This talk explores happiness as your essential nature. You’ll learn how the intention to be truly happy cultivates clarity, wisdom and the realization of the inter-connectedness of your life.  This talk is live from the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, VA in 2016.

This talk explores how to find the equilibrium between skillful action and skillful release.   You’ll learn how much of meditation practice (and life) calls for focus and sustained attention. But too tight a grip on focus can lead to missed opportunities, fresh insights and new possibilities. Learning to rest in presence can open intuitive faculties - when properly balanced.

This talk is a continuation of how to bring aliveness to your practice.    You’ll learn some inner practices as well as the invaluable qualities of finding like-minded people and the impact community can have on being more awake in your life.  

This talk explore how to cultivate inspiration in your practice, particularly when it gets challenging.   You’ll learn why we stop practicing and a variety of tips, tricks and techniques for keeping your practice alive, vibrant, interesting and engaging. 

This talk is from the fifth evening of a week-long Vipassana Retreat. You’ll learn how meditation increases your sensitivity to how you hold on, how the intention to let go can set in motion a process that brings you in direct contact with the mystery — and how letting go and letting be are required to wake up to the nature of reality.

Here’s my interview with the wonderful Shawn Parell, a wonderful teacher, guide and passionate student of the dharma. We discuss the evolution of practice, the power of somatic awareness, how to balance daily life with deep practice and how meditation can be a wonderful tool for self-discovery. For more about Shawn and her offerings, go to  www.shawnparell.com, Instagram @ShawnParell for weekly meditations and prompts for practice and lots more. 

This talk explores some of the mistaken beliefs about the practice of meditation. You’ll learn how meditation is not a quick fix for your problems, is not about escaping reality and how this practice is both an art and science … and can dramatically transform your life.

This talk explores the art of new beginnings.   You’ll learn how important it is to embrace your first reaction when things change, how to soften and release the past, how to open to new possibilities and how to engage into what most calls you forward.

This talk explores mindful strategies for overcoming procrastination. You’ll learn different ways we put things off, what gets in the way of the flow state, what flow feels like and for me, the most important question for sparking creative juices.   Jeff Fajains, Phd, offers a 30 Day Creative Momentum  and helps creators bring their ideas to life.  More on Jeff here:  https://jefffajans.com/

This talk explores how to work with acute anxiety.   You’ll learn how to identify the triggers that cause feelings of overwhelm and some strategies for working panic, whether it be for yourself or when you accompany another when waves of intense anxiety arise.

This talk explores the fundamental elements of fear and how to release what is between you and feeling free.   You’ll learn about the essential nature of anxiety, the cause and the release of suffering through the transformative practices of awakening the Wise Heart.

This talk explores strategies for working with fear and anxiety. You’ll learn how you can move from threat mode to opportunity mode and strategies for working with fear and anxiety in the body as well as a particular strategy for working with thoughts and beliefs.

This talk explores the art of working with anxiety and dread. You’ll learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy fear, the roots of fear and some strategies for transforming the experience of anxiety when it arises.

This talk explores the difference between luck and karma. You’ll learn how a mindfulness practice may help you cultivate a clearer intention, recognize opportunities and help you more quickly reset when you recognize you are off course. For those looking from the outside, you may appear quite lucky indeed.

This talk explores the tenth of the ten perfections.   You’ll learn how you cannot make steadiness and serenity happen, but can create the conditions that allow this inner state to arise. When you remember the fundamental quality of reality, you can more easily open to embrace your true nature.

The talk explores the power of loving kindness. You’ll learn how to be more of a well-wisher to all, some techniques to more effectively express kindness in the world and a reflection on what might happen in your life if you were to be more adept at responding to challenges with an open heart.

This talk explores the power of grit.   You’ll learn the importance of first creating goals that are fully aligned with your heart and spirit and then developing your capacity to stay on your path, developing both perseverance as well as deep, intuitive inner listening.  

This talk explores how to attune to what is true. You’ll learn how to discern between conventional and eternal truth, two essential teachings of truth and how to use your relationships and wise speech as a doorway to greater clarity and self-awareness.

This talk explores how to cultivate the quality of patience and self-restraint.   You’ll learn about the power of refraining from those who have caused you harm, how to endure hardship, how to cultivate greater confidence in ultimate truth and about the near-enemies of patience and forbearance.

This talk explores how to cultivate vitality, courage and resilience in your life.   You’ll learn how you can manage the energy you have and how to build vigor and confidence to pursue that which calls you.

This talk explores how to cultivate wisdom and insight.   You’ll learn about the importance of cultivating the wise heart, what gets in the way of seeing clearly, the anatomy of an insight and how to balance wisdom with compassion.

This talk explores the potential of mindful renunciation.   You’ll learn how critically important it is to know what is most important, cultivate the thoughts, behaviors and actions that will bring about that outcome and as well, identify and modify the the thoughts, behaviors and actions that get in the way of that outcome.

This talk explores how paying attention to your behavior can support you in your life.   You’ll learn how all traditions have guidelines regarding your moral behavior, how morality is often based on a negativity bias and how ultimately, it’s up to you to determine what you really want and define for yourself what it means to be virtuous and in integrity.

This talk explores the power of cultivating an attitude of love and care in your life.   You’ll learn what the Buddha said about giving, how intimately receiving is connected to generosity, the shadow-side of the practice and the power of taking generous actions when you feel called.

