção plena, incorporando a sabedoria da psicologia oriental e ocidental.

Chimyo Simone Atkinson, Sensei - ZMM - 6/9/24 - Chimyo Sensei explores the essential practice of zazen, and our genuine capacity to realize Buddha Nature. This practice can challenge us to face our own barriers, tapping into our innate ability to yield, like a dragon taking to the water, and the courage to move freely, like a tiger entering the mountains. Chimyo Sensei offers guidance to live the dharma with whatever is arising, with grace, ease and joy.

Trechos do livro “Living Dharma”, de Jack Kornfield. Nascido na província de Udon Thani (Tailândia), Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo (1907–1961) foi um grande mestre da “Tradição Tailandesa das Florestas” do budismo Theravada. Aos 20 anos, Ajaan Lee ingressou na ordem monástica, dedicando-se ao desenvolvimento espiritual e à prática meditativa. Ao longo de sua vida monástica, estudou sob a orientação de vários mestres, dentre eles, um de seus professores foi Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta, um grande mestre conhecido por sua prática rigorosa e por seu compromisso com a vida ascética na floresta. Os ensinamentos de Ajaan Lee destacam-se pela ênfase na prática meditativa como um caminho para transcender o sofrimento humano. Ele enfatizou a importância da atenção plena no momento presente e da compreensão da natureza impermanente de todas as coisas. Ajaan Lee encorajou seus seguidores a cultivarem virtudes, desenvolverem a sabedoria e a compaixão, e a aplicarem os princípios do Dharma em suas vidas cotidianas. Seu legado continua vivo através dos ensinamentos transmitidos por seus discípulos, influenciando praticantes budistas em todo o mundo. “Todas as pessoas tem algum grau de atenção plena. As atividades comuns da vida, como dirigir um carro, assar um pão e assim por diante, exigem que estejamos atentos de alguma forma ao momento presente. Mas isso geralmente se alterna com longos lapsos de esquecimento. Podemos nos referir a essa atenção comum como mundana. Para alcançar o nirvana, a atenção plena deve tornar-se supramundana”. Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo Música: Circle Of Life - Deep Meditation Music (   • Deep Meditation Music | NSDR | Yoga N...  ) =======================================

April 2024 Sesshin, Day 5 Commentary on the teachings of Ajahn Chah (Part 2) from Living Dharma: Teachings and Meditation Instructions from Twelve Theravada Masters by Jack Kornfield. Teisho by Sensei John Pulleyn.  Automated Transcript The post Living Dharma #2 appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.

April 2024 Sesshin, Day 4 Commentary on the teachings of Ajahn Chah from Living Dharma: Teachings and Meditation Instructions from Twelve Theravada Masters by Jack Kornfield Teisho by Sensei John Pulleyn.  Automated Transcript The post Living Dharma #1 appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.

