Best Dharma Talks

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Abyss
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Abyss »

Bhante Madawela Punnaji, especially his talks about samadhi.
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bodom
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by bodom »

Im not sure you will find more dhamma talks on one site than u will this one.

http://birken.ca/dhammatalks.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
Uilium
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Uilium »

[quote="sattva"]Hi all!
I have a question. Because of my eyesight or lack there of, i find reading difficult. i do enjoying downloading and listening to Dharma talks. What teachers do you think give great Dharma talks? Although this is in the Discovering Theravada forum, i am open to all traditions. Who is your favorite teacher to listen to?[/quote
Ajahn Yuttadhammo has a ton of dhamma talks:

http://yuttadhammo.sirimangalo.org/audio/albums/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think the best teachers can be charismatic types but I tend to like obscure teachers
Uilium
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Uilium »

[quote="sattva"]Hi all!
I have a question. Because of my eyesight or lack there of, i find reading difficult. i do enjoying downloading and listening to Dharma talks. What teachers do you think give great Dharma talks? Although this is in the Discovering Theravada forum, i am open to all traditions. Who is your favorite teacher to listen to?[/quote
Ajahn Yuttadhammo has a ton of dhamma talks:

http://yuttadhammo.sirimangalo.org/audio/albums/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think the best teachers can be charismatic types but I tend to like obscure teachers
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Kamran
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Kamran »

tiltbillings wrote:Joseph Goldstein is a highly skilled teacher who speaks from a place of deep practice and much learning. His talks can be found at:

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dharmaseed has tons talks by a wide variety of Theravadin/vipassana teachers.
+1 Joseph Goldstein
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SDC
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by SDC »

Great series of lectures by Venerable Punnaji

http://www.bhantepunnaji.com/ongoing.htm
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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marc108
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by marc108 »

a good many of these have been posted i'm sure, but i'm going to list all the sites i use in one post:

Dhammaloka Center (Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Brahmali, Others):
http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/downloads.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bhante Sujato:
http://santifm.org/santi/downloads/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanissaro Bhikkhu:
http://dhammatalks.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bhikkhu Bodhi:
http://bodhimonastery.org/religion/audios" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.noblepath.org/audio.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Abhayagiri (Ajahn Passano, Ajahn Amaro, others):
http://www.abhayagiri.org/audio" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cittaviveka (Ajahn Sucitto, others):
http://www.cittaviveka.org/index.php/te ... udio-talks" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Amaravati (Ajahn Amaro, others):
http://www.amaravati.org/teachings/audi ... ation/1963" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bhante Gunaratana:
http://www.bhavanasociety.org/list/category/MP3s/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bhikkhu Analayo:
http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg. ... ctures.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Shaila Catherine:
http://imsb.org/teachings/audio.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Against the Stream (Noah Levine, others):
http://againstthestream.org/audio" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Library sites (huge amounts of talks from various teachers):
http://www.audiodharma.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dharmaseed.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://birken.ca/dhammatalks.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
mal4mac
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by mal4mac »

tiltbillings wrote:Joseph Goldstein is a highly skilled teacher who speaks from a place of deep practice and much learning. His talks can be found at:

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks for recommending this, I just listened to his latest talk "2015-06-08 Intrinsically empty, Naturally Radiant" and that certainly seemed, to me, to come from "a place of deep practice and much learning."
- Mal
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Uilium wrote:Ajahn Yuttadhammo has a ton of dhamma talks:

http://yuttadhammo.sirimangalo.org/audio/albums/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think the best teachers can be charismatic types but I tend to like obscure teachers
U Aggacitta also has some excellent Dhamma talks on his YouTube Channel.
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User156079
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by User156079 »

Venerable Yuttadhammos link seems broken, so im posting a new link to the directory containing mp3s at the server:
https://static.sirimangalo.org/diraudio/Yuttadhammo/

I love this teacher :bow: :bow: :bow:
Last edited by User156079 on Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mikenz66
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by mikenz66 »

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:U Aggacitta[/url] also has some excellent Dhamma talks on his YouTube Channel.
Thanks for that. Ven Aggacitta visited here several years ago and led some very interesting teachings/discussions. I particularly appreciated his intent to help the audience to identify the best approach for them. For example, he led us through a variety of approaches to metta, and then we discussed what worked for us, and why.

