Showing Up for Life As It Is
2021-03-07 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | BRN Academy
So much of our lives can be driven by unconscious reactivity: the endless struggle to avoid painful or negative feelings. With mindfulness meditation, we can develop the skill of patience and presence, so that we can experience calm and contentment even in the midst of all of the challenges of our lives.

Relax the Body, Relax the Mind
2021-04-04 10:00 - 11:00
Our bodies hold so much that we’re not aware of. Our shoulders are tight, our jaws are clenched. This tenseness is often a reaction to cravings, aversions, and other habits of mind that we’re also unaware of. In this meditation and talk, Mary will invite us to relax the body and mind which allows us to be with our thoughts and feelings as they arise and develop the ability to respond with clarity and compassion. This practice is helpful in dealing both with addiction and with moving through our day to day lives.

Changing Poison into Medicine
2021-05-02 10:00 - 11:00
Myokei Caine-Barrett currently holds the position of Bishop of the Nichiren Shu Buddhist Order of North America. She is the first woman and the first American to hold this position. She is also the first American woman and first person of African American-Japanese descent to be fully ordained, having completed this process in 2007 with Archbishop Nissho Uchino in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. She is the guiding teacher and resident priest at Myoken-ji Temple in Houston, Texas.

Myokei Shonin continues to volunteer with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as clergy to two prison Sanghas for the past 16 years in keeping with the Lotus Sutra teaching of full equality of all beings. Her writings have been published in a variety of Buddhist magazines [Tricycle, Lion’s Roar] and newspapers [Nichiren Shu News] and is featured in “The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women.” She is currently developing curriculum for (1) the Nichiren Shu tradition and the Lotus Sutra and (2) dealing with the trauma of incarceration and racism.

Knowing I Am On The Dharma Path
2021-06-06 10:00 - 11:00

Cabbages and Condoms
2021-07-04 10:00 - 11:00
Life is naturally difficult and disappointing. All living creatures are programmed to seek security and safety, and as humans, we also seek certainty. As a result, we often live life as unconscious prisoners of fear.

Fear of this world and of a next world, fear of sickness and of death, fear of insecurity and of being defenceless, fear of the unknown and of the unexpected. In short, fear of life itself.

In this month’s Academy talk, I hope to explore some links between fear and craving. I will offer some ideas, particularly using the Heart practices including forgiveness, for how we might meet life on life’s terms to live a compassionate, confident and fearless life.

Outside Issues and All Our Affairs: The Challenge of Integrating Social Activism in Our Spiritual Practice
2021-08-01 10:00 - 11:00

Loving Ourselves Towards Freedom
2021-09-05 10:00 - 11:00

Ven Pannavati Bhikkhuni - October 2021
2021-10-03 10:00 - 11:00

A Taste of Freedom
2021-11-07 10:00 - 11:00
This month in our Buddhist Recovery Workshop series Vimalasara led us in a guided meditation and Dharma talk.

Reclaiming your Own Original Medicine: The Season of Letting-go as Practice of Self-preservation
2021-12-05 10:00 - 11:00
Indigenous societies recognize individuals holding our personal power as original medicine. The shadow of our false self is purified as we strengthen our authentic self through the practice of coming home to our truth and power. The teachings of the Buddha and indigenous wisdom build this foundation of truth, trust and love.

Meeting Life With Joy
2022-01-02 10:00 - 11:00

The Breath of Recovery
2022-02-06 10:00 - 11:00
Mindfulness of breathing is both the most basic meditative tool and an advanced path to enlightenment, as described by the Buddha. Kevin will discuss the range of uses of mindful breathing, from simple stress-reduction to the higher insights and their value on the path of recovery.
Bio:

Kevin Griffin is a Buddhist teacher and author in the Theravada tradition. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Recovery Network and teaches internationally across Buddhist traditions. He has been a Buddhist practitioner and in recovery for over three decades. His teacher training was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California, where he still teaches his flagship Dharma and Recovery class. Besides teaching at Buddhist and other spiritual centers, Kevin works with treatment centers and has consulted with leading addiction researchers.His books include:A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of RecoveryOne Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve StepsBuddhism & The Twelve Steps WorkbookRecovering Joy: A Mindful Life After Addiction
Living Kindness: Buddhist Teachings for a Troubled World
His CDs include:Recovery One Breath at a TimeOne Breath, Twelve StepsLaughing Buddha (music)

Website: https://www.kevingriffin.net/

We Were Made for These Times: Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss and Disruption
2022-03-06 10:00 - 11:00

Looking for the Truth - The 'secret' facts of life hidden in plain view
2022-04-03 10:00 - 11:00
Human beings are not meant to be ‘happy’. We are compelled to keep chasing pleasure and to avoid pain. The Buddha presented a view of our existence as being a fragile process, ever changing, impermanent, inconstant, uncertain, subject to unavoidable pain and completely impersonal.
And, he also offered us insights and tools that encourage and facilitate the liberating possibility of seeing the basic patterns of things as they really are. But, the choice is ours whether we follow his suggestions or not!