Note: the podcast recording was improvised based on this script and therefore has additional material.This 127th episode of the conscient podcast marks the halfway point of season 4, which, as you might recall, is called Sounding Modernity and explores what modernity might sound like, how it affects us and what we can do about it.. Maybe…A heads up that this episode is 57 minutes in duration because it is part of the ‘afield' series of framework radio in Estonia. The season began on January 1 with e101 tension:(Beginning of e101)I was thinking about the tensions in our lives and the art of finding balance points… So I went for a sound walk in Vancouver and came upon a piece of fishing line. I brought it home, strung it up and recorded myself plucking it…(cross fade to the end of e101)Listeners might recall that each episode this season ends with a question:How do you feel now?‘How do you feel now' is actually at the heart of this project. How do one perceive the sounds of our modern world? What does it feel like to absorb these sounds into our bodies? How can we change the way we listen?  How can we move away from the madness of modernity? And if, tragically, we are unable to step away, at the very least, how can we help prepare future generations for what is coming? How can art help? How can listening help? Are we helpless?(Silence then ocean sounds) I've received some interesting responses and reactions to the first 26 episodes and 6 blogs of the project so far, in various forms and channels, for example, this poem from artist and educator Carolina Duque (also known as Azul), submitted on January 3, 2023, about her experience with e101 tension :I walked down the sea line of San Andrés Island, in the Caribbean, as I listened.ListenedFelt the tensiontensIonI grew up on this island. I notice the shoreline getting smaller.I notice the corals turning grey. I notice the buildings growing taller. The overlapping reggaeton and vallenato music from competing speakers.I notice everything getting louder.I notice theTens – ion.I notice the menus saying fish is scarce.I noticeIn my lungs the tension. In my eyes the tension.In my waves, in my feet.The tension.(Ocean sound fade out)My response : I was reading Jenny Odell's ‘How To Do Nothing' book today and came upon this sentence that relates to your response. I quote: ‘I hold up bioregionalism as a model for how we might begin to think again about place' (end of quote), which to me means that we need to be stewards of the land, wherever we are, in collaboration with all living beings. I documented almost all of the feedback I received from listeners in my monthly conscient blog on conscient.ca. I am grateful for these gifts of knowledge and insight. (e102 aesthetics)Most episodes in this podcast are about the relationship between art and the ecological crisis. For example, in e102 aesthetics:The problem with beauty is that it can distract us from reality. Sit with me, please, take a moment. Sit and listen…I've also integrated soundscape compositions in and around the narrative, for example, from e103 heat:(end of e103)This thing is smart. Everything talks to each other. I would just leave it on auto and let it choose what it wants to do.  What does decarbonization sound like to you?How do we decarbonize our lifestyles? One way is to rethink the way we use energy in day to day life, for example, in e110 - drain, I talk about water : (beginning of e110)It goes down the drain (again) and into the sewer system to be processed and dumped into the Ottawa river, then it evaporates into the sky and it rains back into our lakes and rivers, bringing with it with many pollutants, and then is pumped into our homes, in our bodies and heated until… A friend, artist Maria Gomez, shared this response to e110 on March 6:Only the water doesn't stay in the Ottawa region, as it travels south in the moist of the clouds all the way to the Patagonia glaciers, and in ocean currents to Asia and its skies and then it travels up the Arctic… the water I bathe in contains my cells that are distributed around the world, and particles from the world touch me in the water.I responded:It's true that water travels in us, through us and beyond. The sound of water can be either pleasant or a signal of danger but either way we need to listen and understand the language of water…Some episodes call upon quotes from previous episode such as photographer Joan Sullivan in e96 from season 3 which I used in e106 fire : (near the end of e106)And it suddenly dawned on me that I, my hands, weren't shaking up because of the cold, but because of an anger, you know, this deep, profound anger about our collective indifference in the face of climate breakdown. Wait, we're just carrying on with our lives as if you know, la la la and nothing, nothing bad happening. So there was this sense of rage. I mean, like, honestly, it's surprising how strong it'd be in a violent rage just sort of coming outta me. I wanted to scream, and I just, you know, took my camera and just moved it violently, right? Left up, down the, and almost, I suppose, it was almost like I was drowning in the water. You know, my arms are just doing everything. And I was holding down the shutter the whole time, you know, 20, 30, 40 photos at a time. And I did it over. And oh, I was just, I was just, I was just beside myself. And you know, you at some point, you just stop and you're staring out at the river. And I just felt helpless. I just didn't know what to do…I hear you dear Joan. I also do not know what to do.I also called upon climate activist and politician Anjali Appadurai from e23 in season 2 in e114 :(middle section of e114 privilege)Privilege can go back as far as you wanted to go back, right? And of course it's so nuanced. It's not every white guy has this much privilege, but you do have a privilege that goes back hundreds of years and I think one aspect of privilege, one that a lot of people leave out, is this economic aspect, right, of class and resources. And that is not often talked about in the climate conversation, but it's a huge piece of it. Because when we talk about the extinction of our species, this extinction doesn't happen overnight. It happens in a spectrum. Who are the last ones standing? Those with the most resources and who are the first ones to go? It's those with the least, the most disenfranchised. So I don't think you can talk about climate without talking about privilege ultimately. And I think it's on each of us to unpack that for ourselves and to bring that into the conversation.(field recording of natural soundscape from Florida)The most ambitious episode so far has been e112 listening, which I presented as my keynote speech at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) conference Listening Pasts - Listening Futures, in Florida. It actually runs for over 10 minutes so I broke my own rule here of having only 5 minute episodes but I decided to go with the flow when an episode needed more time. Why not? Here the final sequence from e112: (from the end of e112)Conclusion 5 :  connect our effortsTodd Dufresne, e19: ‘Whoever survives these experiences will have a renewed appreciation for nature, for the external world, and for the necessity of collectivism in the face of mass extinction.'Asad Rehman, Green Dreamer podcast (e378) : ‘Our goal is to keep our ideas and policies alive for when the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable'. George Monbiot, tweet November 13, 2021 :  ‘We have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history.'My question to you is ‘how can listening help'?During the performance I walked out of the room at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach around the building asking that same question :How can listening help?(Recording from live performance of my keynote) Each episode of this season has a different aesthetic, a different style, depending on my inspiration, mood and what I am learning or unlearning on any given week. For example, some episodes feature unedited field recordings, such as the subway in Montreal in e120 metro where I invite you, the listener, to sit with the sound and let it speak to you, as if the sound were a living entity, which, I think, it is.(beginning of e120)Sometimes we just have to stop and listen. Without passing judgement. Just listen…. Sometimes we just have to stop and listen.Another example is the sound of freezing rain on a canopy of hard snow in a frozen forest in e122 quiet:(middle of e122)I suspect this one might seem a bit boring for some listeners because not much happens, but I enjoy listening to quiet spaces and tuning into more subtle sonic patterns and layers of sound and silence.(end of e122)When I launched Sounding Modernity in December 2022 I wrote that my intention was to :Address some of the causes of this massive and violent overreach of planetary boundaries but also to explore how we can preserve some of modernity's benefits, without the destruction.In retrospect I realise this was a very ambitious goal but also pretentious and sometimes naive. I soon realized that failure was not only inevitable but necessary in order to experience boundaries and limitations.Here's a quote from the Gift of Failure teaching by the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective in my February blog :We chose the word “gesture” for the title of our collective to underscore the fact that decolonization is impossible when our livelihoods are underwritten by colonial violence and unsustainability. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, our health systems and social security, and the technologies that allow us to write about this are all subsidized by expropriation, dispossession, destitution, genocides and ecocides. There is no way around it: we cannot bypass it, the only way is through. How we fail is important. It is actually in the moments when we fail that the deepest learning becomes possible and that is usually where we stumble upon something unexpected and extremely useful. Failing generatively requires both intellectual and relational rigour.One of my favorite failures is e121 rumble where I impersonate a superhero, Dr Decibel, in Stanley Park in Vancouver.  It's pretty hokey and raw but I like the way it explores storytelling and fantasy.This is Dr. Decibel. Your sonic superhero on the unseated ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations otherwise known as…  Well, I think you know where I am. (plane passing by). You have a problem here people. The low frequencies are excessive : traffic, industry, ventilation. Layers and layers of rumble and I hate rumble. Rumbleeeee is not something that I enjoy, so I'm going to use my superpowers today to reduce the amount of rumble in your city. Ruuuuumble… (imitation of rumbling sounds)(middle section of e118)Another failed episode was e118 toilet about shit. My intention here was to comment upon composting, both literally and figuratively. Vanessa Andreotti talks eloquently about shit in her book Hospicing Modernity but instead of addressing the issue head on, I took the easy way out and produced an episode with the statement ‘where does your shit go' accompanied by four recordings of toilets flushing, which does not directly address the issue, but it's a start. And, to be honest, I was attracted by the rich sound of the toilet refilling and the silence that follows when it is full, waiting to flush, again and again, precious water in a wasteful cycle of flushing away our issues…(beginning of e118 toilet)(bell and breath) where does your shit go? (toilet flush 1)On April 25 my dear father in law Robin Mathews passed away of pancreatic cancer. His illness was on mind throughout the first half of the project. I had the privilege of recording him reading his last poem, deeper into the forest, in February 2023, at his home in Vancouver, in one take. I published it 2 days before his passing in both audio and video format. Here is how e117 deeper into the forest ends: (end of e117)You know the voicesAnd you know they cannot shape wordsthat will break the surface over your head.Lights flash in the skies above, Dart through the water. But words do not form.The surface above you,Which you cannot break through.Closes….In the darkness that moves toward youAs if a living creatureThe voices fade away … or seem to fade away,And you know the surface above your headWill not break.The voices beyond the surface Will grow distant and imperfectAnd you, quite alone, will move deeper into the forest.(sound of forest from Kitchener, Ontario) I received this comment from listener Cathie Poynter, a former student and friend of Robin's, on May 8 about this episode:This is so wonderful to hear, see, feel and read. Beautifully done, the poem, the paintings, the voice, all of the sounds. It is like reaching from beyond, to tell us where, and how to move through further into the depth of the forest: of reality, life, and death. I think it is very profound. It gives me hope that we all must go on this journey. He has captured the experience I feel of time and eternity.I also wrote a one person play during this time called e111 traps, which explores some of the traps in our live :(beginning of e111)(bell, breath and occasional balloon sounds)Me : Have you ever had the feeling that you were being observed?Observer : I'm observing you. Me: Who are you and what are you observing? Observer: Ah, well, I'm a part of you and  I'm observing the traps that you tend to fall into.Me:  Traps?Observer : Do you remember the Facing Human Wrongs course you took during the summer of 2022?Me: Ya.Observer: The one about navigating paradoxes and complexities of social and global change and all those trappings along the way?Me: Ya, I remember. Easier said than done, though.Observer: YaMe: So. What are you observing? Observer : Well, what can I say? I notice that you've fallen into a trap called ‘exit fixation' which is where people feel a strong urge to walk out on an existing commitment. For example, when someone realises that the path they are on is full of paradoxes, contradictions, and complicities. Often their first response is to find an immediate exit in hopes of a more fulfilling and/or more innocent alternative or maybe even  an ideal community with whom to continue this work. Me: Like an escape?Observer: Ya, something like thatI've also had the privilege of receiving insightful feedback from listeners about the conscient podcast as a whole, such as this email on May 16 from a friend who asked to remain anonymous:So grateful to have been able to listen and stay close to your work. It's wonderful to witness, feel and sense into the different layers and movements over the course of the episode and throughout the arc of the season so far. It's almost as if the story of Sounding Modernity is being stitched by the sounds, walks and episodes and shape-shifting it into this surprising creature (sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes visible, sometimes fictional…). I wonder how else the story of Sounding Modernity will further weave itself (both in/out of control) as you continue to loosen even more of your grips on it, slowly and gently. I like how humor mixes with pain and poetry mixes with interviews, and ocean mixes with toilet shitty waters. The playful and surprising diversity is fun. It's even clear that you are both struggling and having so much fun, which adds honesty and trust in wanting to go with you on the inquiry. As you approach the middle of your journey, what might be needed at this time to invite further and what might be ready to be released into new soils? May more sounds reveal/be revealed.I responded:Your point about how Sounding Modernity might unfold in/out of control is a good one as I approach the midpoint in the project on July 1. I'm coming to terms with its failings, surprises and unanticipated unlearnings. The isolation in particular has been bewildering.  I think I have already ‘lost my grip on it', in a good way. I have essentially given up on it being a ‘exploration of the sounds of modernity' - which was quite pretentious anyway - but rather, as you suggest, has become a portrait of my struggles and discoveries through the sounds of modernity.Let me expand a bit on that idea of isolation. I hoped this project might engage the arts community in dialogue with me and each other about these existential issues, which is why each episode ends with a question. It's meant to be a prompt or an invitation but not a rhetorical enquiry. My expectation was that it might interest artists and others who are in a similar frame of mind as I am, you know, dealing with eco anxiety and eco grief and so on.For example, on June 7, Jean-Marc Lamoureux wrote about episode e123 maps: When it comes to unknown possibilities for humanity, it is important to acknowledge that our knowledge and understanding of the world are limited. There are areas in science, technology, philosophy, and exploration that remain largely uncharted. New discoveries, innovations, and breakthroughs are possible in these domains and could unveil unforeseen possibilities. It is also important to note that the future is uncertain, and it is challenging to accurately predict what will unfold. Technological advancements, social and political changes, as well as unforeseen events, can all shape the future of humanity in unexpected ways. To address the uncertainty of the future and the challenges of the ecological crisis, it is crucial to foster an open, inclusive, and collaborative approach. Encouraging research, innovation, and exploration across relevant fields, as well as promoting sustainability, environmental conservation, and social justice, are essential. We must also recognize that the future of humanity is closely intertwined with our relationship with the Earth and the other living beings that inhabit it. Taking care of our planet and living in harmony with nature are vital. … Thank you for your attention and for engaging in deep reflection on these important questions.I responded:I agree that we need to keep a positive attitude and that there is much we do not know. I quote writer Rebecca Solnit in episode 19, who said ‘hope locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act'. My point in e123 was to share my stress (and distress?) about where we are at and where we might be going. … What concerns me most is our deep disconnection with nature, which has been in the works for centuries and is killing us all. … So, Jean-Marc, I don't think innovation will help if it is built on a self-destructive model. … Certainly doomism does not help, but neither does naïve hope. …So, it's July 1st 2023 and I'm at the halfway point in this project. 26 episodes done with 25 to go.What's next?Well, to be honest, and I admitted as much in e123 maps, I really don't know. (e123 maps section of scrunching piece of paper)So these are the five elements on my map: mitigation, adaptation, tipping point line, survival and recovery, but the problem is that I'm wrong. The map is wrong.  The truth is that I don't know.  There are endless possibilities and dimensions that I'm not yet able to conceive or understand and yet sometimes, somehow, I can feel them. So I'm done with drawing maps and speculating with thoughts and ideas. Instead, I'm going to listen to the intelligence of my body, to the intelligence of non-human beings around me, to other forms of knowledge and beings that are emerging, and see where that takes me. I thought of erasing it all and returning the funds to the Canada Council and becoming a monk or a hermit.I expressed this sadness and grief at the end of my June blog as follows: I was reminded today of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective's SMDA Compass teaching about how to walk a tightrope between desperate hope and reckless hopelessness. It's a fine line … but these days I've fallen into a deep cavern of hopelessness but not (yet) recklessly.Speaking of erasure, I notice recently that Catherine Ingram, the brilliant buddhist scholar and philosopher who has deeply influenced my learning journey, wrote on her website, in reference to her seminal essay, Facing Extinction, that:I wrote the long-form essay ‘Facing Extinction' in early 2019.  Over these past years I have occasionally been able to update the information and perspectives contained therein. However, I am finding that the speed with which the data is changing and the pressing issues that we are immediately facing, such as the exponential rise of artificial intelligence and transhumanism, have made some of this essay obsolete.  I have thus decided to remove it.Her statement reminded of this prescient quote from Facing Extinction that I used in episode 19 :(middle of e19 reality)Love, what else is there to do now?  Here we are, some of the last humans who will experience this beautiful planet since Homo sapiens began their journey some 200,000 years ago. Now, in facing extinction of our species, you may wonder if there is any point in going on.  Catherine, you're right that love is what we must do, and be. It might be all we can do, and be. So where do we go from here? Is there any point going on?(long silence)What do you think? More importantly…(end of e101 tension)How do you feel now?After quite a bit of thought, I decided to finish what I started, every Sunday, through to episode 153 on December 31st and see what happens. What can I learn and unlearn? What can I slow down or undo? I'm actually quite excited about part 2 of this project. In particular I want to explore the idea of inviting listeners differently and releasing materials into new soils.Thankfully, I don't have to do this work alone. I have the privilege of working with a number of great collaborators, including content advisors Azul Carolina Duque and Flora Aldridge, translator Carole Beaulieu, communications advisor Jessica Ruano,  web designer Ayesha Barmania and countless friends and colleagues who provide feedback and support. Thank you for your input and trust. I'll leave you with an excerpt from an episode in development. Thanks for listening and take care.(crows in city with rumble + various nature field recordings)*I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to Living Dharma. *END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODESHere is a link for more information on season 5. Please note that, in parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and it's francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' which are 'short, practical essays for those frightened by the ecological crisis'. To subscribe (free of charge) see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. You'll also find a podcast version of each a calm presence posting on Substack or one your favorite podcast player.Also. please note that a complete transcript of conscient podcast and balado conscient episodes from season 1 to 4 is available on the web version of this site (not available on podcast apps) here: https://conscient-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes.Your feedback is always welcome at claude@conscient.ca and/or on conscient podcast social media: Facebook, X, Instagram or Linkedin. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. Claude SchryerLatest update on April 2, 2024

