Dharma Seed - dharmaseed.org: Anushka Fernandopulle's most recent Dharma talks: Recent Episodes
dharmaseed.org
I am a lifelong spiritual practitioner who has trained for over 20 years in the Theravada Buddhist tradition in the U.S., India and Sri Lanka. I live in an urban area and consider how the practices can translate for my fellow citizens with a busy modern life; I am most interested in bringing these ancient teachings to the contemporary world, informed by my love of creative arts, technology, politics and pop culture. I also have an MBA and am particularly interested in the practice as it relates to leadership development -- how we can each see through the things that hold us back from manifesting our unique gifts and talents in the world. I am on the Spirit Rock Teacher's Council and teach at other meditation centers, but also do a lot of teaching & coaching in tech companies, nonprofit organizations, and less overtly spiritual settings. For more information, please visit: www.anushkaf.org
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploration of Personality View, which can be seen through in the first stage of awakening, The sense of self arises and passes away, is not yours, and does not need to be clung to.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploration of Brahma Vihara of Equanimity or balance of mind. Guided practice and suggestion
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Instructions on letting go of the anchor in meditation on day 10 of monthlong retreat.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) How to bring the energy of the mind and heart together in unification or concentration. What are the causes for samadhi. How we can live with nondistractedness and what are its benefits.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Learning to discern pleasant, unpleasant, neutral in sense experience. Developing awareness of our habitual reactivity to each, which is unnecessary and stressful.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dhamma as nature and learning to align ourself with what is true. Taking refuge and our path to liberation.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Establishing mindfulness in the body with gentle continuity. Finding an anchor for attention to support the development of collectedness.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections on our body as nature and subject to the conditions of nature, including change and death. Reflections on the mind as also part of nature. Wishing well for all can come naturally when we recognize we are all in the same fragile situation.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Bringing a quality of metta or goodwill to your Insight Meditation or mindfulness practice.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Wishing well for all beings through using categories of beings
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Bringing a tone of compassion to one's metta practice when encountering suffering in oneself or others
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Beginning the practice of metta with establishing well-wishing for yourself and someone easy to send goodwill towards.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The past and future are only thoughts in the present. But even the present moment is constructed, concocted, conditioned and may not exist absolutely as we believe it to be. Our experience of the senses is dependent on our sense organs thus animals have different eyes and experience the world very differently. Different human cultures experience and interpret sense experience differently as well. Plus practice tips on week 3 of a monthlong retreat.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Developing awareness of Vedana or Feeling Tone, that each moment has a valence of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Guided meditation on this theme and the habitual reactivity that accompanies each.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Introduction to Brahma Vihara practices and Guided Metta practice.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Guided practice of tuning into mindfulness of the body with breath as a possible anchor.
(Big Bear Retreat Center) This talk explores the skillful view of Not Self. What we call our self is actually a conglomerate of many aspects, all of which are changing. None of the things that we identify with as ourselves have an essential "me" in them. This can be investigated in different domains of experience, from the body to emotions to the mind.
(Big Bear Retreat Center) Reflections on training our hearts to skillfully respond to Dukkha, as it inevitably arises in ourselves and others.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Recognizing "vedana" or feeling tone - of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral and habitual reactions
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Developing awareness of mine states, and the field of mental objects, plus a Q&A
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Seeing through how suffering can be created through inattention to pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, valence.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Seeing through how suffering can be created through inattention to pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, valence.
(Common Ground Meditation Center) Guided meditation followed by dharma talk (begins at 29 minute mark) and question and answer session (begins at 1 hour mark).
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploring the three characteristics or marks of existence - anatta, anicca, dukkha. How learning to perceive these can help free us from suffering.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Exploration of feeling tone and our habitual reactivity. Guided practice and explanation (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Practicing awareness of thoughts. Explanation of the relationship we can have to mind objects. Befriending the mind.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Learning about what is true about our loves. Practicing on retreat and what we can learn.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Anchoring attention in the field of the body. Retreat day 1 instructions.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided meditation on cultivating goodwill or lovingkindness.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Recognizing thoughts as an object of meditation. Guided meditation and QA
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Dharma talk on LGBTQ retreat: Six senses, six animals leashed together, Amsterdam pride as a metaphor for your mind, retraining the mind and heart for freedom.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Practice instructions for the first day of a LGBTQISGL retreat at IMS. Cell phone ceremony of renunciation, sitting, walking
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided practice in recognizing the knowing factor of experience, which is not me or mine, or in my control.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Starting to notice mindstates that influence how we see life, including the five hinderances.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided meditation, posture, opening morning thoughts, walking instructions.
