Recorded
Live - The joys and teachings of dharma flow through
every human activity. The creation of sound
and rhythm in the midst of space and silence has always
helped people wake up to life. Music flourished in specific
ways in every culture around the world, and it has the
ability to cut through our perceived differences. Insight
Meditation Center brought together three Western practitioners
of Buddhism and of music. Their folk-rooted acoustic music
combines tradition and innovation much as our practice
here in California does the same. (Free
Download - MP3 Files)
Paramita: American Buddhist Folk Songs
MP3 Music Download @ PlayPay.FM /// CD is Available @ CD Baby /// And @ iTunes
American Buddhist folk songs - - pioneering a new wave of Western Buddhist culture. Socially awake, talking about mad American Beef Cows, peak oil, and cause and effect, Rev. Heng Sure has been called "the Buddhist John Denver." These are clean, homespun tunes featuring guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and dulcimer. The musicians helping out include some of the Bay Area's most experienced acoustic players: Henry Kaiser, Alan Senauke, Paul Hostetter, Josh Michaell, Robin Petrie, and Brian Godchaux.
"Rev. Heng Sure embodies what's best in contemporary Western Dharma: deep wisdom and compassion cultivated over many years of practice combined with a playful spirit, warmth and accessibility that delight and inspire. These songs touch us in a way that makes us want to act to make the world a better place. And it's darn good music!"
-- James Baraz, Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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The Shobogenzo / Dogen
A new translation from Shasta Abby of the classic Zen
text... The Shobogenzo by
Sōtō Zen Master Eihei Dōgen.
Free Download / in PDF / 1144 pages |
The Shōbōgenzō is the recognized spiritual masterpiece by the thirteenth century Japanese Sōtō Zen Master Eihei Dōgen. It is comprised of discourses that he gave to his disciples, in person or in writing, at various times between 1231 and his death twenty-two years later at age fifty-three.† These discourses cover a wide range of topics pertinent to those in monastic life though often also relevant to those training in lay life. He discusses matters of daily behavior and religious ceremonial as well as issues involving the Master-disciple relationship. He also explores the deeper meaning that informs the so-called Zen kōan stories, which often puzzle readers by their seeming illogicality and contrary nature. |
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Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation - Gil Fronsdal
Free Download / Click Here
Several times a year Gil Fronsdal offers a 5-week instructional series for beginning meditators. These classes provide a good overview of insight meditation practice as well as many guided meditation sessions which help the student learn how to establish and sustain a daily meditation practice. The "Intro to Mindfulness Meditation" web page includes audio files in MP3 from each class and class handouts with home work assignments in PDF.
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Paths to Perfection: Contemplative Practices in Christianity & Buddhism / B. Alan Wallace
Recorded at Unity Church, Santa Barbara, CA, March 12, 2008
Free Download / Click Here
Jesus counseled his followers to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, and for centuries, mystical union with God—understood as perfect love and omniscient wisdom—was the ideal of Christian contemplatives. Buddha counseled his followers to realize perfect freedom from suffering by irreversibly dispelling all the afflictions and obscurations of the mind. The ideals of personal liberation and perfect enlightenment have been pursued by Buddhist contemplatives over the past 2,500 years.
While these two contemplative traditions appear to have had little contact throughout their long histories, they did exhibit remarkable parallels as well as differences. Ideals of perfection and the means to realize it will be explored in this lecture, with the hope that the vitality of both the Christian and Buddhist contemplative traditions may be revitalized in the modern era, which could so deeply benefit from their insights and wisdom.
THE CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE
The Conscious Universe: Where Buddhism and Physics Converge / B. Alan Wallace
Recorded at Unity Church, Santa Barbara, CA , Jan. 16, 2008
Free Download / Click Here
Physicists have long assumed that the universe is fundamentally composed of matter and energy and that life and consciousness are accidental byproducts of configurations of matter. But a growing number of distinguished physicists are now suggesting that consciousness may play a much more fundamental role in nature than scientists previously believed.
In this lecture Alan Wallace will review some of the most provocative theories presented by such leading physicists as John Wheeler, Stephen Hawking, and Andre Linde that challenge many of the materialist assumptions based on outdated 19th-century physics. And he will discuss how these theories may relate to Buddhist theories and practices, including those of the Theravada, Mahayana, and Dzogchen traditions.
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Stroke of Insight / Jill Bolte Taylor
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness -- of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. (Video recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.)
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Demythologizing Celibacy: Practical Wisdom from Christian and Buddhist Monasticism (Paperback) by O.S.B. William Skudlarek (Author) --- Buy $10.17 at Amazon.com
Rt. Rev. Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB, Subiaco Abbey, Subiaco, Arizona // He expands the terrain to benefit from the lived tradition of celibacy in centuries-old Buddhist monasticism. A major contribution is the encouraging of an awareness of the importance for healthy celibate living of paying attention to one's thought world and not just to the control of behavior."
Book Description // In light of the Christian understanding of marriage as an authentic--indeed, the ordinary--path to holiness, Skudlarek proposes a demythologized view of celibacy, presenting it as an alternate and equally valid spiritual practice for those who choose not to accept the demands of a committed sexual relationship. Drawing on the monastic interreligious dialogue, Skudlarek considers the Buddhist view of celibacy, their regard for it as simply--and profoundly--a path to freedom, peace, and happiness. As Christians become aware of the benefits of celibacy for monks who observe it without reference to the Gospel, they may be able to appreciate all the more its importance and value for those who wish to follow Christ as celibates, and in this way come to share in the freedom of the children of God.
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2008 Buddhist Calendar / Free Download
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