Deer Park Dharmacast

Dear Friends Here is Sister Su Co Bich Nghiem's beautiful transmission on Verse 3. Third Verse: The practice of Vipashyana is to Look Deeply into the nature of the five skandas so that I may develop understanding and transform suffering.   In this sharing, our sister encourages us to "Give yourself time to be with yourself more so that you can know yourself more.  So that we can better know ways t...

Dear Friends What a great fortune to have been born a human, to be in harmony with others, and to have a chance to take this wonderful course!  The second session is offered to us by Thay Phap Hai and is rich with insights into our beautiful practice. The Second Verse: Stopping (Shamatha) means to be still In order to recognize, to be in contact, To nourish, to heal, To calm, to soothe, and to ref...

Dear Friends The 3-month Winter Rains Retreat began today at Deer Park.  Also, today this course on the Fourteen Verses on Meditation course held its first class.  A group of around 30 people have joined together to be taught by Thay Phap Hai, Thay Phap Ho, and Su Co Bich Nghiem and we have all committed to following the course during the coming 14 weeks. We hope that you will join us online.  In...

Dear friends, Brother Phap Dung, the Abbott of Deer Park Monastery, here offers a wonderfully casual talk with the children at this summer's Family Retreat. From Pokemon to Deer Park's ravens to an introduction to inviting the bell to sound, Brother Phap Dung encourages children to be present with, and appreciate, their surroundings and family. Please enjoy these offerings with your family, and ma...

Dear friends, Thich Nhat Hahn shows us very clearly that while we practice for our own transformation, it is just as important to practice for our relationships with those we love.  In this dharma talk Bother Phap Dung, the Abbott of Deer Park, encourages us to be present with exactly who we are, with all our strengths and weakness, rather than an impossible image of how we should be. He shows us...

Dear friends, In this playful dharma talk given to the children at this summer's family retreat, Brother Phap Ho shares a story of a frontier boy learning the ways of the local Native American tribe and the lessons of diligence. Learning, he reminds us, for both children and adults, can be the same thing as playing.     Please enjoy these offerings with your family, and may your present moment be...

Waking up this morning I smile 24 brand new hours are before me I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion Dear Friends Gathas are short verses to recite in the routine moments of our lives - waking up in the morning,  brushing our teeth, turning on a car – to bring mindfulness and connection to those moments. In this dharma talk, Sister Huong Nghiem encou...

Sister Dang Nghiem shows us the proper way to invite the sound of the bell. She also teaches us how to cultivate that peacefulness when we hear noises that might otherwise cause stress. Lay practitioner Patrick Burke made the video.  A higher resolution version is at www.burkepost.com .

This is the full audio version of the Bells of Mindfulness video.

  Dear Friends Thich Phuoc Tinh, known to the Sangha as The Venerable, here offers a wonderfully direct talk to encourage us forward in our practice. He reminds us that if we stop practicing when we are feeling good, we are like a person rubbing sticks together to start a fire, and stopping just as the sticks grow warm, before the real fire begins. The Dharma, he tells us, is a dharma of action, n...

Dear Friends, We hope you will enjoy this short interview with a local Deer Park practitioner.    J.C. Earle practices with the Compassionate Heart Sangha in Los Angeles, and he's a frequent visitor to Deer Park.  In this video, J.C. discusses his understanding of mindfulness, using his garden as a metaphor for consciousness.  A higher-quality version of this video is available at burkepost.com ....

Dear Friends, Last night at the Dharma Nectar Hall of Lower Hamlet in Plum Village, lay and monastic practitioners from around the world gathered to concentrate our energy into a new song which could represent the Wake Up movement. Thanks to the good conditions of a visit from Joe Reilly, Melina Bondy and many talented monks, nuns and lay friends, the fruit of our practice is posted here. To learn...

Dear Friends, Often at the end of retreats at Deer Park, a panel of Monks and Nuns will offer a question and answer session with the retreat's participants. These sessions are always a precious opportunity for the retreat participants to seek guidance in their practice, and for our monastic brothers and sisters to share their unique insights.   This question and answer session was offered on the l...