(Gaia House) Understanding the ways that the body, as part of nature, is subject to the same laws, and can be perceived to be dynamic and unstable. The importance of training perception.
(Gaia House) Dharma as Nature. Exploring Anatta in relation to one's body. You are not the owner of your body!
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Perspective on retreat, metta in Buddhist path, clearing out unhelpful habit patterns of the heart/mind, training in love.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Further reflections on being an animal body and mind. Reflections on precepts, compassion and the fellowship of suffering. You are not alone, no matter what your trouble.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) What we are doing on retreat, connecting with our animal existence as part of practice.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided Meditation practice instructions and working with a review of resistance.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Sitting and walking instructions and cell phone renunciation ceremony.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Honoring the defenses that have kept us alive and offering our love to those spaces that can't open yet. The capacity to offer love can come from contemplating our generosity, the ways we are ethical and the beautiful qualities of awakened beings.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Here and now, how the deepening levels of Mindfulness and Loving Awareness can free the heart and mind.
(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) "Turn your mind to the deathless" Relationship of change to changeless. Putting down the burden.
(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Balance and samatha (calm) and vipassana (insight). The hindrances and beyond.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Mindfulness of difficult emotions can lead to a pleasant progress to peace, happiness, and awakening.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Guided meditation and reflection on earth, air, fire, water as experienced in our human body
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Realizing in the second week of the three-month retreat - how challenging our practice can be at times. Reflecting on and consciously refreshing our aspiration can be very supportive.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections on the liquid aspects of the body. Fifth of six guided practices. Recognizing the body as not me or mine.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Understanding meditation practice in the context of dharma. Reflections on how the body (and our dinner) is created from conditions. Exploration of impermanence (anicca) and not-self (anatta) teachings in reference to the body, soup & spoons.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflection and guided meditation on the second set of the 32 parts of the body
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) We can easily get lost in our self-judgements, believing them to be true. This talk explains how to work with judgements and see through them to wake up to who we really are.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided meditation and explanation of feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Metta (kindness), compassion, joy, equanimity, Brahma viharas. Explanation and guided practice.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) First day instructions for sitting and walking meditation
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Exploring feeling tone(vedana) and the mind as a sense door. What causes tension in the mind. Morning instructions
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Working with and through the top challenges to meditation. Approaching them with curiosity and enthusiasm.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Metta to all beings in different ways: in earth, air, ground, water; in all directions.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Sakkayaditthi: (identity view) and five aggregates. Understanding how our experience as humans gets created. Exploring the illusion of continuity of self.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Sakkayaditthi: (identity view) and five aggregates. Understanding how our experience as humans gets created. Exploring the illusion of continuity of self.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Guided meditation on working with mind-objects. Morning Instructions, QA
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Advice on entering retreat, and dharma practice as recognizing yourself as part of nature.
(Common Ground Meditation Center) Anushka Fernandopulle leads Friday night Metta Practice Group at Common Ground Meditation Center.
(Common Ground Meditation Center) Anushka Fernandopulle leads Friday night Metta Practice Group at Common Ground Meditation Center.
(Common Ground Meditation Center) Anushka Fernandopulle leads Friday night Metta Practice Group at Common Ground Meditation Center.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Day 4 instructions morning practice period, plus questions and answers. Last full day of retreat.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Different perspectives on dharma and retreat. Practice as an act of devotion, purification, lab experiment and more.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Guided Metta-well wishing (Q&A). Loving kindness to benefactor, friend, neutral person, self.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dharma talk on day one of retreat. Working with challenges. Investigating experience. Happiness beyond changing circumstances.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Exploration of dukkha (strain, stress, suffering, unreliability) on day two of the retreat
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections on taking meditation practice and spiritual path into the world of non-retreat life.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Pleasant, unpleasant and neutral tonal quality of experience and our habitual reactions. Guided meditation and Q&A. Feeling tone.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Description of thinking, from the perspective of a sense door where we can observe mind objects. Guided meditation and QA
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Description of thinking, from the perspective of a sense door where we can observe mind objects. Guided meditation and QA
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Explanation and guided meditation of metta-. Goodwill, lovingkindness, benevolence
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided meditation and dharma talk on awareness of mind and heart
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Sharing experiences with the precepts in daily life. Anushka Fernandopulle, JoAnna Harper, Bonnie Duran and Vance Pryor (trainee)
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Buddhas early life and awakening. Awareness of thoughts and emotions.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Evening reflection on how we need to apply the practice differently as our path progresses - and a reminder of how we can get caught by the hindrances, and how to get un-caught.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Inspiration from Inky (the octopus). Let go of the past, future and present. Six sense doors. Relativity of sight. Resting in not knowing. Robots and dark matter.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Hiri and Otappa are aspects of conscience that support our awakening. Reflections on the path, advice at the end of long retreat. The ethical fabric of the universe.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) 3 Characteristics (anicca, anatta, dukkha). 5 aggregates, perception as impermanent, unsubstantial and unreliable. Seeing through illusions of time and space.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Fourth foundation of mindfulness, six sense spheres, Bahiya sutta, advice on long retreats. Eat what's on your plate!
