Generosity: Transforming the Heart

BRN Academy

As we embark into a new year, we will explore the importance of cultivating generosity (d?na) and gratitude (kataññuta) and turning our intentions toward the interrelationship of the two. The practice of generosity is at the foundation of Buddhist teachings. At its essence, dana is radical because it is the practice of giving freely without...

Concrete Beds and Wooden Pillows… Waking Up the Hard Way (or Finding Insight but not Serenity)

BRN Academy

Sixteen years ago, I sat my first 10-day silent ‘Anapansati’ retreat at Wat Suan Mokkh monastery in southern Thailand.  Wat Suan Mokkh has a separate retreat centre famous for its basic accommodation which includes concrete beds and wooden pillows. There, from a seeming inability to meditate came a small but ultimately profound and eventually life-changing...

Perfect As We Are: A Self Compassion Practice

BRN Academy

In this session we will release self-doubt and/or self-blame, and engage in a practice of self-love and self-forgiveness.  Fresh “Lev” White is a love and compassionate activist. He offers mindfulness, coaching, mediation, and diversity trainings as tools for shifting towards more authentic, conscious and passionate living. He teaches and writes about how love and self-compassion...

Effortless Mindfulness for Addiction Recovery: One Glimpse at a Time

BRN Academy

The Effortless Mindfulness approach to addiction draws on Buddhist meditation from Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism. Effortless Mindfulness is a direct approach that considered an advanced, yet simple way to access our true nature and treat suffering at its root. The 2 main premises are: craving is caused by living from our small separate sense of...

Grounding in Uncertainty

BRN Academy

"Nothing in the whole universe is comparable to the mind or can take its place.  Everything is mind-made." _Ayya KhemeI will guide our meditation on the cultivation of kindness and establishing your place of refuge during meditation so that you may begin to train the mind in stillness and peace.  Now more than ever, the...

Meditation | Practice for Challenging Times

BRN Academy

We will offer a meditation and an opportunity to be together in Sangha, with an emphasis on sustaining practice in these challenging times. Please join us this Sunday, June 7th, led by Robin Smith.

Reflection on Recovery

BRN Academy

Having just passed the milestone of 35 years sober, exactly half his life, Kevin looks back on his own path and the lessons he has learned as a clean and sober Buddhist.  Kevin Griffin is a Buddhist teacher and author in the Theravada tradition. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Recovery Network and teaches...

Emotional Sobriety: Comfortable in Your Own Skin

BRN Academy

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1400167713509983/</p>Gary Sanders lives in Portland, OR. He is originally from the Los Angeles area, where he was the founder of SCV Mindfulness and led up to three weekly meditation groups for over 5 years. He was empowered to lead Buddhist meditation and dharma groups at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. He helped,...

Liberation Now: From the Progressive Path to Direct Experience

BRN Academy

In a progressive path approach to practice, we sometimes fall for the idea that liberation is in the future.  We are conditioned to believe that we must end thinking, master practices, meditate for years, and purify our minds. Without realizing it, our beliefs maintain the conditioning that stands in the way of our direct realization. ...

Meditating during Uncertain Times

BRN Academy

With the American election coming up, and the spike in COVID cases around the world, it is inevitable that many people may be experiencing PTSD, panic attacks, worry and concern. Many people ask how can meditation help when all you are doing is sitting on the cushion? Don't we have to get up, go outside...

Moving into Spaciousness

BRN Academy

In this talk Mary will talk about identifying those constricted and frightened parts of ourselves that we may not even be aware of. When we're caught in any type of addictive behavior, we're also often trapped in habits of mind that are driven by fear and an inability to be with reality. When we hold...