In this conversation from the “Talks on Trauma” series Gabor investigates the paths of personal Trauma woven into the Buddhist and personal psychology fields for which Jack and Tara are so well known. Find out more about this series “Talks on Trauma” as part of the “All Access Pass” from the film The Wisdom of Trauma: https://thewisdomoftrauma.com/store/ Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Brach is an Engaged Buddhist, specializing in the application of Buddhist teachings and mindfulness meditation to emotional healing. She has authored several books on these subjects, including Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, and Radical Compassion. tarabrach.com Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the Peace Corps and worked on tropical medicine teams in the Mekong River valley. He met and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Returning to the United States, Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. They include, A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Teachings of the Buddha; Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; Living Dharma; A Still Forest Pool; Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart; Buddha's Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are, and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are. jackkornfield.com Dr. Gabor Maté Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to these complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories, and his own insights and experience to present a broad perspective that enlightens and empowers people to promote their own healing and that of those around them. After 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, Dr. Maté worked for over a decade in Vancouver's Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in over thirty languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. His book on addiction received the Hubert Evans Prize for literary non-fiction. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country's highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction; When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress; Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder; and (with Dr. Gordon Neufeld) Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His next book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture is due out on September 13, 2022. His second next book, Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children is expected in 2023. Gabor is also co-developer of a therapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by hundreds of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others internationally. More on his books and programs can be found here. gabormate.com Science and Nonduality is a community inspired by timeless wisdom, informed by cutting-edge science, and grounded in direct experience. We come together in an open-hearted exploration while celebrating our humanity. scienceandnonduality.com/podcast

Mitchell interviews his colleague and good friend, Catherine Ingram, internationally beloved Dharma Teacher and author. This interview discusses her book Passionate Presence and her perspectives on a number of topice. Catherine works with communities in the U.S., and Europe. Since 1992 she has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events that encourage the intelligent use of awareness within one's personal life and in one's community. Catherine also leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. She is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organization founded in 1995. Catherine has been the subject of numerous print, television, and radio interviews and is included in several anthologies about teachers in the West. A former journalist specializing in issues of consciousness and activism, Catherine is the author of two books of nonfiction, which are published in numerous languages: In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual/Social Activists (Parallax Press, 1990) and Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness (Penguin Putnam, 2003); and one novel, A Crack in Everything (Diamond Books, 2006). In February 2019, Catherine published the long-form essay “Facing Extinction” as a free link, an essay she updates every month as new data emerges about the crises we face. If you'd like to see more on an array of subjects like this, join our Newsletter at www.abetterworld.net. There are podcasts and videos which can keep you inspired and educated for years. At our Store, you'll also find one-of-a-kind items like a compact FAR Infra-Red Sauna, high-quality, low-cost nutritional supplements & micro-greens and therapeutic mushrooms in capsules, an In Harmony, vibro-acoustic Sound Lounge & the Brain-Tap for sound healing to the max, Mind-Movies for re-programming your brain (& Life), all the way to eliminating credit card and mortgage debt. Or interested in a Conscious Community Network across the planet? That too is available. Just visit Store for these & more. And if you haven't already, won't you subscribe to A Better World's Youtube channel? Love to have you part of our community: https://www.youtube.com/c/abetterworldtvshow --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/abwmitchellrabin/support

This episode captures Jack Kornfield's lecture/ Dharma talk at Esalen on September 15th, 1983. Kornfield, one of the most articulate and compassionate voices in modern Western Buddhism, is co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, first as a student of the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah, about whom he speaks at length in this lecture. Kornfield has taught meditation worldwide since 1974 and is considered one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practices to the West. He's the author of a host of books, including 1977's "Living Dharma," 1993's "A Path with Heart," and 2001's "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry." This talk is at turns funny, wise, and insightful. It awakens a certain kind of spirit in the listener. We're grateful to Kornfield for his continuing association with the Esalen Institute, and continuing devotion to the path of the heart. Upcoming at Esalen: Being With Your Heart: Enneagram and Inner Work Retreat Are you ready to be with your heart and do deep inner work to get there? Russ Hudson, one of the top teachers and developers of the Enneagram system, & Deborah Rose Longo, an instructor of the Gurdjieff Movements for over 40 years, lead this retreat focused on restoring the centrality of spiritual practice and psychological rigor to Enneagram work. Sign up: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/being-with-your-heart-enneagram-and-inner-work-retreat Esalen Hosts Embrace Yoga's Roots Virtual Book Tour with Susanna Barkataki October 21 at 5:00 PST, Esalen is honored to host a virtual book tour with Susanna Barkataki, author of Embrace Yoga's Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. An Indian yoga practitioner in the Shankaracharya tradition, Susanna supports practitioners to lead with equity, diversity, and yogic values while growing thriving practices and businesses with confidence. Join Susanna for a conversation with Danny Fluker Jr., queer Atlanta native and the creator and executive director of Black Boys OM. Danny is a Esalen Teacher in Residence alum and a yoga/meditation teacher, writer, and activist whose vision is to uplift the Black community, Black boys in particular, with programs centering on their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Tickets to the event are $35, but as part of our End of Year Campaign, Esalen is offering free tickets to the first 50 people who sign up to become a Friend of Esalen between October 1-October 21. You'll receive the comp code and the RSVP link to the event when you become a friend. Become a friend and get your Comp Code now: https://www.esalen.org/give/friends-of-esalen Grief Into Beauty: Creating Nature Altars to Transform and Heal from This Year October 29-31, Internationally renowned author and artist Day Schildkret of Morning Altars will teach students how to use nature, art, and ritual to transform, heal, and make meaning from this chaotic time.

