Buddhist Recovery Network

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

Practicing In Sangha: Diversity & Belonging
2022-09-04 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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Showing Up for Life As It Is
2021-03-07 10:00 - 11:00
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.

Watch Your Tone: Awareness of Feeling Tones
2021-02-07 10:00 - 11:00
With any experience, there is a felt sense that arises within us before the onslaught of stories and emotions. It often happens so quickly that we are unaware of it. These feeling tones set in motion the habitual reactions of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that we get caught up in.

The Buddha taught us the cause of our suffering in the Second Noble Truth, mainly craving for things to be different than they are. Bringing awareness, our mindfulness, to the subtleties in feeling tones of experiences allows the space for us to see clearly how this plays out, and we then can expand our capacity to respond to experience as it is, rather than react.

Eight Step Recovery
2021-01-03 10:00 - 11:00
This months teaching will take the form of an Eight Step Recovery meeting

Moving into Spaciousness
2020-12-06 10:00 - 11:00
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 on to our beliefs of the way things are supposed to be, or fight off the way things are, we’re often tense and cling tightly to our ideas. This practice offers us a way to recognize what this constriction feels like in our bodies and how to let go and make more space. As we release the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”, we can breathe more easily and allow ourselves to be more intimate with our experience. We learn to trust the what’s actually happening instead of what we think might happen. This moves us into the calm and ease that spaciousness allows.

Meditating during Uncertain Times
2020-11-01 10:00 - 11:00
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 and act? Yes we do. What we do off the cushions we bring onto the meditation cushion, and what we do on the meditation cushion we take back into the world. So come and join the President of BRN and explore meditation through a trauma informed lens, and surrender to some healing.
Award-winning author of 8 books, Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John is the co-founder of Mindfulness-Based Addiction Recovery MBAR, a secular recovery 8-week program, and the co-author and co-founder of Eight Step Recovery Using The Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction. She was the co-founder of Healing and Insight a teaching faculty embracing Buddhist Recovery in all its guises. She is now responsible for programming Buddhist Recovery Retreats at the Menla Retreat Centre in Upstate New York. Chair of Vancouver Buddhist Centre, she is a senior member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, and tours internationally as a public speaker and trainer in the field of addictions and emotional trauma.Website: www.valeriemason-john.com

Liberation Now: From the Progressive Path to Direct Experience
2020-10-04 10:00 - 11:00
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.

Rather than turning the attention outward to various objects of practice–mantras, counting the breath, focusing on sound–what changes when we cultivate our effortless capacity to rest the attention in Awareness?

What changes as we practice inquiry into the nature of consciousness?

And how might this approach to practice support our recognition of what’s inherent rather than feed our conditioned tendency to strive?

Embodying Emotions with Somatic Meditation
2020-09-06 10:00 - 11:00
