Rodney Smith's most recent Dharma talks (Dharma Seed)

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) The more defined and clear our individuation, the more isolated we feel. We gain our selfhood from creating physical and psychological boundaries upon our surround. Our self-definition is created by our physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual definitions. Freedom is coming out of these shadowy images created by our imposed boundaries and accep...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) There are three central reasons we get lost in our spiritual journey despite the rigor with which we practice and the sincerity of our purpose. The first is that we do not know the direction the journey takes and we get lost in the sideshows and entertainment of the process. The second is we attempt to move forward using motivations lurking in the shadows of ou...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) We often miss how close we are to the sacred. We make it into a journey of distance and time when actually it is an excursion into stillness. We want some proof that all this work has been worthwhile and that proof is in comparison to what we were and what we are becoming. Though this comparison supports our spiritual egoic image, we will not find the sacred in...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) A spiritual journey ultimately takes us beyond a self-focused life where “I” predominate, into a life of inclusion where we are not the center of our world. Moving beyond what is best for “me” seems so implausible as to be impossible, but it only seems that way because we do not know what we are or how we are formed.

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) There is an acceptable tension we each carry and are reluctant to address spiritually. That tension holds our thoughts, attitudes, self-beliefs, and projections together in a systematic self-serving way. It is the collection of aggregates laced together with our narrative that we will protect at all costs, and it is all tied to our current worldview.

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) We start our spiritual journey wanting to change our lives in meaningful ways, but there is only one way that we know how to do that.

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) In the Third Foundation of the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha asks us not to weigh in and attempt to change or alter the mind no matter what its current disposition. “Notice,” the Buddha says, “When the mind is delusional or not, confused or not, etc.” He does not encourage us to change the mind, just to notice how it is regardless of its configuration. What is...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) A continuum is a story or narrative about awakening. Myths are spiritual narratives that often can be condensed into a continuum with a beginning and an end and various highs and lows throughout the process. An important point is that though a continuum is depicted as a linear journey it is not a timeline, though from the perspective of the individual it may se...

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Using boredom as an example, this talk looks at the formation of states of mind and how to quiet their impact.

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) During our practice phase of development, we learn to adapt and change. During the abiding phase, we are out of the paradigm of adaption into surrender.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) This talk explores where the sense-of-self is more important than our spiritual progress and asks questions to unfreeze that location.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Confusing the past with the creative present is the single biggest issue facing practitioners of the Dharma.

(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Our thoughts place us on the periphery of "Now", but a question ensues, "do we want what Now offers?"

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) If we review where the exploration of Dependent Origination has brought us over the course of this series of talks, we will notice four perceptional shifts that Dependent Origination has encouraged. The first is that through Dependent Origination we perceive there are an infinite number of influences on every event and that existence itself arises from multiple...

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center)

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Fourth foundation shifts our paradigm into the formless

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) How does the past form within the present and how do we form within the past?

(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The spiritual journey is the movement from form to formless, and the First foundation Of Mindfulness begins that process by questioning deeply what the body is.

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) Birth and aging inevitably lead to dying and death. The Buddha suggests this pattern can be broken by waking up to the sequencing of Dependent Origination. We cannot prevent the body from dying but we can opt out from the paradigm in which "I" die along with it. When we live encased within the idea of "me," with the "me" as real as the physical form we embody,...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) As we move from birth to aging, the sense-of-self is dragged along in time, and we begin to notice the effects of memory and accumulated experiences on consciousness. Aging can create a burdened and heavy toll, but when used correctly this maturation process can culminate in wisdom and help us understand Dependent Origination. Maturation brings perspective and...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) Becoming, the previous link in Dependent Origination, is not continuous; it moves from birth to birth to birth as the necessary conditions come together that foster its arising. It is useful to get a sense of the birthing experience of self and what the conditions are that bring this about. Instead of trying to catch your origin, which is a little like trying t...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) Let us explore the link of becoming a little more. We and the world arise together through the link of becoming. The feeling tone provides the inception point, the tear in the fabric of the formless, through which we and the world of form emerges. We come out naming and forming, with body and senses fully functioning, and a consciousness filled with content and...

(Seattle Insight Meditation Society) With the link of Becoming the sense-of-self is now fully alive within the dynamics of the mind. It does not exist outside of the mind as it likes to believe but as a working confluent whole with the other links of Dependent Origination. The sense-of-self wants to assume the "someone" who is receiving the desired object so it can chase after them, but to do so i...