Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio

Vidyadaka talks about his spiritual teachers as offering the Dharma in an ordinary, straightforward way.  Spiritual friendship is not an added-on part of Going for Refuge, nor is it the Buddhist equivalent to having some mates - rather it is of the essence of the spiritual life and a vital means of communication, emotional development, and meaning - not to mention challenge and enjoyment. But how...

Viveka concludes this Anapanasati Sutta: Instructions for Awakening retreat with a final exploration of the wisdom tetrad, focusing on the experience of relinquishment and offers suggestions on bearing with confoundment through imagination and inquiry.  Excerpted from the talk Where Is Self Arising Now?  given at   Adhisthana , May 2019. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast:   On Apple Podcast...

Dhammarati   illuminating the process of conditionality that is put in motion when engaged in Anapanasati meditation. Here he is introducing the fourth tetrad focusing on the first instruction of contemplating impermanence. Excerpted from the talk Inquiry Into the Experience of Wisdom , part of the series Anapanasati Sutta: Instructions for Awakening given on retreat at Adhisthana , May 2019. ***...

Dhivan , author of 'This Being, That Becomes', talks about some of the historical Buddha's ideas on how conscious awareness can influence unconscious patterns that keep us imprisoned in a fixed sense of self.  Excerpted from the talk entitled Doors to Freedom - the Buddha's Psychology of Liberation , Buddhafield , 2012. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times...

Maitreyabandhu reminds us that the Buddha was cautious to describe things that were best directly experienced. The Lakshanas are not a metaphysical description of reality. Impermanence, insubstantiality and suffering show us there is something wrong with our perception. From the talk Self-Surrender and the Laksana of Dukkha , part of the series Towards Insight: Three Myths given at Adhisthana , 20...

Parami touches on aspects of Sangharakshita's 'system of meditation', and most specifically the area of positive emotion. Parami is an ideal guide for this sort of material, steeped as she is in study and practice engaged within the light of the 'Bodhichitta', and the Bodhisattva Ideal itself. From the talk entitled The Awakening Heart given at Taraloka Buddhist Centre , 2006. *** Subscribe to our...

All conditioned things are impermanent... Not just a truism, but the central teaching of Buddhism upon which so much else follows. Jnanaketu starts off a three-part series on the lakshanas, or 'marks' of conditioned existence, by tackling this most crucial of insights that is easy to say but a great challenge to live by. Excerpted from the talk The Three Lakshanas: Anitya as part of the series The...

Silanatha reveals our collective blind spot of applying our awareness of change in the external world with change our inner experience.  From the talk entitled I mpermanence as part of a series on the Three Laksanas given at Colchester Buddhist Centre , 2019. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Au...

Locana  offers an excellent introduction to the most subtle and complex part of the Buddha's teaching on impermanence: that all things in conditioned existence are empty of any innate self-nature. Insubstantiality might never be really 'simple' to understand - but this is a good place to start. Excerpted from the talk Anatta Made Simple , 2001. Locana (Elizabeth English) is the author of 'Vajrayog...

Sangharakshita describes the three liberations (vimokshas) arising from transcending the three marks (lakshanas) of conditioned existence.  From the talk entitled The Texture of Reality as part of the series Introducing Buddhism , 1966. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dh...

Here Kulanandi reflects on different qualities of beauty in the spiritual life.  From the talk entitled Beauty and the Dharma Life given at Stockholm Buddhist Centre , 2014. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe using these RS...

Embodying our higher values gives life to our heart and gives heart to our life. Saddhanandi encourages us to get on with our life by gathering our life around our aspirations.  From the talk Enlightenment as Heart, Life as Whole given at Taraloka Retreat Centre , 2005. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free...

There's no true meditation without happiness. Sangharakshita describes Samadhi, often translated as 'concentration', as dependent upon the conditions of Sukha, that of happiness and bliss.  From the talk The Stages of the Spiritual Path , part of the series Introducing Buddhism , 1966. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscr...

Here we have Nagesvara discussing samadhi as collectedness, integration of our energies, wholeness, openness, rather than concentration as primary.   From the talk entitled What Is Samadhi part of the online series Body of Bliss: Ways into Samādhi , 2021 Buddhafield . *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Bu...

Dhivan talks about some ways in which Buddhists deny the self beginning with how the non-self teaching is presented in the Pali scriptures.  From the talk entitled Denying the Self as part of the series Symposium on the Non-Self given at Adhisthana , 2018. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio...

Yashobodhi recounts how the earliest Buddhist teachings arose in response to questions presented to the Buddha.  From the talk entitled The Alchemy of Wisdom , from a series on the Six Paramitas at a West London Buddhist Centre , 2012. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dha...

The mind is intrinsically pure. How do we realize the ever present purity of the mind? Tejananda offers his reflections on Buddha Nature through discussing the Myth of Self-Discovery, drawing from an article by Subhuti entitled The Three Myths (Madhamavani, 2003). Excerpted from the talk The Myth of Self-Discovery given at Mid Essex Buddhist Centre , 2021. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast...

Akashadevi expounds on the parable of the raft from the perspective of the hither and further shores. Excerpted from a talk entitled The Raft given at the W est London Buddhist Centre Christmas Retreat, December 2016. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every wee...

Maitrisiddhi explores the fourth great thunderclap from the Heart Sutra: All Buddhist teachings are simply Relative Truth; the Highest truth cannot be stated in words, using the simile of the raft. From the talk entitled The Highest Truth Cannot Be Stated In Words from retreat on the Heart Sutra at Taraloka Retreat Centre , 2019. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration th...

Bodhidasa explores the essence of what the Buddha said it was that he taught illustrated with a personal example of how the Dharma is based around one essential experience. From the talk entitled A Single Word of Truth given at Sydney Buddhist Center , 2020. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times every week! (Apple Podcasts) Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Aud...

Vishvapani outlines two approaches to Dharma practice: the 'hedgehog' – grounded in direct experience from the senses, and the 'fox' who steps outside and beyond, looking for the bigger picture. From the talk entitled Feeding the Soul , part of the series The Two Arrows: Dukkha to Insight given at Adhisthana , 2020. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-sized inspiration three times ever...

Vessantara offers a pithy look into the suffering of suffering and the myriad of strategies that pull us away from tending to what's happening in the present moment.   From the talk entitled Dukkha Dukkha , part of a series of talks and led meditation from a retreat at Adhisthana on Dukkha and the Unbiased , 2018. *** Follow the Free Buddhist Audio podcast. High quality, full-length Dharma talks w...

Sangharakshita explores the ways in which we are all connected with Reality, directly and indirectly, in particular through our friendships with those just a little further along the path. From the talk entitled The Bodhisattva Hierarchy as part of the series Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal , 1969. *** Follow the Free Buddhist Audio podcast. High quality, full-length Dharma talks weekly since 200...

Saddhanandi paints a picture of how radical and different it was to encounter Buddhism in the mid 1960s. She explores a verse of Zen poetry taking her lead from Sangharakshita's 1965 lectures on the Essence of Zen.   Excerpted from the talk entitled The Essence of Zen at Adhisthana , 2019. *** Follow the Free Buddhist Audio podcast. High quality, full-length Dharma talks weekly since 2006! Apple P...

Bodhivajra talks about Enlightenment in a direct and very down-to-earth way, making the whole notion of Enlightenment more accessible, approachable, and relevant.   From the talk entitled Energy for Enlightenment given at Norwich Buddhist Centre , 2015. *** Follow the Free Buddhist Audio podcast. High quality, full-length Dharma talks weekly since 2006! Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google  Subscribe...