Learn and get motivated by my chat with mellow Cali entrepreneur, Aaron Dumas. Loved his viewpoints and golden nuggets! Follow him on IG: @theaarondumas

Catherine Ingram joins Tahnee on the podcast today. Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher and former journalist specialising in empathy and activism. Catherine is the author of several books including; In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, A Crack in Everything, and the long-form essay “Facing Extinction.” Catherine has published over 100 articles and interviews throughout the 1980s and early 1990s with leading thinkers and activists of our time. Catherine and Tahnee take a deep dive today, sharing a beautiful conversation around the philosophical landscape of activism, empathy, Buddhism, dharma practice, mindfulness and sensitivity. Tahnee and Catherine explore: The mindfulness industry and how it is often misguided. The 1970's Dharma movement. Catherine's experience of Buddhist meditation and philosophy. The nature and burden of sensitivity - "if you're not at least a little bit sad, you're not paying attention" - Catherine Ingram The relationship between grief and love. Activism, empathy and compassion. The themes of Catherine's essay; Facing Extinction. The Resilient Byron project.   Who is Catherine Ingram? Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher with communities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Since 1992 Catherine has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events that encourage the intelligent use of awareness within one’s personal life and in one’s community. Catherine leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. Catherine is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organisation founded in 1995. Catherine has been the subject of numerous print, television, and radio interviews and is included in several anthologies about teachers in the West. A former journalist specialising in issues of consciousness and activism, Catherine is the author of two books of nonfiction, which are published in numerous languages: In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual/Social Activists (Parallax Press, 1990) and Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness (Penguin Putnam, 2003); and one novel, A Crack in Everything (Diamond Books, 2006). In February 2019, Catherine published the long-form essay “Facing Extinction” as a free link, an essay she updates every month as new data emerges about the crises we face. Over a fifteen-year period beginning in 1982, Catherine published approximately 100 articles on empathic activism and served on the editorial staffs of New Age Journal, East West Journal, and Yoga Journal. For four years Catherine also wrote the Life Advice column for Alternatives Magazine based in Oregon. Since 1976, Catherine has helped organise and direct institutions dedicated to meditation and self-inquiry and, more recently, human and animal rights. Catherine is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts (1976). Catherine also co-founded the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) in The Hague, Netherlands (1991) and is a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet. For six years (1988-1994), Catherine served as a board director for The Burma Project, dedicated to raising international awareness about the struggle for democracy in Burma. Catherine is currently serving on the board of Global Animal Foundation, which works on behalf of the world’s animals.   Resources:Catherine's Website Catherine Facing Extinction Essay In The Deep Podcast Coronavirus: Courage and Calm PodcastCatherine's Books The Resilient Byron Project   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi everybody and welcome to the SuperFeast podcast. Today I'm really excited to have Catherine Ingram here. She's the author of several books. Footsteps to Gandhi, Passionate Presence, A Crack in Everything and this incredible essay called Facing Extinction that you can find online. We'll link to it in the show notes. Catherine's an amazing former journalist as well so she's spoken to so many wonderful people and it seems to be this real emphasis on compassion and humanity and activism and empathy. And I know she's published over 100 articles and interviews throughout the '80s and '90s. I don't know if those are all available online, Catherine, but maybe people can have a little dig. Since '92, Catherine has been leading international retreats and public sessions known as Dharma Dialogues. I've been fortunate to go to some of those in Lennox and in Byron Bay. They're just really beautiful ways to check in and connect to this deeper meaning and purpose of life and our own inner compass toward well being. Our passions and all those kinds of things. She's also served on the board of numerous human rights organisations, as a board member of Global Animal and also is part of a newly founded organisation called Resilient Byron, which I'm excited to talk to her about today.   Tahnee: (01:19) Catherine, so busy. I know you're going to be doing some Dharma Dialogues online digitally, which is really exciting as well. Thanks so much for being here today. We're really excited.   Catherine Ingram: (01:32) Thank you for inviting me.   Tahnee: (01:33) So we've been touching on a lot of big themes lately on the podcast, which I think this time obviously takes us all deeper into ourselves for sure. I know that a lot of your work has focused on these big themes. Has that been something that you've been interested in forever or were you more drawn into these things over time? Can you give us a little sense of how Catherine becomes Catherine?   Catherine Ingram: (02:01) Well I fell into the study of Buddhist meditation from a pretty young age. I started doing retreats, attending retreats in 1974 and it became basically my world. I helped found a big centre in Massachusetts called Insight Meditation Society, which is one of the famous mindfulness centres in the world. But at the time, we were just this ragtag band of hippies. It was a very small scene in those days. Really small. We all knew each other, everywhere. I know a lot of the very famous mindfulness teachers, the older ones. They're old friends. I was in that study and in that practise and in that organisation for 17 years until about '91. Along the way, I became interested in how does a mindful life or an empathic life or a life based on loving kindness, how does it show up for anybody else? It's all well and good that we're all having a fine time but how does it matter in the world?   Catherine Ingram: (03:11) That became a focus for me in journalism. I decided to become a journalist in order to have access to what I considered the people who could be my teachers, my mentors in that new field of study, that is activism with a consciousness or empathic base. I thought to myself, why would any of those people want to talk with me or hang out with me? And I thought, well they would if I were a journalist and if I could publish their words. So I became a journalist, I kind of backed into it with a side motivation, which was, I wanted access [inaudible 00:03:50] I wanted to study with.. And that's what it gave me. So for the next 12 years, I focused entirely on that. I published, as you mentioned, many, many articles in the days... It was pre-Internet [inaudible 00:04:05] available, a few of them we did manage to scan and put online. I did that for all those years writing for print magazines and then I began having sessions myself, having meditative, initially dialogue-based meditation sessions. In other words, part of it would be silent but also it would be a dialogue format to keep people on a certain frequency, and in conjunction with silent retreats that I led all over the world. Well not in Russia. Not in Africa.   Tahnee: (04:52) Not in every single country on the planet.   Catherine Ingram: (04:56) Not every country. Not even every continent but I did that and still do, although we're in lockdown at the moment. Yeah, I've been focused on these matters, the confluence of activism and empathic action that has a dedication to the greater good. It's always been important to me. I remember long ago, I heard a Tibetan teacher talk about the two wings of the bird. One is wisdom and one is compassion and that it can fall off... I'm sorry, no, that got... That's how a bird flies. But I've heard other teachers talk about wisdom and compassion being like two different types of temperament and I've always thought, how can there be wisdom without compassion? It doesn't make sense. How can there be any kind of wisdom that doesn't include compassion? Since I was quite young in my career, I've always wanted the understanding that your awareness includes and is expansive. I'm a bit allergic to systems of thought and philosophy that are very self motivated. Self improvement, self wellbeing.   Tahnee: (06:33) You must love Instagram. Just kidding.   Catherine Ingram: (06:36) I don't use Instagram and I'm also [inaudible 00:06:38] social media in general, though I'm forced to a little tiny bit because we have to-   Tahnee: (06:44) Necessarily evil unfortunately.   Catherine Ingram: (06:46) Exactly, yeah. That's why I don't have an Instagram account.   Tahnee: (06:51) Could I just quickly... I just want to grab on that because this is honestly my biggest bugbear with how even mindfulness and all of these things have been taken and turned into almost competitions or ways of making yourself better than somebody else.   Catherine Ingram: (07:07) It's so co-opted and it's gotten corporate. I mean the Buddha would roll over in his grave if he had one. Yeah, it's really devolved over the years, I have to say. It's kind of tagged onto everything you can think of. It's very, very different than what I knew it to be back in the day. I studied with a lot of the older Asian teachers who've all since died. It was a very monastic scene back in those days but now it's a very different animal. I have to say though, there are other ways of understanding presence and how to use your attention and in those ways of understanding and of deep immersion, it would be anathema to your spirit to co-opt that understanding and use it for any kind of mercenary production. I think that there are ways to understand a dharmic life and to live a dharmic life and, as I say, use your mind and your heart in ways that in at least the original Buddhist teachings and language, it would be totally commensurate with all of that.   Tahnee: (08:53) So I mean, how do you get to Buddhism? I mean, I don't know exactly how old you are but I assume it wasn't readily available to study Buddhist practice. No.   Catherine Ingram: (09:09) Very obscure in those days. What happened though was this Tibetan teacher named Trungpa Rinpoche came along and he had been living in the UK. He was an exile from Tibet. He'd been living in the UK and he was a very hip... He was young and he was extremely hip and very interested in Western culture and in Western arts and all kinds of arts and he founded something called Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in 1974 and he gathered there, all of the biggest named teachers of the day. Now they were still obscure and they had relatively small scenes, each one individually, like Ram Dass and all these people. Even though eventually that became a much larger scene, it wasn't at the time, and some of the big name Buddhist teachers who were unknown, totally unknown in those days, they were invited. He managed through his scene, his students, to get hold of all these people and gather them in this one spot to found this Buddhist university called Naropa Institute and I heard about it and I went. I decided to attend and I was 22 years old and I was in Europe. I was actually going to India, I thought. I was in Europe travelling around on my way to India.   Catherine Ingram: (10:38) I didn't know what I was doing exactly. I wanted to go find a teacher in India but I heard about Naropa and I thought, all these teachers are going to be right there in one place in my own country. I should go there. It's a long, long story. That story alone of being there that summer, in the midst of all of that. Like imagine, I used to-   Tahnee: (11:00) Be wild.   Catherine Ingram: (11:02) I use this way of describing it. Imagine like a Burning Man but that was only about Dharma and only about philosophy and only about these deeper arts. That's what it felt like for a whole entire summer. 10 weeks. That was a real turning point because there I met my whole community and I fell into a particular strain of the... There were so many different types of teachings there. They weren't all Buddhist. There were just a few of the Buddhists. There was [inaudible 00:11:34], the Tibetan Buddhists, the Zen Buddhist and then this tiny little scene led by Joseph Goldstein. He had a class, a tiny, little, dinky class called the essential Buddhism. Hardly anyone came but I walked into his class and I just felt at home. He was my teacher and also later on, my boyfriend. So that's how I began Buddhist practise. I became incredibly immersed in those teachings, especially I heard the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, the truth of the unsatisfactoriness of existence and I just thought, sign me up. I get it. Anyway, that was my world for a long time. I basically just went from retreat to retreat. I was one of the managers of the retreats. I helped found the centre, as I said, that we did in 1976.   Catherine Ingram: (12:44) I went to Asia. I finally did go to Asia after that first attempt. I went overland from Italy to India in a time when you could still do that and I was gone for... We were all over Southeast Asia studying in different temples with different of our teachers. I did that for a year. I went back many, many times to India. I went to India 10 times over the next 20 years. It was a whole... What to say, you could write a book on just that. Or I could, I guess.   Tahnee: (13:24) Well I think that's the dream. I know in this area. There's so many young people looking for that authentic, and I'm using air quotes but the authentic experience, which I mean really that generation of yours was, there were so many socio political and cultural reasons that those experiences were able to be had.   Catherine Ingram: (13:47) We were in a moment in history where our music was all about that. It was a whole, it was a zeitgeist that was happening among the counter culture but it wasn't as huge as people think. Certainly not the dharma slice of it but what was called the psychedelic generation, it wasn't as ubiquitous as people think but it was powerful and we all knew each other and hung out with each other. It was a really great, great time and then I fell into having my own sessions, as I said, and that's been really wonderfully rich. Just the intimacy of that and sharing a dharma life with people and having those kinds of conversations, I feel so privileged because I feel like I have of what you might call deathbed conversations but they're not on the deathbed, although sometimes. It's basically... Well the name of my podcast channel is In The Deep.   Tahnee: (14:57) You go there.   Catherine Ingram: (15:01) It just feels like you can stay on a certain channel of a shared frequency that is in the deep. I find that's, for me, the most satisfying kinds of conversation.   Tahnee: (15:19) Have you found it hard to integrate... Again, I'm using air quotes, a real life with that kind of desire for that deep connection? I've heard you speak in Dharma Dialogue that your family were not... They were quite conservative, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. Have you found it difficult to connect back to your lineage and to the real world? Because you do inhabit this space that is not... There's a dearth of this kind of communication in our culture. People don't want deep. They want instant news and 24 hour Fox.   Catherine Ingram: (15:57) That is why I always sought out the quieter places, the quieter minds, you could say. Those kinds of conversations and the power of sangha, of the dharmic community. I've always gravitated to that kind of crowd. In the work that I do, by definition, that's the kind of conversation... What I do is called Dharma Dialogues and so I have certainly my fair share of that kind of interaction and I spend a lot of time alone in quiet. I live a very retreat-like life. When I do have conversation, it tends to be about the deeper matters. It's not that we always have to be philosophical or anything. I mean, I'm happy to talk about the latest drama that we all might be watching. I enjoy that tremendously but because I don't have a lot of chit chat possibility in my life really, because I live alone, and my work is about this in the deep conversation, the conversations I do have tended to be in the nature such as the one we are having now, about what matters and what are the priorities and how does one live? What structure of life in your creative expression do you want to offer? That's been a very fortunate component.   