:heart:
Mike
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JMGinPDX
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by JMGinPDX »

Slightly OT, but I have found most of these recommendations on Apple iTunes, using the "Podcasts" app for iPhone and iPad. For me, it's easier to organize and find content using that method than going to individual websites or YouTube - I can download only talks I want to hear (making them available offline), they're marked as played once I've listened, the app keeps track of where I am and returns me to the place I left off, and I get notification when a new talk is uploaded to a specific podcast channel.

Here's what I subscribe to through iTunes Podcasts:
  • Abhayagiri Dhamma Talks
    Ajahn Sumedho Podcast by Amaravati
    108 Talks by Ajahn Sumedho
    Dhamma Talks - Amaravati Podcast (but often duplicates the Ajahn Amaro podcast)
    Ajahn Amaro Podcast
    The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah (as read by Ajahn Amaro)
    Dhammanet
    Deeper Dhamma (Ajahns Brahm, Brahmali, etc. - basically the BSWA podcast)
    Aruna Ratanagiri Dhamma Talks (Ajahn Munindo)
    Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg
    Dharmaseed.org
    Zencast (Gil Fronsdal, et al.)
    The Deer Park Dharmacast
    Meditation in the City: A Shambhala Podcast (occasionally - Ethan Nichtern and Lodro Rinzler are good, but some teachers are a bit TOO Shambhala :))
    Open Heart Project (I find Susan Piver to be a bit too Vajrayana-centric, but some of her stuff is good)
Right now, it's like this...
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Nicolas
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by Nicolas »

I have recently been listening to talks by Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto (who practiced under Mahā Boowa).
Youtube channels: Dhamma in English (only talks in English), Phrasuchart (talks in Thai and English).

I always enjoy Ajahn Jayasāro's talks. Youtube channel: Dhamma by Ajahn Jayasaro (mostly in Thai, with occasional ones in English).



PS: Here are some extracts from Dhamma talks from the above two that I had transcribed and posted on social media. Unfortunately, I forgot which are the sourced videos:
Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto wrote:"You need a cool, clear mind to look at the truth. If your mind is not cool and clear, if your mind is emotional, you don't want to look at the truth. Like right now, you don't want to think of your death, right? Have you ever wanted to think of your death? You don't want to. But you're going to have to face it one day, so it's better to think of it now and then to cope with it now before it happens; and you can only do this when your mind is calm and clear. [...] Then you can teach the mind that it's okay to die, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing to be fearful about."
Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto wrote:"Everybody has to experience pain, because the body is such, it has this nature that it has to get sick. When the body gets sick, then there is pain. So it's natural. The bodily pain is not harmful to the mind. What is harmful to the mind is the mental pain, the pain that arises from the desire to get rid of the physical pain. So the Buddha teaches us to eliminate this desire to get rid of the physical pain. Because we cannot, because it's beyond our ability. The physical pain has its causes, and when those causes disappear, the physical pain will disappear. So what the mind has to do is to live with the physical pain when it arises, not try to reject or try to get rid of it, because when it tries to do that, it creates this mental pain which is a lot stronger than the physical pain. Once you can control your mental pain, then the physical pain will not cause you any distress, you can live with this physical pain comfortably. The way to get rid of your mental pain is to get rid of your desire to get rid of the physical pain, and the first method is to use mindfulness, like using a mantra: buddho, buddho. When you have physical pain, don't think about it, forget about it, concentrating on your mantra: buddho, buddho, buddho. If you can continue on with your concentration on your mantra, you will forget the physical pain and you will stop the desire to get rid of the physical pain, so there will be no mental pain, then you can live with the physical pain, your mind will become peaceful and calm. The second level is to use wisdom to study the nature of the physical pain that belongs to the body, it doesn't belong to the mind. It affects the body, it doesn't affect the mind. But the mind is deluded to think that the body is itself, so it thinks it is being affected by the physical pain, so you have to teach the mind that the mind and the body are two separate persons. When the body becomes painful, the mind doesn't become painful, but due to the delusion of the mind, the mind thinks it is the body, so it wants to get rid of the physical pain. When it wants to get rid of this physical pain, it's creating another pain we call the mental pain, which is a lot stronger than the physical pain. So once the mind knows that the mind is not the body and the physical pain is not the pain that the mind experiences, all the mind has to do is just leave the physical pain alone. When there is no desire to get rid of that physical pain, then there is no mental pain. Then the mind can live with the physical pain, unaffected."
Ajahn Jayasāro wrote:We have this idea of "me" and "mine", "I" and "mine". This is the very heart of our ignorance. With samādhi, we can start to really penetrate what this really means. What do we mean when we say "this is who I am", "this is me", this is mine"? What does that mean? Or even to say "this is my book"--what does it mean? Let's say a Martian came, someone from another planet, doesn't know anything about humanity, human life, and you say "this is my book", and he says "I don't understand, what do you mean?" How would you explain the concept of ownership to someone who had never heard of it before? Or you could say "this is my house" or "this land belongs to me". It's very interesting to take up these very obvious things we take so for granted, the whole concept of ownership. What does it really mean to say we own something?

