Teachings

A browsable teachings section is coming soon.

The teachings are the Dharma: the accumulated wisdom, practices and understandings that help us see beyond the limited ways we have been taught to experience ourselves and the world. They come from thousands of years of human beings seeking enlightenment, discovering something real, and leaving behind maps for those who come after them. We study the lives and teachings of enlightened beings who have walked the path before us, but the purpose is never simply to believe what someone else discovered. The teachings continually turn you back toward your own experience. What is true? What is illusion? What happens when you stop believing every thought that passes through your mind? What is awareness itself? Who are you beneath the identities, fears, desires and conditioning you have accumulated?

On this path, you learn to work with attention and awareness. You learn meditation and how to return to stillness in the middle of an active life. You learn about power and what happens when meditation begins to release more energy into your life. You learn self-honesty, how to recognize the movements of ego and illusion without becoming fascinated or defeated by them, and how the choices you make affect your state of mind. Gradually you discover that there are vast gradations of being beyond the ordinary states of mind most of us have been conditioned to accept as normal. And then you learn how to live there more often, not by withdrawing from life, but through the way you work, love, communicate, make decisions, meet difficulty and direct your attention.

The teachings come through many doors. There are Dharma talks, meditation, workshops, books, music, conversations, retreats and the experiences of the sangha. We study Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Zen, Vajrayana, yoga and other traditions that have produced extraordinary realizers. We read Shankara, Milarepa, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Yogananda, Lao Tzu, Suzuki Roshi, Chögyam Trungpa, Pema Chödrön, Rama and many others. Sometimes a teaching comes from a book written a thousand years ago. Sometimes it comes while sitting silently in meditation. Sometimes you find it walking alone through the forest, dealing with a difficult person, building a career, falling in love, losing something you thought you needed, or discovering that you are capable of meeting life from a completely different state of mind. Dharma is not confined to spiritual settings. Eventually, life itself becomes the teaching.

And that is really the point. The teachings give you maps, practices and extraordinary examples, but ultimately you learn from your own awareness. You learn to see for yourself. As awareness becomes clearer, it begins to express itself naturally through your life: through greater strength and freedom, but also through kindness, compassion, generosity, humor, integrity, the quality of your work, the way you treat other people, and sometimes simply the consciousness behind a smile.

The teachings are one of the Three Gems because they are inseparable from lineage and sangha. Within a living lineage, teachings are not merely ideas preserved in books. They are understood through practice and transmitted from one generation to another, continually becoming alive in the circumstances of a new time. But you do not have to be part of our sangha to benefit from them. The wisdom belongs to no one. We encourage anyone who is genuinely interested to explore these books, talks and practices, and we will continue adding teachings here as they emerge from our gatherings and Dharma talks.

This section of the site is therefore meant to remain alive. Topics such as awareness, attention, authenticity, compassion, ego, fear, impermanence, meditation, power, presence, self-honesty and surrender will continue to grow as the teachings unfold. Follow whatever catches your attention. Read. Meditate. Question. Experiment. Take the teaching into your own life and find out whether it is true.