Catherine Ingram: (17:50) Regarding my family and of course other people in our lives that we may not be on the same page with, I've learned over the many years to just find points of connection that we do connect on. They can be very ordinary things and that's fine. I love ordinary also. I frame it and I spoke about it in my book Passionate Presence, as finding the language of the heart that you can intuit, you can sense, especially if you're quiet inside, you can sense the language that someone might be able to hear and you try to stay on those topics. Just as you do instinctively, as we all do instinctively when, say, we're with a child and whether it's a five year old child or a 10 year old child, you adjust your language a bit, or someone who you sense is highly intelligent but is speaking... English is their second language and they're not super fluent in it so you adjust. Instinctively you adjust how you're speaking so that they'll understand all your words.   Catherine Ingram: (19:15) It's like that. You just have a radar that is sensing. The whole purpose of the conversation is to meet in the heart. It's not to just impose your great opinions.   Tahnee: (19:35) That really makes me think because so many people are like, they need to change, the world needs to change and so often, it's us, sadly that needs to change.   Catherine Ingram: (19:48) [inaudible 00:19:48] though, that way.   Tahnee: (19:52) I mean I think about my own family and I remember reading a Ram Dass book and he was talking about coming home from India to see his father and he had to stand side by side with his father and all he wanted to do was tell him all these truths and what he learned and his dad just needed him to stand there and help him make a pie or whatever and he said, "All I could do was just love him," and in that his dad softened and changed and they found commonality. I think so often we come to each other with our agenda.   Catherine Ingram: (20:23) Yeah, Ram Dass used to tell another story, which was that a woman wrote to him and said, "I'm about to go home for Christmas and I don't get along with my family that well and I know that they judge me about what I'm doing and they think I'm weird." Anyway, I don't know what he said to her but anyway, she went off to her family holiday and when she got back she wrote Ram Dass a letter and said, "My family hates me when I'm a Buddhist but they love me while I'm a Buddha."   Tahnee: (20:52) That's so beautiful. Isn't that the truth? I remember hearing you speak that you've almost stepped away from Buddhism and that whole scene in a way because it was that identification with... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I-   Catherine Ingram: (21:10) No, I did step away from it completely. I'm so happy for that training and for those years and for the wonderful friendships. It was a whole evolutionary phase of my life but I wouldn't at all call myself a Buddhist. I don't have any kind of... There was a guy in the States, his name was Abbie Hoffman, he was a great activist back in my era. He died a long time ago. Kind of young when he died but he was a very famous radical activist in the '60s and he had a great line, "All of the isms are wasms," which I really related to. I don't have any isms that I'm adhering to. I have come to realise that Gandhi, the story of his... I'm sorry. His autobiography is called The Story Of My Experiments with Truth, and I feel that I've just been making my own experiments with truth and I don't claim as true with a capital T. I would say it's my experiments with truth, my experiments of what has made sense to me, what works, what has been consistently true for me in my experimentation about what is...   Catherine Ingram: (22:29) Like we've been saying, what is the way through? What is the dharmic line, thread of harmony through this rocky road called life? That's been, for me, I have been exposed to so many kinds of teachings, beautiful teachings over the years. Whether in literature, I love great literature... I mean, you can have profound experiences just by reading some of the great works of literature, and movies too. Movies have shaped my consciousness.   Tahnee: (23:09) Art, right? It's every... Humans have created that to tell stories since-   Catherine Ingram: (23:15) That's right.   Tahnee: (23:17) Yes, there's the vortex of, some of it is commercial and corporate and manipulative but I think so much of it is truth. Like you say, little 't' truths. Someone trying to capture what's true for them through their art form.   Catherine Ingram: (23:33) Yeah and what's so beautiful about all of that, and music, my goodness, music... What's so amazing about that is that's like our humanity is so... It's so sensitive and so universal in each of us. I mean it is why music translates to everybody, pretty much, that sometimes someone comes along and just in their own innocent, true expression, taps a chord that just reverberates through not only their own time but down through the ages. I'm always listening for those chords, however I can find them, whether in dharma circles and great works of philosophy and teachings from all different traditions but also in all these art forms and also just in-   Tahnee: (24:39) Life.   Catherine Ingram: (24:39) No, I mean in watching animals. You mentioned that I'm part now of a group called Global Animal, which is actually an animal rights organisation. I have been involved with human rights a lot in the past. Now I've switched over to the animals. The other animals, I should say. We are animals as well. Anyway, I'm just continually blown away by the tenderness and the emotional intelligence of animals, especially mammals, of course. It's all of these ways, all of these portals of wisdom that come across the transom of your mind that some minds just are looking for those, have incredible receptors for those, have neurological receptors for those kinds of channels and those kinds of bits of information and I think one can, in a sense, train the awareness to look for those.   Tahnee: (25:51) That was going to be my question because I mean, I feel like I... I sometimes try and nut this out in my head and I don't get very far. I remember as a child being very sensitive and open and then kind of going through a science phase and a cynical phase, I suppose, in my early 20s and I feel like I've come full circle back to this very sensitive place but I have, I think, now the capacity to handle it. In reading your essay especially, the one on facing extinction, I speak to so many people about this in my community and it's this sense of, it's too much and I can't carry it. The sensitivity I have, it's a burden instead of a gift. I've found, for me, refuge in stillness and quiet and all the things you were talking about. Aloneness. Nature for me is a huge part of it and why I choose to live here and I've heard you say the same about moving to Lennox. Is there ways you've seen people grow into their sensitivity and their perceptiveness/ because I think these people, they're so required right now. Those empaths and those people that feel it all. I don't know how to help them. It's like, you just have to keep going.   Catherine Ingram: (27:20) Yeah, it's a conundrum. It's a great question. It's not one I have a clear answer on in that the sensitivity comes with the deepening and widening awareness. It's a challenge because the more sensitive you are, the more subject to feeling the sorrows of the world and of the people you love and you as a young mother-   Tahnee: (27:49) Many feelings.   Catherine Ingram: (27:53) Yeah. The problem is, you kind of can't help it. You can't really help it if you're someone who feels very, very deeply and you notice things and you have natural empathy. Now I think people do shut down. They harden their hearts. They put blinkers on. They're essentially armoured because they're frightened and feeling too deeply is just too painful for them but I don't see any way around if you're paying attention, if the awareness is widening, which in a way it does on its own but like I said, you can sort of direct it, train it more to look for wisdom wherever you can find it and that includes ways to let go and to try to be strong. If that's how you're built then sorrow comes with it. Just as I sometimes say, if you're not at least a little bit sad, you're not paying attention. All of these happiness programs, they just make my skin crawl. Be happy and real happy and happy happy.   Tahnee: (29:23) Uhg! And they've coerced Buddhist, the dharma teachings. I mean, I'm on social media, unfortunately in some ways and I see this stuff and I just think... I mean, one of my teachers calls it the bandwidth. We want to be able to feel a spectrum of things and just to expect that it's just happy and sunshine, rainbows, lollipops all the time is-   Catherine Ingram: (29:50) Yeah, I often say, have said for 30 years that we live on a spectrum of feelings and on one end is deep suffering and sorrow and sadness and depression and all kinds of things and at the other is incredible joy. We live on that spectrum. And that to shut down one end also shuts down the other. So some people want to play it safe and go right into the middle, don't feel too much on either side. You shut down any... Like basically grief is connected to love. That's why we grieve is because we love, like I said in my essay. So if you're going to give up, if you're so afraid of grieving, then you really can't invest in your love. You're going to be at risk. So that's what we've got here as human creatures. I think in this time, where the world has stopped, even though it's starting to move about a bit more, but I think a lot of people have reset their priorities and have understood perhaps in ways they never understood. But for many of us who've been looking at these things and feeling into them, we've understood them more deeply. That this life that we are so privileged to be living, it really never had any guarantees. We kind of drifted into an illusion in our rich cultures of just, you know, kind of having a party. I mean just going along.   Catherine Ingram: (31:33) Just get what you want. Go where you want. Study what you want. Go here. Flit there. So we've just been having a grand old time and now we're confronted with our entire way of life has not only changed for now but it's changed and probably it's going to stay changed. It's going to get more and more challenging. I believe we're headed into a cascade of crises. The coronavirus crisis is going to perhaps be the kickstart. But we've got all the big ones waiting. The worse ones are waiting in the wings. They're cooking away in the background. We haven't been talking about them as much during this one. But they're going along. They're going a pace. Unlike this one, which might have some mitigation to it, I don't think those other ones do. So I think what we're facing is a lot more letting go and a lot more needing to find empathy and understanding and getting way closer to the ground in terms of how we live simply. I don't know if you've noticed this but I have... I've just not been spending money on pretty much anything except food and paying the utilities-   Tahnee: (33:05) Yeah the things you have to pay.   Catherine Ingram: (33:08) [inaudible 00:33:08] monthly charges and I'm grateful to be able to do that. I've seen, gosh, even though it's kind of stripped down, those are really essential things. Food and having the water come on when you turn it on.   Tahnee: (33:26) Basic necessities. Yeah well it's definitely... I mean again a theme I'm really witnessing is a move toward... So we've just put in a chicken coop, which we started before all this happened but it didn't get finished until the middle of all of this. I contacted a breeder for the chickens. I was looking for a heritage breeder. He said, "The pandemic hit and I've sold out." He said, "I've sold every chicken I have until October." He's like, "Everyone's gone self-sufficient." I was like, "Well wow, that's crazy." I've noticed all of these permaculture people are offering courses on sustainable backyard gardens and farming. I'm like, "That's so great that people are starting." If that's one of the, I guess, impacts of this on a micro level, that people start to think-   Catherine Ingram: (34:17) It's a great benefit because things are still kind of holding together. We're not in massive drought or fires or some [inaudible 00:34:26] war thing happening over resources. We're basically just told to stay in our homes. The skies are blue and the waters are clear. The earth is actually breathing a great sigh of relief in having us stopped. So it is a perfect time to learn those kind of basic life-   Tahnee: (34:47) Life skills.   Catherine Ingram: (34:49) [inaudible 00:34:49] yeah.   Tahnee: (34:50) That's something... I mean I copied a quote out of your essay, which was, "On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree." I nearly cried when I read that. I'm nearly crying now because I think that's something, when people feel the overwhelm and the kind of impact of what is going on on a more macro level, they just become numb. Business as usual I suppose carries on. I think it's... To think that even if the world was coming to an end, we would still make an offering that we would not live to see come to fruition I think is-   Catherine Ingram: (35:28) But just to be clear that wasn't my quote. I quoted that.   Tahnee: (35:30) No sorry. It was Merwin. But you quoted it and I mean, all the quotes you chose for that were really beautiful. But that one, I just really... Because I think I've definitely... I studied environmental science for a year and a half at university.   Catherine Ingram: (35:46) [inaudible 00:35:46].   Tahnee: (35:46) I really struggled with... You were either angry and like trying to cut off from the world and go off the grid and disappear or you were kind of apathetic and well, "It's all going to happen anyway. Humans are a virus. They should all be killed." It was like, there didn't feel like much of a middle ground but I fel like everyone was really... And even then there was the women that were like, "All the men should die. The patriarchy's the problem." Like, "None of this really resonates with me."   Catherine Ingram: (36:17) It's kind of like displaced... It's displaced grief.   Tahnee: (36:21) Yeah. When I think about the stages, right? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression... But then I also was recently reading that they've added another stage. Because it used to end at acceptance. Now they've added transformation into meaning. I thought... Into insight. I was like, that's so perfect because I feel like over two decades that's been my experience. I'm sure you've seen that.   Catherine Ingram: (36:44) Yeah definitely, yes. I know, I love that quote as well from Merwin and it's exactly that. You live, like my teacher [inaudible 00:36:57] once said, "Death is when the next breath doesn't come." So basically it's simple as that. You've living until then and how are you living here? How are you showing up? It still has meaning as long as we're here. It has meaning even after we're gone as well but while we're here we're part of the meaning of it. And so what do you do with your energy, your time, your attention? Your activity? Your service? So yeah, of course. I mean we've got so many beautiful examples through history of people who were in just terrible dire circumstances and who carried on and did it in grace, in beauty. So that's... I think that's the play on the board. In a way then that you're off the hook in terms of, you don't have to manipulate and try to change how it goes. Because it's going to go... This is a big juggernaut now. I mean, the thing I think people don't understand fully is that although we have changed the natural expressions of our world, we've changed them for the worse in that it's killing life, it doesn't follow necessarily that we can change them back.   Catherine Ingram: (38:31) I don't see the will in terms of the powerful players doing that anyway. But even if they would, I certainly am not convinced that if every single person woke up tomorrow and that was their full dedication for the rest of their lives, that it would save us, frankly. Because we have put things into play now that are on their own. That the warming is actually now on its own trajectory. So there may be some sort of technology that, I don't know, cools it or-   Tahnee: (39:06) That was something else I copied from your... Because I mean I guess, being of the age where a lot of my peers are really involved in conspiracy theories and the... Like it's so easy to be in that place of like, we're all pawns in a... But I mean you said something around Elon Musk is just like that nerdy guy who... And I've said this to my partner multiple times, like Bill Gates, they're just these people that they think that what they're doing is right because they don't have the self-reflect... You know they just don't have perspective to see. And you said something like, "Their intelligence is one dimensional." To paraphrase you.   Catherine Ingram: (39:51) [crosstalk 00:39:51] excellent. They do have amazing intelligence. It's just disconnected a lot from the Earth systems and from the natural systems. But it's not to say that they aren't well intended. I think they actually are well intended. They just get it from their own paradigm.   