Deer Park Dharmacast

Today's talk is a talk and a practice.  A chance to come back and touch the moment.  A chance to cultivate the evenness and concentration of our mind and to connect our body and our mind.  We learn new ways to enjoy being ourselves and nourish ourselves with right concentration.   Concentration also means 'to dwell with'.   We learn how to keep the weather within the same, no matter what the weath...

Tonight we learn about another step on the Noble Eight Fold Path- Right Livelihood. The way we make a living has an impact on our world and society, but also on us.  As we make a living, we are also making ourselves.  Tonight's class discusses the many ways the practice can nourish our work life and allows up to help ourselves, our co-workers and the people we serve all at once. Phap Ho is joined...

Dear Friends Tonight we are offered a very inspiring and empowering teaching on Right Effort.  Right Effort is the first in the Concentration Triad of steps on the 8-fold path, the place where we are able and ready to collect our mind.  At this point in our training, our mind begins to calm down.  Right effort in Buddhist teaching is not hard labor.  It is appropriate attention or appropriate effo...

Welcome Back and Happy New Year to our virtual Dharma classmates! We hope you enjoyed your holiday and were offered many beautiful opportunities to cultivate, enjoy, and share your practice. Tonight's class is on Right Action.  Sr. Bich Nghiem shares that the practice of Right Action can help us be happier.  Right action means right action of the body, the practice of being in touch with love and...

Dear Friends Just in time for the holidays we have an opportunity to look deeply at Right Speech. The materials prepared for this talk are very useful and insightful. You can find them here:  http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-4/view   Thich Phap Ho shares about ways to make our speech loving, kind, and using speech that grows our community in a harmonious...

Today we offer a very useful and moving dharma talk given here at Deer Park Monastery by Brother Phap Dang, in which he speaks about depression and dark states of the mind, and the mind’s obsessions that can lead to these dark places.  We know it will bring benefits to many people.  

Dear Friends:  Tonights podcast includes three amazing gifts-- 00-8:00 a sitting meditation (there is a little additional resonance that makes the bells very long around minute 7:00) 8:00    Intro to the class 13:00   A beautiful song offering, Can't Stop Love,  by Washuntara (www.washuntara.com) 18:00   The teaching by Thich Phap Hai on Right Thinking/ Right Intention.   Enjoy this amazing offeri...

Dear Dharmacast Family: We hope you are having a wonderful winter (or summer depending on where you are) and are enjoying the fruits of your practice. We continue with the Moment to Moment exploration with today's class on Right View.  The handout can be found at  http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-2/view  and it is highly encouraged that you download and...

Moment by Moment: A  90-day journey in the landscape of Buddhist Teachings & Practices This winter a group of Monastic Dharma Teachers here at Deer Park will offer a course based in the Buddhas Teaching on the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path. Nov 27, 2011   This winter's course - Moment by Moment:   will be an opportunity to enjoy walking meditation through some of the vistas of central...

This very special Dharma Talk by Thay is offered by the wonderful Plum Village Monastery Online.  We encourage you to visit   http://pvom.org/  for more of these wonderful teachings. Here is an excerpt from the website. " This is the final Dharma talk offered by Thay in the Together We Are One Retreat at Deer Park Monastery on the North American Tour, on September 11th, 2011. Thay shares compassio...

Dear Community Every year in summer,  Deer Park Monastery hosts a 5-day Teen Camp. The teens camp out, sleeping in tents, gathering around a camp fire in the morning, play and practice.  This year was a wonderful experience for over 50 teens.  Here is a wonderful Dharma talk from the Teen Retreat. Enjoy you peaceful breath, Enjoy your peaceful step

Dear Friends Today's talk is from the annual Meditation and Education Retreat at Deer Park Monastery.  Dharma teacher Sister Huong Nghiem shares insights about the practice and offers beautiful teachings for the group of students and educators gathered at the retreat. She urges us to look for and find the teacher in ourselves and to find ways to be in the drivers seat of our own lives.  We meditat...

Dear Friends, We are happy today to bring you a wonderful dharma talk on the Discourse on Loving-Kindness by Thay Phap Hai.   In this talk, Thay Phap Hai guides us in a deep introduction not only on the text, but also how to use it in our daily lives.   He urges us, in this and in all the teachings, to always ask ‘how does this apply to my situation?’   He also touches on the Four Divine Abidings...