But even more interestingly is to bring it within: and we say "this is my body". Well, to what extent is it your body? What does that mean? "Oh, it's me, it's mine." But then, from a scientific point of view, every single cell from the human body changes in seven years, so there's not a single cell, a single physical element of your body now that existed seven years ago. Was that previous body yours? Is this body yours? And now it's changing already. In seven years' time if you come back to this retreat, it'll be a different you and a different me, physically. So is this body mine? Well let's say "this is me", "this is my body" -- how important is it that all the parts of the body are there? Let's say someone cuts off your arm, could you still say "this is me", "this is my body"? Let's say both arms, both arms and both legs, would you still have that sense of "this is my body"? And then someone takes out a lung, or takes out a kidney, and starts replacing bit by bit -- is it still your body, do you still have the sense of ownership there? If it's your body, then if we were explaining to the Martian what we mean about ownership, I think we'd probably come up with an idea: "it's my means, I can do whatever I want with it, and you can't stop me." "If I want to read this book, I have a right because it's mine. If I want to throw it out the window, I can because it's mine. If I want to burn it, I can. If i want to put it on my head, I can do that, it's my book. So if I'm not breaking the law, I can do whatever I want with it."

So the idea of ownership is tied up with the idea of power, isn't it? Ownership is a power relationship, you have power over something. But then how much power do we have in our relationship with the body? Nobody wants to get sick, so can you tell your body "don't get sick"? Nobody wants to get old--can you tell your body not to get old? Can you tell your body not to die? No. The most important things that you don't want to happen to your body are all going to happen, whether you like it or not. Or if you go out in the sun, can you tell your body "look, just don't sweat. I really don't want to sweat today, it's a real hassle having to shower here, there's so many people, and using the bathroom, I'd really prefer not to sweat very much while I'm here", but you can't--if you go out in the sun you're going to sweat, or if it's night-time then you get cold, and you can't just tell your body not to get cold or tell your body not to sweat. You can't tell your body not to get hungry or not to get thirsty. So, this most basic kind of assumption we have, "this is my body", what does that really mean? This is the kind of investigation that we make as Buddhist meditators. And In fact, we see that we have an idea of ownership which arises and passes away in the mind, and we can observe that.
When does that feeling of "I am my body" appear very strongly? If someone looks at us. If you're a young woman and a man looks at you, very aware of yourself as a body, you identify with your body. In any kind of sexual situation, you're very identified with your body. If you're in any kind of taxing thing, where you're playing a sport or you're using your body a lot, you're very aware of your body, you're identified with your body. But other times, when you're reading a book and you're completely absorbed, you might not have any sense of your body at all. So the sense of "I am the body" or "I am the owner of my body" is in fact a thought, it's a perception that arises and passes away in your mind. So we begin this investigation of body and mind with the very obvious: the body; and then we move on from that to feelings, and to perceptions, and to thoughts and emotions, and consciousness itself. And so we can gradually unravel all these beliefs and assumptions and ideas we have about who we are. It's very subtle work, and this is why you need a very high level of mindfulness and samādhi to be able to conduct this kind of investigation in a very penetrative way. But this is what really we're developing the power to do, how to sustain attention on our inner world and look at us, our life, and who we are--as I say, not as a philosophical argument or a kind of theoretical debate, but looking at our experiences.