Letting in the Joy
2022-05-01 10:00 - 11:00
Our practice and our recovery are often about recognizing our struggles and where we are stuck. Although it’s necessary that we do this, sometimes we miss the joy that is also present in our lives. Joy is one of the Seven Awakening Factors and an important experience on the path to liberation. In this talk Mary will offer suggestions on how to recognize and cultivate joy in your life, even in the midst of difficulties.

The Bravery of Mindfulness Awareness Meditation
2022-06-05 10:00 - 11:00

Seeing ourselves in the face of suffering, loss, trauma, and joy
2022-07-03 10:00 - 11:00

In the Season of Fire
2022-08-07 10:00 - 11:00
The teaching is an introduction of the Fire sermon from the teachings of the Buddha and how it is relating to these current times.

Practicing In Sangha: Diversity & Belonging
2022-09-04 10:00 - 11:00

A Place Between: What's Along the Middle Way?
2022-11-06 10:00 - 11:00
The Buddha revealed to us an eight-fold path as a way to work with and move beyond suffering, a way to be in recovery from the three poisons in all their many forms. How do we embrace this middle way of being with curiosity, awareness and engagement, and what does it reveal to us along the way? Let’s notice the qualities of the change that comes as a result of our efforts. Let’s practice widening our view to see the distances we’ve traveled, how we’re becoming, what energizes our practice and gives life to our regular steps along the way.

Beginning Again
2023-01-01 10:00 - 11:00
As the New Year starts, we renew our commitment to recovery and practice. This talk will focus on the importance of persistence and continuity in practice and recovery. The importance of finding joy in the simple experiences of life, in breathing, in walking, in being with others.

All You Need is Love
2023-02-05 10:00 - 11:00
In our world it seems that hate and anger are so prevalent it can feel overwhelming at times. In our own lives, it’s also quite easy for us to slip into aversion and othering while finding it fully justified. In this talk Mary discusses the need to name love as a foundation of our practice. The Buddha gave us the Metta Sutta as well as other teachings on how to be with a mind imbued with lovingkindness and compassion. This foundation of love will allow us to fully open to the world and to ourselves, letting go of the need to create barriers. Turning towards love is the answer.

Forgiveness on the Path to Recovery
2023-03-05 10:00 - 11:00
So many of us come into sobriety with a really poor relationship with ourselves and so heavily burdened with resentments towards ourselves and others. By practicing forgiveness, not in a theistic Christian outside ourselves way, but as self empowering and self healing way to start to let go, to change our relationship with, and to be truly free. It is imperative for forgiveness to be infused in all our practices and our path so that we can be liberated, experiencing the difference between just sobriety and the big Recovery, with a capital R!

Long Enduring Mind
2023-04-02 10:00 - 11:00
Recovery and dharma practice go through many ups and downs. How do we sustain our spiritual lives through the seasons of life?

The Karma Garden—A missing tool of Buddhist Recovery for process addictions
2023-05-07 10:00 - 11:00
Do you struggle with renouncing your compulsive behavior? Thomas has readapted a vital tool for process addictions into Buddhist framework, which they call “The Karma Garden: Watering Seeds of Self-Care.”
This tool helps you:

Define the behaviors you’re renouncing (the insatiable cravings and damage of hungry ghosts)
Keep alert of risky conditions (-Bad Karma seeds / Suffering)
Fill your cup with healthy self-care choices (+Good Karma / Healing)

https://insighttimer.com/ang

https://rd.rocks

Understanding No Self and a World Based on Identities
2023-06-04 10:00 - 11:00
For this session, in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride, Lev will read a poem from the book Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices and talk about why it’s important to honor who we all are, or identify, while also understanding the emptiness of us.

The Basic Pattern of Things: Managing Expectations
2023-07-02 10:00 - 11:00
The Buddha’s First Truth or Realisation was “Life is painful and then you die.” If this is true, then how do we respond to the disappointments of life and the certainty of death? This session will explore how we are conditioned to protect, promote and satisfy a ‘self’ which can never be satisfied. As the Buddha says “we are the slaves of craving”. Our wise-heartedness meditation will cultivate an appropriate attitude to the vicissitudes of life.

Committing to Change
2023-08-06 10:00 - 11:00

The Zen Way of Recovery
2023-09-03 10:00 - 11:00
Laura will be sharing from her recently released book The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction, a collection of dharma talks on teachings that are congruent with recovery. The twin paths of Zen practice and recovery have evolved and sustained her since she got sober in 1985.
Here is a link to the book: https://www.shambhala.com/zen-way-of-recovery.html

Kate Johnson - October 2023
2023-10-01 10:00 - 11:00
