Deer Park Dharmacast

Dear Friends, This week we offer the first half of a dharma talk given by Brother Phap Ho at the 2012 Mindfulness Retreat.  He explores the questions, "What is suffering?" and "How do we transform ill-being and nourish well-being?" from his own perspective, but also from the perspective of three great teachers and role models for him, the Buddha, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thich Nhat Hanh.   Rem...

Dear Friends, This week we have a continuation from last week's podcast, as we listen to the second half of Brother Phap Hai's talk from Deer Park's 2012 Mindfulness Retreat. Brother Phap Hai shares lessons from Master Dogen's 13th century Zen text, "Instructions for the Cook".  Furthermore, he shares that to go with the three roots of suffering, three different minds can be cultivated: joyful min...

Dear Friends, This week's dharma talk was given by Brother Phap Hai at the 2012 Mindfulness Retreat at Deer Park Monastery.   Known for his poetic and engaging dharma talks, he shares the Buddha's teachings about the three roots of our suffering; greed, ill-will, and delusion; and the eight winds or worldly dharmas; gain, loss, status, disgrace, praise, blame, pleasure and pain.   Brother Phap Hai...

Dear Friends,    This week's dharma talk was given by Brother Phap Don at the recent People of Color retreat at Deer Park Monastery on the concept: "I have arrived, I am home."   How can we arrive and find our true home?  Brother Phap Don first offers us the repetition and mindfulness of the daily mundane activities and then describes the Buddha's 12 mindfulness exercises.  Join the DP Dharmacast...

Dear Friends, During the New Year's retreat, Brother Phap De gave a wonderful dharma talk on gratitude.  Although it's the middle of the year, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the message.  Brother Phap De delves deeply into gratitude to our parents.  With Mother's Day having just passed and Father's Day coming up, I thought we might have our parents on our minds. Enjoy this moment to...

Dear Friends, Welcome to the Deer Park Dharmacast -- the podcast that puts the Dharma in your pocket. Deer Park recently hosted a People of Color retreat.  Part of the retreat was a question and answer session where retreatants were invited to ask questions from the heart to a panel of laywomen, laymen, monks and nuns.  Today, we offer you an excerpt of the question and answer session. Perhaps you...

Dear Friends, When our sangha brother Washuntara visits Deer Park, we often sing this beautiful song together.  Here is a lovely video of Can't Stop Love.  Please enjoy this beautiful musical offering. If you want to hear more of Washuntara, please visit http://www.washuntara.com.

Thay Phai Hai explains the meaning behind the Chinese characters for mindfulness. Preview: "A new understanding can emerge..." Michael provides the listeners with a visual for their reference.  

Kiss the ground with your feet as Thay Phap Hai takes us on a journey to meet a gentleman of the past. Preview: "Allow your path to be an expression of who you are." Make sure to download the bonus content " Discourse on Love, " contact the Deer Park bookstore if you are interested in the full album in addition to similar works.  

Breathe with me as Sister Kinh Nghiem shares her story mixed in with a Buddhist story.  Self-described as a city girl, she scatters the seeds we need to grasp the true nature of the practice. Preview: "100%, this is your ticket!" This time the artwork was submitted by none other than myself, Michael Nguyen .  I'd like to ask for experienced audio editors to join our team.  Please get in touch beca...

Stay seated as Thay Phap Khoi shares about the good sight meditation, the 8 fold path and a rewritten song that by coincidence shares the same name as the retreat he is speaking at. Preview: "Be here now, be here now, savor your tea and drink your cloud.  Sit with ease, walk in peace the path will turn to joy you'll see." Enjoy the artwork submitted by Jeffery Levan, 12 years old of Houston.  He s...

Come a bit closer as Thay Phap Ho shares from his life experience and a well of knowledge at the 2012 Family Retreat.  The winter winds may be sneaking up on us but rays of light continue to be transmitted around us.   Preview: "Full blown anger will take us away." If you use Twitter, follow us @dpcast to get the dharma instantly in your pocket. 

This is the opening Dharma Talk with two special guest dharma teachers:  the most Venerable Suhita Dharma, the first ordained African American Buddhist monk, and the Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley.  The teachers share about the retreat theme, Transforming Suffering: Touching Peace & Freedom. If you would like to attend a retreat to practice i...

