Dharma Seed - dharmaseed.org: Matthew Brensilver's most recent Dharma talks: Recent Episodes
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Matthew Brensilver, MSW, PhD, serves on the Guiding Teachers Committee and Board of Directors at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was previously Program Director for Mindful Schools and for more than a decade, was a core teacher at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Each summer, he lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center on the intersections between mindfulness, science and mental health. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. He is the co-author of two books about meditation during adolescence.
(Big Bear Retreat Center) These recordings are available publicly from a retreat held in person at Big Bear Retreat Center. Learn more about the center and upcoming offerings for retreats in nature, gathered in community.bigbearretreatcenter.org/upcoming-retreats/Healing the Self, Loving the Self, Forgetting the SelfMatthew BrensilverJuly 9 - 13, 2024Co-sponsored by Insight Retreat Center (IRC) and Big Bear Retreat CenterIn this silent retreat, we explore how mindfulness supports the healing of the self.Many of the Buddhist teachings help us to tend to painful memory, old pains and the habits that compound suffering. As we become more gentle and loving towards experience, the self becomes less and less of a preoccupation. The more completely we accept ourselves, the easier it becomes to forget the self and rest in an awareness unencumbered by self-consciousness.This retreat includes sitting and walking meditation instructions, and dharma talks.
(Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center) The alternatives to love, hate or apathy, are not visible
(New York Insight Meditation Center) William James said that death was the ‘worm at the core’ of the human condition that turns us all into ‘melancholy metaphysicians.’ A century later, awareness of mortality is documented to affect our thinking and emotional lives in powerful ways. It figures prominently in Buddhist practice.
In what ways does consciousness of death distorts our view and lead us away from wisdom and compassion? Alternatively, how can we open to the truth of finitude such that our heart is softened? Can we intuit the freedom or love that might be released were we more deeply at peace with our mortality?
In this evening program, we’ll consider the way death can harden or soften our heart – and how dharma practice might lead us to a life that feels complete. All are welcome.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Matthew and Brian share reflections on bringing our spiritual practice into the relational field of our lives.
(Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center) Substantial overlap with previous talk on samadhi.
(New York Insight Meditation Center) Meditation practice cultivates a diverse set of attentional, emotional and introspective skills.
Central to the practice of mindfulness is the stabilization of attention. But before our attention stabilizes, practice can be overstimulating.
This talk will explore the process through which the mind comes to rest. In developing this steadiness, equanimity (the capacity to fully permit the flow of both pleasure and pain) is a vital skill.
We will see how concentration and equanimity reinforce each other and support a deeper understanding of ourselves. And how this stability, in turn, makes space for the heart to respond with joy and compassion.
(New York Insight Meditation Center) Meditation practice cultivates a diverse set of attentional, emotional and introspective skills.
Central to the practice of mindfulness is the stabilization of attention. But before our attention stabilizes, practice can be overstimulating.
This talk will explore the process through which the mind comes to rest. In developing this steadiness, equanimity (the capacity to fully permit the flow of both pleasure and pain) is a vital skill.
We will see how concentration and equanimity reinforce each other and support a deeper understanding of ourselves. And how this stability, in turn, makes space for the heart to respond with joy and compassion.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections and INstructions: comparing mind, envy and Mudita.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Attentional Control, Emotion Regulation and Nonidentifcation
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We look at the different doorways that we enter the dharma through and reflect on what would be a stretch for us personally.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Audio recording of Monday Night Meditation class with Matthew Brensilver on May 9th, 2016
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Audio recording of the Monday night class on April 18, 2016 with Matthew Brensilver.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Along with Marv talking about Resources, Dawn about Sangha groups and "T" about precepts/closing.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Reflections on the first noble truth, love and relationship.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Dharma conversations I wanted to be having when I was an adolescent.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) On the development of ethical alignment, inner safety, relaxing the vigilance of self-clinging and feeling like our life is complete even though we die.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Attitudes that support retreat practice. Developing in looking and the refuge of looking
(Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley) This talk was given as a part of the series "Where Rubber Meets the Road: A Series on Mindful Living." A real place for us to check our practice is in our relationships. After all, we are deeply relational beings. Sometimes, our deepest grooves in our minds are only stimulated in relationships. Defilements and habits of mind, such as greed, anger, and delusion, arise in ways that they don't in other situations. In other words, forces of suffering that are latent in other situations can arise in the context of close relationships. Fortunately, this is actually not bad news. Rather, it offers us opportunity to practice, to see ourselves more clearly, to become more free, and to see how we can untangle the love from clinging.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) Developing skill and open-heartedness in the midst of intense feeling.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) We are all philosophers of happiness. Retreat practice provides the opportunity to examine our strategies and model of the good life. We often find that we have a redemptive hope in clinging. This talk highlights how we cling and explores a path of letting go.
(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) This talk examines ways that the dharma can support two key developmental tasks of adolescence: exploring the nature of happiness and developing a healthy sense of self without getting stuck in it.