Buddhist Recovery Network

Racism In The Buddhist Sangha
2019-05-05 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | BRN Academy

Letting Go of Our Stories
2019-04-07 10:00 - 11:00
As soon as we’re born we’re faced with what life throws at us and we develop ways of coping that may or may not be beneficial. We’re also bombarded with messages from family, friends, school and society at large about who we are and what we should or shouldn’t be. These habits and messages become embedded and we may not even be aware of them, but they influence us on a daily basis. This is what the Buddha means when he talks about our conditioning. This conditioning can harden into the unwise stories we believe; craving and addiction are a destructive way of handling these beliefs.
In order to move towards freedom we have to wake up to our conditioning and disentangle it. Slowing down the mind and taking a step back to see the impersonal nature of the mind and developing a deep intimacy with our experience is how we move toward letting go of the craving and addiction. This talk will offer ways to examine our stories and the baggage we carry with us and investigate how to let them go in order to live a more liberated life.

The Pearl in Sorrow's Hand
2019-03-03 10:00 - 11:00
I have recently been considering the nature of ‘Dukkha’ or ‘suffering’ or ‘stress’ in a Buddhist context, particularly how it plays itself out in my life.
One ancient talk goes along the lines… “Now what, friends, is the noble truth of stress? Birth is stressful, illness is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful…”
Birth, sickness, old-age and death are all unavoidable… and undeniably stressful.
I visited one of my favourite aunts in Cork last month. She has advanced dementia, so she doesn’t know who anyone is, and she must have all of her personal care provided for her. She was being cared for by her 82-year old husband and surrounded and supported by a large loving family taking care of her every need.
It was inspiring to see her held in so much love. But it was equally sad to see a once vibrant wife, mother, grandmother, aunt and good friend as a mere shadow — almost unrecognisable — of her former ‘self’.
The truth of ‘birth, sickness, old-age and death’ is the usual description of universal suffering given by the Buddha, and I sometimes forget that the full definition of Dukkha is more than that, quite literally, the complete explanation goes…
“Now what, friends, is the noble truth of stress? Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful; separation from the loved is stressful; not getting what is wanted is stressful…”
So, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful… again these are not really avoidable. To be human is to experience physical and emotional discomforts. But can I experience these without becoming overwhelmed by them? I suppose that is the practice.
“Association with the unbeloved is stressful; separation from the loved is stressful; not getting what is wanted is stressful…”
Daily life is inconstant, unpredictable, uncertain, it is woven together with impermanence. I cannot control what I get and what I don’t get, but – whether I like it or not – this is my life. To argue with impermanence and uncertainty is to argue with the inarguable.
I have a recurring theme in my head lately. The closing verses from the long version of Rumi’s poem ‘The Guest House’…
“And if the pearl is not in sorrow’s hand,let it go and still be pleased.Increase your sweet practice.Your practice will benefit you at another time;someday your need will be suddenly fulfilled.”
So, maybe, that’s what we all have to do… increase our sweet practice… and then, I hope friends, that someday all of our genuine needs will be suddenly fulfilled.

Coming Home To The Body with Breath
2019-02-03 10:00 - 11:00
Imagine not being able to find your way home to your loved one’s, to your friends and family. Imagine how traumatic this would be. And this is the same trauma we experience when we have split from our body and can not find our way back into the body. We have to find our way back home to our body if we want freedom from the prison of our minds.
The Buddha was teaching us to breathe through the body, feelings, mental formation and all mind objects with calm. The anapanasati meditation, the mindfulness of breathing is teaching us to come back to the body.
The journey of wisdom is learning to find our way back to the body. But some of us have lost our way home because our bodies were violated in childhood. To protect ourselves we made sure nobody was at home in our body. We switched all feeling off.
If we are able to find our way back home. Turn all the
feelings back on in the body. We will learn to turn towards our direct experience unfolding in every moment.
In Vipassana meditation we are saying come back to the body, come back to the breathing, inhabit your body, and be in direct experience with whatever is arising in the now.
The body is the home for all of us. It’s where we live all our lives, and if we are not at peace in our body, we will not be at peace in any other areas of our lives. We have to learn to befriend our body, and not treat it like an enemy. And know it is safe to have our feelings now.
We come home to the body with breath. (This is an edited version from Vimalasara’s new course for Insight Timer launching September 10th)
Three tips for practice

Breathe
Do nothing when discomfort, comfort or neutral sensations arise in the body or mind
Be kind and compassionate to yourself by remembering to pause

Vimalasara (Valerie) was the co-founder and guiding teacher of Healing and Insight, an online faculty that explored the sharp edges of suffering. Award-winning author of 8 books, she is the co-founder and co-author of Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction, with 8 step meetings in 3 continents. And she is also the co-founder of Mindfulness-Based Addiction Recovery. Vimalasara is a senior teacher in the Triratna Order and Community.

