Sunday Dharma Talk

Life is short.  If we learn to understand, truly, the brevity of the time we have in this life, we'll be able to make the most of the time we have.  In this talk, offered in the winter of 2024, Peter describes how to skillfully reflect on the truth of death.  As he explains, this practice of 'mindfulness of death' is an essential element of practice for the dharma student looking to know a true ha...

Through wisdom and compassion we're able to abandon habitual patterns of unskillful thinking, our painful narratives.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes how we develop mindfulness of thinking and, in turn, how we develop compassion for thinking.  The dharma talk was given in September 2024.

There is a goodness in life.  But we're often not bringing our awareness to it.  In this talk Peter Doobinin explains how we develop faith in the goodness in life, how we learn to know this goodness, why it's essential that we make this effort.  The talk was offered in the spring of 2025.

Our capacity to know happiness in the this life - true happiness - depends on our ability to open to difficulty, pain, suffering.  Meditation practice enables us to meet difficulty ... and to respond with the heart, with wisdom and compassion.  From the heart, we move forward in life, happily, joyfully.  In this dharma talk Peter Doobinin explains how our practice leads us to the heart, to freedom...

The skillful response to suffering - our own suffering, the suffering of others, the suffering in the world - is compassion.  As dharma students, we're asked to cultivate this sublime attitude of the heart.  But it's not always so easy to do.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin discusses the challenges we face in developing compassion ... and how to develop in our skill so that we're able to cultivate c...

In meeting life, in all its difficulties and challenges, it's essential that we have a place to go for refuge.  As dharma students, we find refuge in our communities.  And the ultimate refuge is the refuge that we find within.  Developed in our practice, we learn to rely, in all the circumstances of life, on being able to find refuge within.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin explains the skill...

The Buddha encouraged his followers to have "respect for concentration."  When we have this respect for concentration, we practice.  We develop our meditation.  We develop in the Buddha's concentration:  jhana.  When concentration, through effort and determination, becomes developed, we're more able to take skillful action in our lives; we're more able to understand our experience of life; we're m...

All beings, the Buddha tells us, have a wish for happiness of heart.  And, as the Buddha tells us, our happiness depends on our actions.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes how we cultivate discernment, the skill of understanding the consequences of our actions.  As we develop this skill we move toward knowing a greater happiness in this life. The dharma talk was given in November 2023.

A bodhisatta is a being who is striving for awakening ... a being who follows the dharma, who practices the dharma in accord with what the Buddha taught.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes the qualities of the bodhisatta, and the elements of a practice in accord with the dharma.  As he explains, we all have the ability to follow this path ... and to know the happiness of heart that it...

Life, by its nature, is often difficult.  As human beings we're all faced with the inevitable truths of illness, aging, death, separation.  And of course there is much in the world that is difficult, challenging, painful.   And there is much that we find in ourselves that is painful.  The Buddha's teaching offer us a path through difficulty, and, in turn, to happiness. This, as Peter Doobinin, exp...

The teachings of the Buddha tells us that dukkha, or suffering, comes from clinging; and that, in turn, if we abandon clinging, we'll know a true happiness in life.  But what is clinging?  As Peter Doobinin explains, if we come to understand what clinging is, then our ability to abandon it will be greatly enhanced.  In this talk he discusses what clinging is, and how this understanding enables us...

In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes two important skills that we learn to develop in an effort to meet the difficulties in life.  The practice of insight meditation is a practice of developing skills.  These skills are "skills for lifetime."  If we develop them, practice them, we're surely know a greater happiness in this life.  This talk was given in March 2025.

Our path, in practicing the dharma, includes abandoning unskillful thinking and cultivating skillful thinking.  It is essential, as we make our way toward a greater happiness, that we learn to cultivating skillful thinking in all our postures, as we go through our days and nights.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes basic skills for cultivating skillful thinking.  As he notes, these are skills...

All that we are, the teachings of the Buddha tell us, begins with our thinking.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin explains skills we develop in the service of abandoning unskillful thinking.  The emphasis in the talk is on working with thinking in the course of our days.  The talk was given in March 2035.

As dharma students our task is to know reality.  And, as the Buddha tells us, there is a conditioned reality, the reality of the senses; and there's an unconditioned reality, a reality that is timeless.  The path leads us to knowing this reality:  ultimate reality.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin discusses ultimate reality, what it is, and what we need to do to know it.  The talk was given in the wi...

A dharma talk given by Peter Doobinin in January 2025 as he turned 70 years old.  In the talk Peter talks about the possibility of happiness ... a happiness that transcends time.  In practicing the dharma, as the Buddha teaches, we open ourselves, in any moment, to the profound possibilities of the heart.  To a greater happiness.  This happiness is always available to us; it is this happiness that...

Where do we look for happiness?  Is our practice leading us to a happiness of heart?  A reliable happiness?  A greater happiness?  In this talk, Peter Doobinin talks about how we make the journey to the heart ... and how, in making that journey, we come to know a greater happiness.  The talk was given at a daylong retreat in 2015.

In dharma practice, we are developing a wisdom that's found in the heart.  Typically, we seek intellectual wisdom, the wisdom attained by thinking.  In dharma practice, we're engaging in a different way of learning.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes this way of learning, the way in which we develop liberating wisdom, the wisdom in the heart.  The talk was given in the summer of 2016.

We should take care of the heart, the Buddha tells us, the way a mother would take care of her newborn baby.  As dharma students we learn to make a commitment to the heart.  In this dharma talk Peter Doobinin discusses what i means to make a commitment to the heart ... and how we're able to do that.  The talk was given in 2016 at a Downtown Meditation Community Lovingkindness Retreat.

This dharma talk was offered by Peter Doobinin at the end of the year in December 2024.  In the talk, Peter discusses how we might bring joy and faith into the year to come.   May all beings find true happiness in their days!

As meditation students, as Peter Doobinin explains, we learn to see things "according to reality."  Much of the time, we're enmeshed in thought worlds.  Lost in thought.  In our practice, we begin to see things as they are.  We abandon our stories.  And in the process, we come to know the truth of our goodness, the truth of the dharma inside us.  The talk was given in December 2024.

The dharma student resolves to follow a spiritual path in an effort to find freedom from grasping and to free the heart of its burdens.  In doing so, we come to learn that what we're grasping on to, our stories, our suffering, is not who we are.  We come to learn what we are, our true nature.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes how we come to understand these truths.  The talk was given...

Spiritual practice requires that we make great effort over a period of time; at the same time, we're asked to know the present moment and find happiness in it.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin discusses this paradox of the spiritual path.  He explains how we learn to bring skillful effort to the moment ... and how by doing so, we learn to know happiness of heart.  The talk was given in January...

This dharma talk was given at a daylong retreat in New York In November 2024.  In the talk, Peter Doobinin explains the Buddha's path, the story of his awakening, and the three knowledges he came to in his journey.  These three knowledges provide for the basis of right view.  The story of the Buddha's awakening offer us a way, a dharma, that we can follow; but, as Peter describes, it is us to us t...

We shape our lives, in the service of knowing a greater happiness, through the cultivation of skillful intention.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin explains skillful intention, what it is, how we develop it.  The dharma talk is the fifth in a series of five talks on "Basic Skills" that were offered in June 2024.