In this retreat recording, Gil Fronsdal applies Buddhism to parenting and explains family life as one of the best forms of practice.

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

• Buddhism as a training for all aspects of our lives
• Finding balance, freedom, and compassion in the day-to-day
• Family and children as one of the greatest forms of practice
• Equanimity as the crown jewel of Buddhism
• How children are more influenced by how we are rather than what we say
• Our emotional presence as an integral part of our children’s development
• How anger and anxiety can pass onto our children
• Stepping back and looking at our priorities
• Taking responsibility to show up for practice
• Controlling ourselves and staying present
• Being accepting and allowing our children to be themselves
• Making space when our children say hurtful things
• Gil’s own stories and examples as a father
• Modeling equanimity and acceptance towards ourselves

About Gil Fronsdal:

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

“We can’t really control the world and there are enough times we can’t control our children. But, we can control ourselves, or part of ourselves. When we can’t control the situation around us, can we at least monitor ourselves enough so that we can stay balanced, not caught, not lost, not distracted, but really stay present in an effective way?” – Gil Fronsdal

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Defining relationships as a triangle between God, Self, and Other, Stephen and Ondrea Levine discuss opening and softening our hearts.

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In this archival episode, Stephen and Ondrea Levine explore:

• How relationships open our hearts in hell
• The difficulty in relationships as a path to purification
• How easy it is to be in a relationship, how hard it is to relate
• Relationships as a triangle between God, Other, and Self
• How fear and cruelty dissolves in a willingness to approach the truth
• Trying to let go of what keeps hearts separate
• Dying into life, letting the heart burst, and going on
• Practices that help us connect to ourselves and to forgive
• The tremendous work we can do at home
• Healing parental relationships
• How grief keeps us separate
• Each moment of love as complete and precious
• Learning how to love by watching how unloving we often are

About Stephen & Ondrea Levine:

Stephen Levine was an American poet, author and Buddhist teacher best known for his work on death and dying. He was a friend and colleague to many Be Here Now Network Teachers. Along with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, Stephen is responsible for making the teachings of Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students in the West. He also helped establish the Living/Dying Project with RamDev and Ram Dass.

For over thirty-two years, Stephen and his wife Ondrea Levine provided emotional and spiritual support for those who are life-threatened, and for caregivers. Through their healing and forgiveness workshops, many writings, and endless compassion, Stephen and Ondrea have touched the lives of thousands of people all over the world. They are the authors of numerous books, including Who Dies, Embracing the Beloved, and A Year to Live, among others. Find more talks and writings from Stephen and Ondrea at levinetalks.com.

“Relationship offers us an opportunity to open our heart in hell. The difficulty of relationship is one of its most exquisite opportunities for purification, for healing.” – Stephen Levine

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Trudy Goodman introduces listeners to the Brahmavihārās through an affectionate breath practice and a loving-kindness body scan.

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This week on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Buddhist teacher Trudy Goodman explores:

• The Brahmavihārās: love, compassion, joy and equanimity
• Re-parenting ourselves through practice
• The feeling of being soothed, comforted, and safety
• Offering loving kindness to our body
• Gratitude for the breath and all it does to support us
• The breath as a river of blessings that is always here for us
• How the Brahmavihārās infuse and suffuse our being
• A loving-kindness body scan

About Trudy Goodman:

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

Learn more about Trudy’s offerings at trudygoodman.com

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed

You will notice that the breath is so exquisitely attuned. When we’re upset we tend to breath rapidly. When we’re at peace the breath slows down. We don’t have to do anything. This is one of the ways we are loved and supported by the breath. You don’t have to make it happen, you don’t have to create it.” – Trudy Goodman

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

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

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

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

About Gil Fronsdal:

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

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

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

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

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

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

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed

About Trudy Goodman:

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

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

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

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In this talk, Gil Fronsdal lectures about:

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

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

This talk was originally published on Dharmaseed

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