This talk explores some practices for cultivating embodied compassion and care.   You’ll explore  what means to ‘heal’ as well as a few ‘deep dives’ - first into a chakra scan then a scan through the body focusing on reflection, gratitude and well-wishing.

This talk explores how to investigate the inner energy centers through the lens of mindfulness.   You’ll learn about the chakras, a bit on the origins of different approaches, the components of each one and how to explore through the lens of non-judging awareness.

This talk explores how to work with challenging energies.   You’ll learn how embodied awareness can open the door to higher degrees of self awareness and how in that recognition of what is arising you can learn to ‘ride the wave’ of resistance and discover what is on the other side.

This talk explores how to open to more subtle felt-sense awareness through mindful breathing. Whole Body Breathing is yet another tool for drawing attention to the play of energy and sensations within and can dramatically heighten awareness of what is arising and how you are relating to it. This talk includes a guided meditation on this technique.

This is an adaptation of the first talk of a five day retreat at the Art of Living Center in Boone North Carolina.   You’ll learn some practical suggestions for embodied meditation and how the body can be an ally in your practice.

This talk explores who you are free from the wanting mind.   You’ll learn about the nature of desire, strategies for working with a greed-filled mind, what can arise as desire lessens and finally, some thoughts on being desire-free and enlightenment itself.

This talk explores who you are in the absence of ignorance and confusion.   You’ll explore the nature of delusion, strategies for overcoming delusion and being more clearly into the nature of reality and what it means to be awake beyond the fluctuations of emotions, thoughts and beliefs.

This talk explores who you are beyond the reach of  aversion.   You’ll learn about how, in our relationship to hatred there can be a rush to premature transcendence and how, by turning toward aversion, what is possible when hatred ceases, namely the arising of inter-connectedness, compassion and love.

This talk explores who you are beyond the conditioned self.   You’ll learn about what arises with the dissolution of the ego:  A greater sense of interconnectedness, an increased flow of compassion and empathy and not least, a more tangible sense of freedom from stress and suffering.

This talk explores the seventh factor of awakening.   You’ll learn how this factor is the the complete expression of all and as you cultivate both spaciousness and steadiness, wisdom and compassion can flow unrestricted.

This talk explores the power of sustained attention. You’ll learn about the consequence of chronic distraction, the levels of concentration you can achieve in your meditation practice,  how to balance concentration with deep relaxation and how to bring more sustained focus into your life.

This talk explores how to cultivate a calm and relaxed presence.   You’ll learn how tranquility is critical to mindfulness practice and sets the stage for more and more intimate awareness of what is happening and how you are holding it.

This talk explores ways you can bring more joy into your life. You’ll learn about the two essential forms of joy and how practicing ‘yes’ to life can cultivate more aliveness, radiance and upwelling of well-being in your life.

This talk explores ways you can cultivate greater aliveness and vitality. You’ll learn how mental and physical energy, vitality and aliveness are integral to the process of being more awake, aware and present in your life.

This talk explores the power of looking closer at what is present. You’ll learn how cultivating curiosity, examining what is arising and how you are relating to it can lead to not only greater freedom, but profound insights into the nature of reality.

This talk explores the factors that go into not only waking up, but working with the most profound challenges in your life. You’ll learn how recognizing the filters through which you perceive is truly a key to liberation and how some specific techniques can sharpen your awareness of when mindfulness is slipping away.

This talk explores the impact of having your personal North Star. You’ll learn how helpful it can be to clearly articulate what you most want, to reflect on the good in your life, to acknowledge what grows you and what calls you. I share a bit from my own Year in Review and offer some time for your reflection.

This talk explores some tips and tricks for being more mindful during your day. You’ll learn the fundamentals of applied mindfulness, my morning routine, how I try to remind myself to be more mindful during the day …. and the importance of being mindful when you hit challenges.   Finding your optimal routines can make a huge difference in feeling more present and satisfied in your life.  My routines may vary quite a bit from yours!

This talk explores the dance of trust, faith and doubt. You'll learn what gets in the way of trust, three levels of maturing faith, how embracing and investigating doubt is integral to wisdom and and suggestions as how to navigate the leaps of faith in your life.

Please note there are a few graphic examples animal suffering from my experience working on farms that might make you uncomfortable.  This talk reflects on my journey with different diets and food philosophies. You’ll learn why and how I landed on a plant-based lifestyle to dramatically cultivate my health and vitality, support the environment, explore how to live as cruelty-free as possible and to explore what I call ‘eating as a spiritual practice.’  

This talk explores how to go with the flow.   You’ll learn how life is filled with constant challenge and how, when you learn to let go and bring full attention to the here and now, you can open to new possibilities in your life.

This talk explores to transformative power of generosity. You’ll learn how giving as a spiritual practice reveals what is between you and a truly generous heart, how generosity requires you learn how to fully receive … and the Buddha’s teachings on how fundamental generosity is to the experience of liberation.

This talk explores the art of engaging and disengaging. You’ll learn about stimulus / response and how your practice of meditation can open up more space for you to be more skillful as to how you respond to the moment — and to the challenges that arise in your life.

This talk explores moving from conceptual to non-conceptual awareness.   You’ll learn what gets in the way of feeling the mystery, how ‘the five aggregates’ make up each moment, the doorway into non-conceptual perception as well as the doorway of gratitude. How My Son Ruined My Life:  Selma Baraz:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojF-o_eWp-o