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections on coming to a long retreat: continuity, humility, arrival, investigations, renunciation (CHAIR!). Awareness of the body in all the in between times. Rohitassa.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Continuing practice after retreat, taking a wide angle view to step out of self absorption and into freedom, contributing to collective liberation.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Possibility of transforming the mind, relationship of conduct and speech in the world to our freedom
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Description of kindness/friendliness as a state of heart/heart and guided practice
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Vipallasa Sutta: Understanding perception and the ways in which we have errors in understanding of the three characteristics (anicca, anatta, dukkha) and asubha that keep us spinning in delusion. Doggies and empty boats.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) What is dharma practice, dealing with challenges to meditation, meeting life with friendliness.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The path in brief, a tour of other realms, practicing to support the erosion of racism and Islamohobia in our society
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Taking refuge, remembering compassion, seeing impermanence, not self, unsatisfactoriness, (3 characteristics - anicca, anatta, dukkha)
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Reflecting on care and balance in our retreat
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Holding our practice in a larger context of social change movements and the ongoing work for racial justice and civil rights in our society.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dharma as nature, why we practice, seeing what is unseen; opening to dukkha and the truth; retreat and social/political activism. Title is from Mexican saying from liberation movement.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Posture, meditation instrutions for sitting and walking
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Cultivating the heart - metta in different directions
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The place of metta in Buddhist practice. Understanding wise effort.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Thanksgiving reflections on wholesome qualities including gratitude, generosity, joy humility.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Facing the truth of Dukkha *(strain, unreliability, stress, unsatisfactoriness, suffering) and how kindness is connected. Developing a gentle continuity of awareness on retreat.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dealing with criticism and staying open to creative ideas. Avoiding the traps that shut down innovation
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) How metta practice can help us deal with difficult situations and difficult people. Being an activist with love and courage.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Why we practice metta: connecting to the Eightfold Path, opening insight.
(Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge) Understanding which feelings condition defilements and which feelings lead to a deeper happiness and awakening.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) An exploration of how we construct identity, truth of interconnection, and the power of love. What we learn about dharma from the city, wooly mammoths, and the axial age.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Description of the three characteristics of existence and living in accord with the truth of the way things are.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Introduction to the heart practice of kindness (metta) guided meditation towards one's own body and QA
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Guided meditation instructions on first day of weekend retreat.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Learning how to work with thoughts and "train" the mind for the benefit of yourself and others. Based on Sutta "Two Kinds of Thought" MN19
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) What is true refuge and making the practice of refuge your own.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Encouragement about walking meditation as an important aspect of spiritual practice, life, pilgrimage and social change.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Overview of the Noble Eightfold Path during the Living Dharma Study Retreat. Subsequent sessions discuss each step on the path in greater depth.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Leaving retreat, what should we pay attention to in our life? How can we continue to cultivate our practice?
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) There are many levels of happiness and joy available to us on the spiritual path. Here are descriptions of several levels, their relationship to each other, and how to get there.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Yucca Valley)) Review of the 3 characteristics and 5 precepts. Exploration of faith and refuge as we leave retreat. Explanation of 'karooke' as appreciation practice.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) First night talk on what we are doing on retreat, working with hindrances, mindfulness, connection to refuges and precepts.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Relates the Buddhist teachings to our use of modern communication technology such as emails, texting, cell phones, etc.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) How to practice awareness of the body and why it is helpful.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Explains cultivating the heart of well-wishing and other heart practices.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Last talk after a week long metta retreat. Puts metta in context of other dharma teachings and mindfulness practice. Some suggestions of practicing metta in daily life.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Description of awareness practice and its benefits, including truthfulness with yourself.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Reflecting on own goodness, forgiveness; benefactor, self and friend.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) Buddha’s spiritual quest, three marks of existence and five hindrances