Awake in the World Podcast

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. A tender and personal talk Michael gives during silent retreat about his father, forgiveness, and how we need to practice forgiveness all the time. He talks about how, and why. He talks about the painter Hellen Frankenthaller’s death and practicing in good times and bad. Recorded on December 29, 20...

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. An hour before New Year’s Michael gives a quiet talk on the Heart Sutra and Forgiveness. “When I hold someone’s hand as they are dying I chant the Heart Sutra. Or when I watch my son sleeping.” A tender and quiet talk on silent retreat. Recorded on Dec 31, 2011.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. Michael Stone talks on silent retreat about how meditation works over the long-haul, how to practice with a teacher that encourages independence, and how to live without gain. This is the second last talk of the year and the group was in deep silent practice, and it was snowing. Recorded at Sugar R...

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. Michael speaks about modern Buddhism as a “culture of awakening,” and then talks on the Zen koan “Save a Ghost.” We are broken. That’s why meditation is an ambulance service for love. Mindfulness is a practice of mourning. The dead live on in us as ghosts and as we mourn we make them into culture....

In this talk, Michael explains that the way we choose to view the obstacles we encounter in practice can either take us off the path, or allow us to use them as signposts that help us move forward. He argues that social action, spiritual practice and psychological awareness are all required if we wish to wake up. Recorded on March 7, 2006.

Drawing on several ancient texts, Michael describes practice as a deep investigation into the nature of how things are and how we are—which requires letting go of our tendencies to create categories, cling to preferences, and grasp for the unattainable. Recorded March 5, 2008.

In this second talk on the Lotus Sutra Michael provides some background about the role the text plays following the emergence of the Mahayana and Tendai traditions, shifting the emphasis from personal liberation to compassion and interdependence. He considers the mythical, fantastical style of the text and how it challenges orthodoxy in order to promote a path of service. Recorded on March 3, 2011...

This thirty-minute guided meditation focuses on the physical body, and describes how physical choices like setting up the gaze can help to monitor and settle the mind. Recorded on June 28, 2008.

In this Awake in the World podcast Michael talks about anger, the R.A.I.N. practice, and how to be more skillful in working with afflictive emotions. Recorded on June 27, 2008.

In this thirty minute guided meditation Michael offers an introduction to investigation, using the question “who is breathing.” Recorded on June 26, 2009.

A forty-minute guided meditation on the First Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of Breathing. Recorded on June 24, 2009.

In this Awake in the World podcast guest teacher Norman Feldman unpacks part of the Buddha’s First Discourse, with a focus on the ending of dukkha and the five aggregates. Recorded on June 23, 2009.

In this talk Michael considers the first two of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness in terms of the three characteristics (impermanence, interdependence and not-self). He describes how these foundations are techniques we can use to discover and dismantle self-constructed suffering. Recorded on June 25, 2009.

In this Awake in the World podcast Michael provides some background about the “Fear and Terror Sutta” (Bhaya-bherava Sutta) and discusses the importance of mindfulness in coping with fear, dread and anxiety. This talk, shared in two parts, is an excerpt from Michael’s six-week online course, Big Heart Powers, examining topics like the characteristics of fear and anxiety, how they become embodied,...

In this Awake in the World podcast Michael provides some background about the “Fear and Terror Sutta” (Bhaya-bherava Sutta) and discusses the importance of mindfulness in coping with fear, dread and anxiety. This talk, shared in two parts, is an excerpt from Michael’s six-week online course, Big Heart Powers, examining topics like the characteristics of fear and anxiety, how they become embodied,...

Using Philip Whalen’s poem “Further Notice” for inspiration, Michael describes how to establish a consistent meditation practice and offers suggestions to help with motivation. Recorded on June 21, 2009.

In this podcast Michael explores the dynamics of meditation, and the need for us to let our assumptions about what meditation is fall away. Recorded on June 16, 2009.

In this talk on the theme of freedom and discipline Michael argues that true freedom comes with unravelling the layers of self-making that are deeply habitual—including striving, intellectualizing, clinging and story-telling. Awareness of these tendencies can create space for contentment, presence and new possibilities. Recorded on June 11, 2008.

In this talk, which took place during a retreat at Sugar Ridge, Michael delves into the koan titled “Not knowing is the most intimate” (Miscellaneous Koans Case 62). He explores ideas about home and pilgrimage, stages of mindfulness practice, commentaries on commentaries, and a funny story about “the supreme power of the useless.” Recorded on June 5, 2010.

In this Awake in the World podcast guest teacher Norman Feldman explores metta practice and how it compliments and supports insight (Vipassana) practice, as well as allowing us to open to dukkha so we can see its origins and free ourselves. Recorded on June 4, 2010.

In this Awake in the World podcast Michael speaks about the power of story-telling and how the stories we construct, individually and culturally, can either heal and transform us—or shut us down. Once we get still enough to see the story-teller (ahaṃkāra) at work, we can consciously choose to shift the story towards realization and connectedness. Recorded on June 4, 2009.

In this Awake in the World Podcast Michael explains the teaching of “The Two Darts” (the Sallatha Sutta) and asserts that the Buddha offers a useful and supportive model for working with pain—whether it is physical, emotional, or cultural in origin. Recorded on June 19, 2007.

In this Awake in the World Podcast Michael covers the ninth part of the Genjokoan that begins, “A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water.” He argues that realization comes with knowing what nourishes you—and then “you can do you.” Recorded on July 29, 2010.

In this Awake in the World podcast, guest teacher Trudy Goodman gives a talk on sila, the ethical foundations of the eightfold path (wise livelihood, wise behaviour, and wise speech). Recorded on July 18, 2009 at a mindfulness for clinicians program with Leading Edge Seminars.

In this Awake in the World podcast Michael talks about the tendency we have to amplify suffering by creating a self that we think is separate and “special,” and how in our quest to be enlightened we can often get tripped up by the same instincts.