Tahnee: (40:09) Exactly and what they think is best is maybe not what we think is best. But I mean to call someone evil, I think it's a tricky line to walk. And I see that, that technology will save us and I've seen some eco-activists talk to that as well. I don't know, I just feel sinking in my gut when I read that sort of stuff because it doesn't-   Catherine Ingram: (40:33) It's just more manipulation with nature. It's just more of what got us into this mess actually. All these different green technologies and it all just feels so misguided. It's just more of the same. We have hubris, you know? This sort of, what Derrick Jensen calls the myth of human supremacy. Instead of understanding it, we've got to just cut back everything. We've got to stop. That's probably not going to save us either.   Tahnee: (41:02) And civilizations have fallen so many times through history through their own arrogance and their own excessive... And you look at nature and the plagues of locusts and they eat everything and they all die. That's the way it goes.   Catherine Ingram: (41:21) Locust plague going on right now. 160 million people are on the verge of starvation. Estimates that it's going to be double that in-   Tahnee: (41:28) Well I've been reading all this stuff. The ninth article on a page sometimes, or even you have to go a few pages deep but it's like, the food supply is gone for a lot of places. That's something I struggle with so much because I see it here and we do live in this place that's so rich in food and abundance and nature. I am privileged to go to the beach every day. I buy from a farmer's market. There are people in countries in the world right now that are really struggling and suffering and not even in... Like I know America's having a tough time but... I know India's going through it. I know Iran. I know parts of Africa are having a really tough time. It's like, how do we even help? What do we do?   Catherine Ingram: (42:12) I know. The chickens are coming home to roost in terms of what we've been doing here. We've got to really... We're going to need a lot more courage in ourselves. We've been so spoiled. It's not our own fault because we came into the spoils of our cultures. We've been reared up in this kind of abundance and calm and safety and all these things that we've just taken for granted. But now we're in a different phase. I think we're going to have to really get to that quiet sanctuary in ourselves a lot and find there a growing sense of courage and a growing acceptance and setting aside our own hubris about how long a life we should have and how much we should have and all of those things. It's hard. And yet that's... We can either accept or fight the reality. Those are our options.   Tahnee: (43:28) I guess I've heard you speak a lot about the... There's something I love about when you lead meditation and the animal nature of us. I think if we can... Because that's one of the things I think that has created so much of the drama is like we've separated ourselves so much from the fact that we are animals. We do have rhythms that flow with nature. We have needs like animals. We communicate with animals. I'm reading this great book called the Tao of Equus right now. She's talking about how horses, we've dominated them and used them for so long but now they're moving into this space of like, taking us back to connecting with ourselves and nature and just this idea that, especially through women and the wisdom held by, I guess that more feminine energy but I think everyone has the Yin and the Yang, that's definitely something I feel to be true, but like yeah, I can really feel that this is a time of... If you think about the elders and keeping the culture on track and present and like that's, I think, such a requirement of this time.   Tahnee: (44:36) You look at all the leadership, it's all men. It's all men of a certain kind of privilege and a certain type of personality type, thinking of some narcissistic leaders off the top of my head right now. I think it's that older wise woman thing that we need. I don't know if you know Helena, who's a local to this area, she might be involved in Resilient Byron with you?   Catherine Ingram: (44:58) No.   Tahnee: (45:01) Okay well she was one of the women that I first spoke to these things about. She's a bit older. She was one of the women to start the community farmer's markets here and everything. This idea of local features, you know, like that we have to look for leadership and strength and resilience in our own communities. And then build on that. To me, that's something I'm really craving and hoping becomes more prominent. I know you're working with Resilient Byron. Is it mostly people that are out of their childbearing years or is it a mix of people?   Catherine Ingram: (45:34) A mix. We don't have a huge steering group at the moment but it's definitely a mix of ages for sure yeah. I think I'm the oldest in fact.   Tahnee: (45:46) How do you feel like age has then, I guess, brought you... Is there like a... I read this great story the other day in a book called If Women Rose Rooted. She said it's this combination of like wrath and gentleness as you get older.   Catherine Ingram: (46:04) Yes. I definitely feel that actually inside myself. I feel what's happened for me, one of the great things is you just get a lot more authentic when you get older, women. Because I think for many women, we fell into needing to be pleasers. We kind of like to please a lot. Sometimes we compromised what we really felt and what we really thought and what we wanted to do and all of those things. Because somebody else needed us to be some other way. So that's something one grows out of, which is a happy-   Tahnee: (46:44) [crosstalk 00:46:44].   Catherine Ingram: (46:48) You just get a lot more clear about... You get more savage about your time I must say. You are less inclined to spend time on nonsense or to indulge certain mind streams that you know are just going to end up in a dark alley. It has all kind of benefits along with some great disadvantages that come along. But again, it does have some beautiful silver linings.   Tahnee: (47:23) Was it like a difficult... Because I mean when did you move? Because you've been in The States most of your life, right?   Catherine Ingram: (47:29) Yeah.   Tahnee: (47:30) And then you moved out here when?   Catherine Ingram: (47:31) About [inaudible 00:47:33] half years ago.   Tahnee: (47:35) And so, was that a big shift for you, culturally and professionally and yeah?   Catherine Ingram: (47:40) That was a big shift. Massive, massive shift. To do it at the age I was as well. But I had felt for a very long time I wanted to get out of America. And that alone wouldn't have pulled me out but it was a combination of wanting to get out of there and also falling in love with this part of the world, Australia. And also New Zealand. I love New Zealand as well.   Tahnee: (48:02) Me too. Yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (48:04) So you kind of get both when you come in as a resident of Australia. So I just have been so grateful to be living here. Just I feel so lucky. And everybody in the states, all the people I talk with so often, everybody says, "Oh God you're so lucky." Except that one isn't living... We're living always in a context of "Yes I'm here and I'm lucky but my friends, my oldest friends and my whole family are over there." So my heart is over there as well. Not entirely. But I mean I often feel like, it feels something like it must have felt in Germany if you were a Jew and you were getting out but all your family was still there. You're never really entirely free in that regard. Now I'm [inaudible 00:49:05] and I hold things in as big a space as I can as I view them, but these feelings of course arise with a great frequency. And yeah, but I am very happy to be in this particular place. This is a paradise in any context, you know? And especially now.   Tahnee: (49:31) I know we've been really, I guess not struggling with guilt but we've been really conscious of that feeling of like, "Well, our lives haven't been deeply impacted by this." It's obviously, I guess, I feel like I'm more focused now and I'm prioritising things more. I feel like my inner journey through this has been really powerful but in terms of what my outward life looks like, I don't obviously do as many external things. But I'm still at the beach every day. I'm still going to the farmer's markets at a social distance. It's like, I'm still kind of doing a lot of the things, and yeah, it's a tricky one to imagine. Like in some ways I think having the bush fires was a really good thing for Australian's to realise.   Catherine Ingram: (50:23) I do too.   Tahnee: (50:23) Yeah like that there actually is going to be an impact. Because it's so easy when it's over there to kind of forget about it or to take-   Catherine Ingram: (50:33) Yeah well it was also somehow helpful in that we were already sort of crisis ready.   Tahnee: (50:41) Orientated. Turning toward crisis.   Catherine Ingram: (50:45) We've already gotten our crisis muscles well exercised. I mean I know people could argue and say, "Yeah well we're in crisis fatigue." But I actually think there was some benefit in terms of of a way that, first of all, that whole sense of, "Okay what's important? What matters? If my house catches fire, what is it in it that I needed even? My photographs maybe or whatever. My computer possibly." But you know, and of course then you think, one of my girlfriends, this is a little bit telling a tale out of the school but, one of my girlfriends in LA owns a Picasso. And so one time, LA gets a lot of fires. And so one time she was telling me that during one of the recent fires she had actually, she had grabbed of course her dogs and the bunny rabbit and she was trying to figure out how to get the fish. She gets everything kind of ready to get loaded into the car and then it turns out they didn't need to go. And I said, "What about the Picasso?" And she said, "I didn't even think about the Picasso." I thought, "That's so cool. The bunny rabbit made it in there before the Picasso." It's like, that's really cool.   Tahnee: (52:07) It sounds like she's got her head on straight yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (52:09) Exactly. I think a lot of us would make those choices actually. The living thing. So yeah, I think we had, through the fires, come to those kinds of recognitions. What actually does one need in a life? We're so happy because we went through all that drought, we got a big lesson in water. In water rationing and we got a huge lesson in don't take any of this for granted. So yeah, these are going to be the lessons coming forth, I do believe.   Tahnee: (52:46) It's interesting what you're... Because you said something else in the essay around... It was around Auschwitz and the people that survived were the ones that had had struggles already in their lives. I think that's something... That resilience that we build through meeting life's challenges and learning from them. I think when you look at how far our civilization has to fall compared to others, it might be that there is parts of humanity that survive because of what they've been through.   Catherine Ingram: (53:21) Already existing local resilience, doing without, living on very little, helping [inaudible 00:53:27] community. Yes. I think they're in a far better circumstance to get through this than we are because we're so dependent on a very complicated system. And we're not used to a certain kind of community sharing, which is very much what we want to start focusing on with this group.   Tahnee: (53:48) So in terms of what you are looking to create, I suppose, could you just give us the elevator pitch or some kind of sense of what the ideal outcome of this organisation would be?   Catherine Ingram: (54:01) Resilient Byron, well there's one part of it is resilient and the other part is regenerative. But I'm more interested in the resilient. I actually think we're going straight into crises one after the next. So in that conversation, it's been about starting a framework of neighbourhood units of resilience basically so that people would start focusing on their own neighbourhoods. Whatever that means to you. Whether it's your street or your particular area. And start sharing resources. We've got the Facebook page, which is serving as a kind of clearing house at the moment for just information and for people to find out about things like during the coronavirus crisis. Like where to get things you need, food or help in various ways. We're going to start having more conversations about food security, community gardens, security security. Like just how to stay safe. What about housing for people who may... Either don't have housing currently or may need it at some point.   Catherine Ingram: (55:17) So there's lots of, I mean it's really in the formative stages but we're just basically looking at lots of different ways that we're going to organise to perhaps be a system in this region that is de-linked from the national sort of federal system. I don't mean that we're going to do a political coup but rather that we're going to have a lot of local resources we're relying on. Those can be also shared with nearby like [inaudible 00:55:51] and up where you are.   Tahnee: (55:54) [inaudible 00:55:54].   Catherine Ingram: (55:58) It could be an entire Northern Rivers sort of eco-community that is helping each other.   Tahnee: (56:08) That's so exciting to me because I mean I think I can see how that becomes something that can roll out. I have a friend in Melbourne and I know, on her street, she's has food and she grows things and her neighbours do and they all trade eggs and vegetables. And just that little bit of connection with the people on your street and that's such a... It has such a profound impact on your wellbeing. That was one of the solutions you offered up in the essay was community and I think-   Catherine Ingram: (56:36) It's number one yeah. It's the number one-   Tahnee: (56:38) And what we've really done is separate ourselves. I remember living in the city and if you like smiled at somebody... I was lucky to be raised in the country where you knew everybody, which had pros and cons. Because you knew everybody. I remember being really naughty as a teenager and like the local policeman was my mum's mate and I was like, "Hey." He was like, "Oh dear." Anyway. But yeah, I think it's really, this kind of getting to know the people that we live beside every day. Just getting a sense of, well, "Yeah they're the people we lean on." Our cul-de-sac through this time has been my saving grace. I have babysitters and I have friends for my children and I have people to share stories with. It's just been... Yeah it's been such a beautiful experience.   Catherine Ingram: (57:32) That's wonderful. That's really it. That's wonderful. That's what humans have relied on through all of human history until quite recently was, you lived with your tribe. And of course as civilization so called erupted, still people lived with their tribes in a different way. They lived mostly with family or rural communities or if you lived in a city it wasn't a huge city. There weren't huge cities really.   Tahnee: (58:04) Well and even people stayed in their boroughs, you know? They didn't leave their neighbourhoods. Very infrequently. Yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (58:13) You'd still live within a tribe within the city. So yeah, we've gotten far from that but we can... That is one thing I think we can bring back. Well dear I should go because-   Tahnee: (58:25) Yes I was going to say, thank you so much. It's actually nearly 11:11 so that's perfect. I just wanted to say that was such a great note to end on. And also because that's something you do with the Dharma Dialogues. I always got so much... I haven't been to them in a while because you weren't doing them and then this has happened but just being around people who are able to articulate their human experience and then just the sharing and I think that's, for me, been such a balm. And also obviously your wisdom and insight. So I know you've got two weekends per month coming up. Is it through June and July that you'll be doing that?   Catherine Ingram: (59:03) I'm actually going to do it indefinitely. I'm going to start-   Tahnee: (59:05) Oh wonderful.   Catherine Ingram: (59:07) Since we're locked down I'm just going to start doing online-   Tahnee: (59:09) Great so they'll be replacing, in a way the Lennox events?   Catherine Ingram: (59:13) Yeah.   Tahnee: (59:13) Okay. Fantastic. Okay well that's super exciting. Okay so those'll go up on your website soon so we can link to them and if anyone... Is it just through sign up to your email kind of thing and you'll be notified?   Catherine Ingram: (59:25) Yeah.   Tahnee: (59:26) Awesome. Well thank you so much for your time. I know-   Catherine Ingram: (59:29) Thank you so much for inviting me. That was lovely.   Tahnee: (59:31) Yeah it's been really beautiful to speak with you. I'll also link to your books as well because Passionate Presence is the only one I've read but I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I really just appreciate everything you're offering because it helps people like me navigate their lives. So much love. All right Catherine well I'll hopefully see you in the flesh again one day soon. Enjoy the rest of your day.   Catherine Ingram: (59:55) And you. Bye dear.   Tahnee: (59:57) Bye hun.   Catherine Ingram: (59:57) Bye.