Ajahn Jayasāro wrote:"The idea behind meditation in its initial stages of developing mindfulness on an object, developing attention span, is that it reveals, it illuminates the way that our minds work, and we take this as an opportunity to learn and to study the nature of agitation, the nature of dullness, the nature of boredom, the nature of irritation, the nature of discouragement--all these mental states that are churned up by the effort to sustain attention on an object are to be seen as objects of study, things to be known and understood rather than as things that are stopping us getting what we'd like to get from meditation.

All these qualities of mind are already present, they're not coming into existence because of meditation, but they're being revealed to us as mental states rather than as experienced as who we are, part of our personality. So we could almost say we're objectifying or at least giving ourselves the opportunity to objectify these mental states. We're learning to see thought as thought, to see feeling as feeling, to see perception as perception, rather than experiencing them as who we are. We learn to see how these mental states arise, what conditions their arising, what feeds them, what leads to them passing away from the mind very easily or quickly, and what prevents them from arising again in the future.

[...]

We're learning how to see between mental states. As we're more mindful, gaps between thoughts and perception start to appear, and so rather than being this continual stream of thoughts and feelings and emotions, now it's like a drip, drip, drip, there are gaps, and in the beginning it's just an occasional respite or occasional rest between thoughts and memories and so on. Then as the intervals increase, they start to become more prominent than the mental activity, so now you have the sense of something arising out of silence and passing away into it, and that's a significant change in the way you experience your mental life. The movement is one in which the focus moves away from the content of experience to process. A lot of our suffering is because we give so much importance to the content of our thoughts, and simply switching to an awareness of the process, the fact that it is a mental event, something which has a beginning and has an end, that very simple but quite momentous flip is something that can only really be experienced consistently in a way that leads to transformation through meditation practice."
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WindDancer
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Re: Best Dharma Talks

Post by WindDancer »

Thank you so much for each of your suggestions. I have listened to Dharma talks and guided meditations from several of the sites that were suggested. I am eager to explore and listen to more.

For a beginner, I suggest listening to the basic meditation instructions offered at the Insight Meditation Society at http://www.audiodharma.org/. Audio Dharma is a great way to start one's journey. On the left side of the screen, there is a list of several topics that help build a beginning foundation. These include talks on the Four Noble Truths, the Eight Fold Path, the Five Hindrances, the Seven Factors of Awakening, the Paramis, Not Self, the Satipatthana Suttra, Pain, Loving Kindness (Metta) and more. They offer guided meditations and day long Dharma Practice Days where members have come together to explore and discuss a particular topic in a community setting. In recent years, they have added talks given at the Insight Retreat Center which tend to focus on a variety of topics. I find that Gil Fronsdal is a solid teacher, especially gifted at helping make the teachings accessible to those of us in the West. Andrea Fella continues to be a great support as I grow in daily life practice.

At Audio Dharma I got the opportunity to listen to all the monks and nuns which had given talks at the Insight Meditation Center. Their inspiring talks led me to explore other sites which have been listed above. I particularly connected with Thanissiro Bhikkhu, Ajann Amaro, Ajahn Sundara, Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Analayo.
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