Greed, Hate and Delusion: A Buddhist Theory of Everything
2019-01-06 10:00 - 11:00
“We are all addicted. We all plan our escapes from the existential angst of modern life. Some of us are just a bit more subtle about it than others. Buddhist psychology is the study of avoidance and addiction. Through the processes commonly known as the three poisons and popularly translated as ‘greed, hate and delusion’ we avoid the reality of suffering and responsibility by choosing our particular poisons, and in so doing we generate further levels of misery for ourselves. With a myriad variations on the old theme, we set ourselves apart psychologically from our troubled times; an action which is devastating to all our futures on a planet overburdened by consumption and conflict as well as to our personal well-being. In this talk I will be offering some basic insights derived from this Buddhist understanding and some pointers which Buddhism offers for unhooking from these pernicious processes, both at the personal and the collective level.”

The Dharma in Family Recovery
2018-12-02 10:00 - 11:00
“Not everyone has the type of brain that finds significant relief through alcohol or other substances; in fact, most people had to find other ways to leave, numb, or explain away (i.e., distort) experiences that were too overwhelming for the body, heart and mind of a developing child. And even if you didn’t grow up in the microcosm of an addicted or mentally ill family, all of us grew up in the macrocosm shaped by voracious consumerism, aggression, and confusion about our true relationship to what we call “nature.” We need to recover from the suffering of socially acceptable forms of self-delusion. So for all of us growing up in this culture, recovering awareness of the body and a sense of belonging in life is crucial for navigating, and this is never more true than when you are dealing with the chronic illness of a loved one. Join us for a time of practicing responsible self care.”

A Searching and Fearless Meditation
2018-11-04 10:00 - 11:00

Gratitude Turns What We Have Into Enough and More
2018-10-07 10:00 - 11:00
“Recovery and gratitude seem to go hand in hand. In the heat of our addictions, whether substance or process, we all tend to really focus on the hardships of our lives, our trials and tribulations and get stuck in the old comparison game, comparing our insides to others outsides, a line heard frequently in 12 step meetings. That’s probably a big reason why we drink, use or act out. We get stuck in the unhealthy mental loop of “poor me”, “why me” or “what’s wrong with me”…those “Greatest Hits of Addiction”, right? We start to believe those stories, we start to program these minds to constantly get hyper-focused on the difficult and painful. And we suffer. So, with this practice of gratitude, we can begin to rewire the mind to appreciate what is good and true and wholesome. This isn’t a make-believe practice. As the internet meme says “there’s ALWAYS something to be grateful for”. Let’s dive into this more, practice with it and find some freedom.”

Mindful of Race
2018-09-02 10:00 - 11:00
“Racism remains one of the most rooted and painful impasses of our time. It is fed through unawareness and the misuse of power. Embedded in racism is the skeletal shape of all oppressions. To understand the dynamics of racism and the flesh we put on its bones is to also understand other forms of oppression and our relationship to differences, divisions, and diversity. Too many of us want racial suffering to go away without first being touched by it or caring for it. Yet recognizing how we have been conditioned to think and react is at the heart of both racial distress and racial healing. In this introductory talk, we discover how our inner life is reflected in the world through the Buddha’s teachings on Ultimate and Relative Reality and Distortion of Mind, and the three truths we must remember but often forget.”

Suffering and Happiness – Both are Present, Embrace Them
2018-08-05 10:00 - 11:00
“Living Happily with things as they are (Drishta dharma sukha viharin) encourages an ancient Buddhist teaching. Those of us who have lived with addiction, struggled with recovery and found our common bonds: trauma and toxic shame, may find that teaching simplistic or even dismissive.As Buddhists, we know that suffering is part of life. We accept that. Then, right in the center of the Big Book of alcoholics anonymous (p 132) is a wonderful sentence: “We absolutely insist on enjoying life… we are not a glum lot”!How do we create a life that includes both suffering and happiness? Letting go!Gil Fronsdal writes: “Renunciation is one of the most beneficial, empowering, and freeing practices of Buddhism. As its purpose is to heighten the best qualities of our hearts and minds, renunciation is not meant to diminish our lives but rather to enhance them. Abstaining from intoxicating drinks and drugs—the fifth ethical precept—is an important Buddhist practice.So, we welcome suffering and delusion when they arise, we notice them, but we do not cling. We let them go and we acknowledge that happiness is also present.Not one, not two.”

The Practice of Freedom
2018-07-01 10:00 - 11:00

Living Kindness
2018-06-03 10:00 - 11:00

Insight into Awakening
2018-05-06 10:00 - 11:00

Letting Go of the Second Arrow
2018-04-01 10:00 - 11:00

Seeing Pass the Impulse
2018-03-04 10:00 - 11:00

M.A.R.A. and the Gatekeepers
2018-02-04 10:00 - 11:00

Vimalasara - First Academy Teaching
2018-01-07 10:00 - 11:00
