Free Buddhist Audio

Here is the second part of Paramabandhu’s excellent exploration of the lessons Buddhist techniques around meditation and mindfulness training can bring to the field of mental health – especially to problems with depression and addiction. Drawing on many years of experience as a consultant psychiatrist and Dharma teacher, here he takes questions on his previous talk and elaborates on the general theme. There’s a wide range of material opened up – and considerable detail about how we can actually go about applying these techniques to whatever challenges we face in your own lives. Essential listening.

Please note – the questions in this recording were made at very low levels. We’ve amplified and clarified where possible – but the general sound quality drops noticeably at these points. However, they are all now audible and, in almost all instances, questions are repeated by Paramabandhu before he answers.

Talk given at San Francisco Buddhist Center, 2006

Contents

01 Question-and-answer session – two books to reference on mindfulness; working with depression – discrepancy monitor and rumination

02 Knowing what you can and cannot change – considered action

03 Difficulty doing mindfulness work when actively depressed; noticing subtle shades of pleasant and unpleasant

04 Can mindfulness initiate depression? Stepping out of patterns of thinking; difference between rumination and ‘staying with’; body awareness

05 Over-active mind; 12 step program – something to actually do; expectations and suffering; having your experience – the truth as sometimes uncomfortable

06 Letting go of what you don’t have; relationship break-up; staying with unpleasant experience and not compounding it – the Buddha in the ‘Dart Sutta’

07 Not identifying with one feeling; sexual addiction; recovery from addiction and mindfulness practice

08 Rumination in the body; working with internal sensations; using metaphors to work with your mind

09 Psoriasis and mindfulness

10 What is meditation? A brief introduction and exercise – the ‘Three Minute Breathing Space’

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Direct download: podcast21.mp3
Category:Free Buddhist Audio -- posted at: 10:49am EDT

This is a timely and invaluable talk from Paramabandhu. Drawing on many years of experience as a consultant psychiatrist and Dharma teacher, he invites us to consider the lessons Buddhist techniques around meditation and mindfulness training can bring to the field of mental health – especially to problems with depression and addiction. The talk evokes the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta to explore the four traditional foundations of mindfulness and discuss their potential use in therapeutic contexts. It is a kindly and empowering expression of practical hope, whose message applies to us all as we struggle to overcome whatever it is that holds us back from greater freedom in our lives.

Part 2 of this podcast will feature a question-and-answer session based on the material

Talk given at the San Francisco Buddhist Center, 2006

Contents:

01 Contemporary interest in mindfulness; brief therapeutic history of meditation since the 1960s; the Buddha as behavioural therapist – the obese king, Kisa Gotami and her baby

02 John Kabat-Zinn and mindfulness-based stress reduction; other therapies based around mindfulness

03 Mindfulness in Buddhist tradition; the Satipatthana Sutta; sati and sampajanya; analogies for mindfulness; the four foundations of mindfulness – an analysis of technique in practice

04 Four aspects of mindfulness in therapeutic context; i clocking what’s going on – being on automatic pilot

05 ii Sitting with your experience; Rumi’s poem ‘The Guest House’; the kindly aspect of awareness; body awareness and mental proliferation

06 iii Perspective; cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy – the implicit and the explicit; not taking our thoughts so seriously; iv choice – mindfulness of purpose

07 Taking awareness deeper; freedom; Kotita’s ‘Song of Realization’

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Direct download: podcast20.mp3
Category:Free Buddhist Audio -- posted at: 10:28am EDT

Settle back and touch base with this very enjoyable and, at times, inspiring talk by Saddharaja on the great blue Buddha of the eastern quarter of the mandala – the Unshakeable One, the Imperturbable Akshobya. This is particularly good because it departs from standard fare on the figure. We get a great reading from Wordsworth, a stimulating discussion of ethics and their relationship to issues of doubt and self-confidence, as well as a meeting with a wooly mammoth… Listen out too for a terrific story about standing inside a mountain which communicates something essential about the depth of presence and mystery Akshobya is all about.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter Retreat 2001

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Direct download: podcast19.mp3
Category:Podcasts -- posted at: 3:36pm EDT