To get in touch with Tiaga Prem Singh...   tiagaprem@thedharmatemple.com   or Instagram   @tiagaprem   @thedharmatemple   In this week's episode:   *The difference and the connection between Concentration + Meditation   *Dealing with duality on Planet Earth   *Facing your challenges   *Dharmic Warrior of the Nervous System   *The Strength that comes from Breath, Sound, Devotion   *Wherever the Creator keeps me, there is heaven - Nanak   *Living Dharma is doing whatever you want???   *Three fold path to Living in Oneness   *Learning to Trust the Real You   *True Prosperity is Trustworthiness   *The other person is you   *Blame becomes blame *Blame seeks sympathy   *Wisdom of the Heart seeks to heal + elevate rather than blame or seek sympathy   *External validation in society pushes us to not trust ourselves   *The importance of re-programming   *Can you experience your You even when you’re in pain *Can you pray even when you’re not in pain   *Always Start with gratitude

What is Buddhism? How could it help your daily life? Is it a religion? And what does the statue we always see really represent? Jack Kornfield, one of the leading Buddhist teachers in America, introduces the basic principles behind Buddhism, discusses the steps involved in mindful living and offers practical tips on how to grow your own spiritual practice. His teachings begin with the idea that people are born whole and good, and that later, they can choose to turn back to their innate goodness. Jack also shares his best advice on how to stay in the now, quiet your thoughts and lead a truly awakened life. Jack trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma (now Myanmar). He has taught meditation internationally for decades and is one of the key people to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. His best-selling books, including "The Wise Heart," "Living Dharma" and "No Time Like the Present," have been translated into 20 languages.

