Spirit Rock Meditation Center: dharma talks and meditation instruction

By: via dharmaseed.org

Language: en

Categories: Religion, Spirituality, Buddhism

The teachings of the Buddha (Dharma) and the practices of Insight Meditation (Vipassana) and loving-kindness meditation (metta) are at the heart of all the programs we offer at Spirit Rock. Practicing Insight Meditation develops mindfulness, the capacity to pay attention to each moment of life and to see clearly the truth of our experience. Studying the Dharma provides insights into the conditions that define and limit our experience of life. And cultivating an attitude of loving-kindness allows us to stay present to what's true and what's difficult in our lives with compassion for ourselves and others. Ultimately, our relationship to...

Episodes

Grace Fisher: Letting Go & Letting Be

Jan 08, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Begins with a 30m meditation & is followed by a Dharma Talk

Duration: 01:04:56

Donald Rothberg: Practicing with Intentions

Jan 07, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We explore the centrality of being skillful with intentions in our practice and a number of different ways of practicing to cultivate skillful intentions, in part related to the New Year. We look at the Buddha's account of karma (kamma in Pali) as intention, and his teaching on the importance of reflection in living with skillful intentions. Remembering the Chinese Chan (Zen) teacher Yunmen's speaking of the centrality of "appropriate response," we develop a simple model for developing skillful intentions leading to skillful or appropriate responses. We also explore the variety of types of intentions, and...

Duration: 01:00:13

Donald Rothberg: Guided Meditation Exploring Practicing with Intentions

Jan 07, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We start by tuning into our intentions, both our "larger" or "deeper" intentions for why we practice and a more specific intention for this practice session based on how we are in the moment (maybe really settled or maybe distracted by what happened yesterday). We then work to develop concentration (samadhi) in one of several ways, particularly setting an intention either to be more relaxed (if we tend to be "tight" and over-efforting) or to be more effortful (if we tend to be overly relaxed). We later tune in to how the practice is going and...

Duration: 00:35:36

Phillip Moffitt: Letting Go Dharma Talk

Jan 05, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

Duration: 00:48:45

Phillip Moffitt: Naturally Arising Meditation

Jan 05, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

Duration: 00:53:20

Devon Hase: Guided Awareness Meditation (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Jan 03, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Moving from body to choiceless attention to awarenenss of awareness, we consider the Bahiya Sutta and how it points to the not-self nature of things.

Duration: 00:53:36

Devon Hase: Love and Emptiness: Finding Freedom in the Six Senses (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Jan 02, 2026

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Drawing from the Culasunyatta Sutta and the teaching to Bahiya, this talk explores how the entire Buddhist path unfolds within the immediacy of our sensory experience. Emptiness is revealed not as a metaphysical abstraction but as the progressive letting go of what distracts us from what is peaceful—a movement from palace to forest to space to freedom itself. The whole world exists within this fathom-long body and its six sense doors. Liberation happens here, in the seen, heard, sensed, and cognized—not through traveling to some distant realm, but through radical presence with what is. When...

Duration: 00:49:40

Devon Hase: Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Emotions (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Dec 31, 2025

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Teachings and Guidance on RAIN meditation.

Duration: 01:03:45

Devon Hase: Treasures in the Dark: Death as a Teacher of Life (Retreat at Spirit Rock)

Dec 30, 2025

(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) What if aging, illness, and death aren't enemies to avoid, but teachers bowing at our feet? This talk explores the Buddha's radical invitation to turn toward life's inevitable difficulties—not with morbidity, but with the clear-eyed realism that sets us free. Through poetry, contemporary dharma voices, and the ancient practice of death awareness, we discover how contemplating our mortality doesn't diminish joy—it ignites it. When we stop living heedlessly and wake up to the preciousness of this breath, this moment, this life, we find the courage to love completely and let go gracefully. A New Year...

Duration: 00:49:29