Dear friends, The Deer Park Podcast team hopes you enjoyed the Course on the 14 Verses of Meditation. Now, we are happy to resume our schedule of offering talks from Days of Mindfulness at Deer Park. Thich Phuoc Tinh, known to the Sangha as the Venerable, here offers a forthright guide to everyday practice. The Venerable shows us how a steady mindfulness practice can whither away our sorrow and an...

Dear Friends After 14 weeks, we have come to our last verse.  We hope you have enjoyed this course.  We hope you will offer your thoughts and comments, especially how this course has helped deepen your practice.   Verse 14 Supported by the Sangha Body my practice flows easier, allowing me to swiftly realize my great determination to love and understand all beings. Alternate Translation: With the s...

Verse 13   Not Discriminating Between the practice offered by the Tathagata and that of the ancestral teachers, the Four Noble Truths perfectly interwoven should serve as the foundation of an authentic transmission.   Thay Phap Hai offers a deep class today reminding us that the universe has a way of teaching us the lesson we are ready to learn.  We alsways want to ask, "How does this teaching hel...

Dear Friends Sorry for the long delay in posting this class.  Our podcast limits were exceeded but we should be able to post more now. Enjoy bathing in the stream! Verse 12 The Mahayana sutras and teachings open many fresh, wide gateways allowing me to enter the depths of the stream of meditation flowing from the Original Source of the Buddha's teachings.    

Hi Friends Here is  Verse 11 The basic meditation sutras, such as the Full Awareness of Breathing and the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, show us step by step, how to transform the body and the mind. We are encouraged to focus on one set of 4 exercises from the Discourse on Full Awareness of Breathing during our daily sitting meditation. We can also look deeply to reflect on  What is suffering...

Dear Friends We are so happy and thankful to Thay Phap Hai for this beautiful teaching.  The readings are also a wonderful reminder how much all of us non-monastics owe Anathapindika.  He is the one who, on his deathbed, shared with the sangha that us laypeople could understand the deep teachings of the dharma.  Let us live in such a way as to be worthy of his confidence. Verse 10:   Nirvana is no...

Dear Virtual Study Group We apologize for the delay in posting.  We are only able to upload 250 MB a month so when we exceed our limit we have to wait a bit.  We hope you will understand as the podcast is run on donations and volunteer time. Here is Verse 9: Emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness liberate me from suffering, so that in my daily practice I am not caught in mere intellectual unders...

Dear Friends Tonight, we are introduced to the concepts that can, with practice, become our reality.  Thay Phap Hai reminds us that intellectual understanding is not one with wisdom and that whatever we learn we always have to ask 'how does this apply in my life?'  We also are introduced to interdependent co-arising which is at the core of the buddhist teaching. This is, because that is. Verse 8 I...

Dear Thay, Dear Sangha Tonight's teaching is on the 7th Verse.  Thay Phap Ho shares that we can be aware that our happiness depends on my mindful attitude and not external conditions.  We review the 4 recollections and we are encouraged to seek to recognize what is bringing happiness and joy to our lives.  The Mindfulness Trainings are discussed and we can see that if we are practicing and living...

Dear Friends on the Path, Here is the teaching on Verse 6. Verse 6 Looking deeply into the heart of reality to see the true nature of things, practicing vipashyana enables me to let go of everything I am searching for, my desires, and my fears. Our sister shares the teaching with us that the practice is to be closer to our hearts. The more I know myself, the more I can connect with what is outside...

Dear Friends Tonight's wonderful class provides many insights into why we meditate and how we can better be masters of our own practice.  Here is the link for the materials  http://www.deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/fourteen-verses-on-meditation-course-nov-21-2010-feb-20-2011 Verse 5: To calm, to relax the body and mind. To nourish, to heal,  to protect the 6 senses, and to maintain right concent...

Dear Classmates on the Path Tonight's transmission is on the 4th Verse.  We begin the podcast after those present in the class all shared how our practice was progressing with each other.  Maybe you, too, would like to reflect how your practice has been going for you. 4th Verse: My breathing and my steps Enable me to generate the energy of mindfulness, So that I can recognize and touch the wonders...