Rev. Miyamura speaks about the Online Book Club sponsored by Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada - Living Dharma Center. 

Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher with communities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Since 1992 she has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events that focus on directing awareness toward greater wellbeing in an ethical and happy life. Catherine also leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. She is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organization founded in 1995. Catherine has been the subject of numerous print, television, and radio interviews and is included in several anthologies about teachers in the west. A former journalist specializing in issues of consciousness and activism, Catherine Ingram is the author of two books of nonfiction, which are published in numerous languages: In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual/Social Activists (Parallax Press, 1990) and Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness (Penguin Putnam, 2003); and one novel, A Crack in Everything (Diamond Books, 2006). Over a fifteen-year period beginning in 1982, Catherine published approximately 100 articles on issues of consciousness and activism and served on the editorial staffs of New Age Journal, East West Journal, and Yoga Journal. For four years she wrote the Life Advice column for Alternatives Magazine based in Oregon. TOPICS: How to know when you are out of alignment with with your true self + How to create the habit of silence + How death can be our alley and inspire us to savor our lives more + How to cultivate passionate presence + How to create a truly nourishing and authentic life.

Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher with communities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia and the author of Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness. Since 1992 she has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events that focus on directing awareness toward greater wellbeing in an ethical and happy life. Catherine also leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. She is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organization founded in 1995. For more information, visit www.dialogueswithcatherine.com. TOPICS: How to have your life be a meditation + How to interrupt and navigate your problems/negative stories with more grace and ease + Why gratitude is so important for instant happiness + Why embodiment is so important to pleasure and joy + How to experience more wonder, delight and divinity right here and now + The importance of silence and rest.

Catherine Ingram is the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything.  Since 1993 she has internationally led public events called Dharma Dialogues as well as retreats focusing on secular ways of inducing more wisdom, service, and well-being in one’s life.  She founded and is president of Living Dharma, an educational nonprofit organization and she serves on the boards of The Burma Project (a human rights organization) as well as Global Animal (an animal rights organization).  

Another talk in our exploration of Insight, todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte from Dhammamegha entitled and#8220;Living Dharma in South Africaand#8221; was the second talk in a panel called and#8220;Spreading the Dharma as a Path to Insightand#8221;, given at the European Combined Order Convention held at Wymondham College on 23 August 2014.