Dear Friends Here is part two of this wonderful talk from the People of Color retreat at Deer Park.  Our guest teachers are joined by Sister Huong Nghiem to respond to written questions from retreatants.  The topics cover how we might approach reconnection with those we may be separated from, compassionate eating, addressing grief and how to avoide being an 'angry activist'. Please accept this off...

Dear Friends On July 27-29, 2012, Deer Park Monastery hosted its first People of Color Retreat in five years.  The retreat weekend came together with two special guest dharma teachers:  the most Venerable Suhita Dharma, the first ordained African American Buddhist monk, and the Rev. Angel Kyodo William, founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley.  This first podcast is the first d...

Today we learn about the 5 Hindrances and their antidotes from our wonderful teacher, Thich Chan Phap Ho--Protector of the Dharma.  Phap Ho encourges us to have the courage to do the things in life that we want to do and reminds us that living our life mindful of interdependence and interbeing will bring us to the right path.  We also learn how to turn neutral feelings into happiness.  For example...

Dear Friends We had a special session during the family retreat on mindful parenting.   Our sister Nomi Green shares her insights as a parent and as a professional about children and our relationship with them--and ourselves. Please enjoy! With this podcast, we also welcome a new editor to our Podcast Family--welcome Genevieve!

Dear Friends This wonderful talk is by our beloved Phap De, Younger Brother.  Phap De offers many deep insights about the nature of suffering and offers practical methods to transform it.  He reminds us that our perceptions are mostly wrong and mostly made up of our past.  He shares deeply about the nature of judgement and forgiveness reminding us that the more we can forgive, the more we can feel...

Dear Friends As summer begins, we thought we would offer a musical treat from Joe Reilly's new CD--Hello Ocean.  This CD is dedicated to the True Ocean Family who ordained as order of Interbeing Members in September of 2011.  The CD also includes a wonderful song called 'Monkey Mind' that might help you change your relationship with your own monkey mind too.   If you would like more info on how to...

Dear Friends, welcome to the Deer Park Dharmacast. Today we offer a dharma talk from Brother Phap De on Mother Earth, given here at Dear Park with the approach of the Christmas holiday.  Brother Phap De is an American born monk, to whom Thich Nhat Hahn gave a monastic name meaning “Young Monk.” Here Thay Phap De speaks about his Christian upbringing and beliefs, and describes how Thich Nhat Hahn t...

Dear Friends Deer Park is offering a series of theme weekends during the year.  The first weekend was a wonderful offering from Dharma Teacher Eileen Kiera.  Eileen is a resident Dharma teacher at Mountain Lamp near Bellingham Washington.  http://mountainlamp.org/   Eileen Kiera is an ecologist by training and a vegetable gardener by passion, but the practice and support of the Dharma has been her...

On the second talk of the weekend, Dharma Teacher Eileen Kiera shares about the practice, presence, body, and   great vows of three powerful bodhisattvas-- Avalokiteshvara, Manjusri, and   Samanthabhadra.   We learn that if we can cultivate the energy and practice of compassionate listening, looking deeply, and responding with appropriate action we can embody these bodhisattvas in our lives.   Whe...

Dear Thay, Dear Sangha, Dear Virtual Community Today, we close our Three Month Winter Retreat and our Moment by moment class.  The Third Noble Truth--the end of suffering is discussed by our teachers.  We are encouraged to look into our suffering and to be aware of what is real and how much we create in our own mind.  What is our real experience and what is suffering because that is what we label...

Last week, we learned about the first turning of the wheel-the recognition of our suffering and our situation.  With the second turning of the wheel, Thich Chan Phap Hai encourages us to explores the causes of our suffering.  We learn more deeply about the three poisons-- Greed (or 'ever-seeking' or 'always wanting'), Hatred (or ill-will or 'closed-down heart') and ignorance or delusion (not ignor...

Dear Virtual Family: For the past 8 weeks, we have studied the Noble 8-fold path, the 4th of the 4 Noble truths.  In a kind of Zen order, we have studied the last, first.  Tonight, we look into the first of the Four Noble Truths- The Existence of Suffering/Stress.  Thich Chan Phap Ho (Protection of the Dharma) guides us to look deeply into the fact that we have suffering, what it is, and how to ha...