Dear Friends ,   In our next focus on the Elements of Practice we look at the first of two basic practices of the dharma: stopping and looking deeply.   In this dharma talk, Brother Phap Ho guides us in Stopping – coming to rest in the present moment, allowing our minds to become clear and rest in awareness.   We are then able to look deeply, to see that there are so many conditions for our happin...

Dear Friends, In this dharma talk Sister Dang Nghiem explores neurologist Paul MacLean’s idea that our brains actually consist of three brains layered by evolution atop one another – the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and the intellectual Neocortex. Through the practice of mindfulness, Sister Dang Nghiem shows us how we can train ourselves to react from the highest level of our brain’s evol...

Dear Friends, The situation at Bat Nha Monastery has reached an apex in the past 24 hours. One hundred policemen have shown up at Bat Nha Monastery. Three of our brothers, Phap Hoi, Phap Tu and Phap Sy have been taken and have not been seen. The rest of the monastics have been pulled out into the rain, and are apparently waiting for a truck to bring them away--where we don't know. Please practice...

Dear Friends Our practice is to learn to listen to the innate wisdom that is inside of us, instead of the voices of judgment and expectation that battle for our attention.   In this dharma talk, through sharing of very personal stories of care-taking for her mother, Sister Tue Nghiem helps us to see this wisdom within ourselves and to listen to, as she calls it, “our voice.” In this talk she shows...

Dear Friends In this out-of-the-ordinary edition of the Deer Park dharmacast, we would like to share two songs by singer/songwriter Joe Reilly.  Joe, a practitioner in the Plum village tradition, is a face commonly seen visiting Deer Park when his touring takes him through the region.  But his music can be heard at the monastery much more often, as his light-hearted, meaningful songs have become r...

Dear Friends, The 21-Day Retreat is now underway in Plum Village. Thay offered this talk to the newly arrived retreatants, beginning with a sharing on his meetings with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and continuing on to discuss how we can support President Obama in his practice of using loving speech and deep listening. "When Barack Obama manifested, I regretted a little bit, because Martin Luther...

Dear Friends, We often experience our emotions like waves, crashing on the shore.   But a wave’s beginning can be miles away, or thousands of feet underwater.   The same is true for our emotions.   In this talk, Sister Dang Nghiem shows us that while we may not notice emotions until they crash upon us, looking deeply we can see that their origin is far below the surface.   In this way we can be mi...

Dear Friends,  This Dharma talk is the final talk of Deer Park’s Heart of the Winter Retreat, a time of intensive study and practice for the monastics. To bring this three-month time of retreat to a close, Sister Huong Nghiem, or Sister True Fragrance, here offers an insightful and very pragmatic talk on looking deeply and skillfully into our practice and our lives. She offers many insights on how...

Dear Friends Thích Phước Tịnh, known to the Sangha as the Venerable, here offers a wonderful and direct talk on living deeply as a human being, going inward to find deep meaning in your life, and so transcending happiness and suffering, fortune and misfortune. This dharma talk was offered for Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year, and leads us toward renewal in our life and in our practice.  We offer...

Dear Friends, Deer Park has been alive with energy these past weeks with the monks, nuns, and visitors joyfully celebrating Tet, the lunar New Year. Celebrations included thrilling dragon dances, and the making of hundreds of traditional earth-cakes. This dharma talk was given by Thay Phap Hai just before Tet at a Day of Mindfulness.  It was offered as the monthly talk for Order of Interbeing Memb...

Happy New Year! Today’s podcast was the result of a wonderful experiment at Deer Park.   Zen Teacher Thay Phap Hai and two Order of Interbeing members, Karen Hilsberg and Kenley Neufeld, shared a dharma talk on self-renewal.   These wonderful teachers offer insights into how we can begin anew with ourselves and practice right away by watering our own flower.   We can also reflect on our relationsh...

Dear Friends The annual Winter Retreat opened very joyfully at Deer Park on November 15.  From requests in past year's Winter Retreats for more structured study during these three months, the community has planned a number of courses for monastic and lay practitioners this winter.    The Deer Park Podcast will offer the once a month special teachings on the 14 Mindfulness Trainings by senior Dharm...