Tonight we learn about another step on the Noble Eight Fold Path- Right Livelihood. The way we make a living has an impact on our world and society, but also on us.  As we make a living, we are also making ourselves.  Tonight's class discusses the many ways the practice can nourish our work life and allows up to help ourselves, our co-workers and the people we serve all at once. Phap Ho is joined by two panelists from the Order of Interbeing who share about their path of practice and livelihood.  We are also reminded that whereever we work, we can aspire to bring kindness to our workplace.  As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, may we all reflect on the work we are doing and how if is serving the Beloved Community and a more compassionate society.  The study materials can be found here  http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-7/view  

Dear Friends

Tonight we are offered a very inspiring and empowering teaching on Right Effort.  Right Effort is the first in the Concentration Triad of steps on the 8-fold path, the place where we are able and ready to collect our mind.  At this point in our training, our mind begins to calm down.  Right effort in Buddhist teaching is not hard labor.  It is appropriate attention or appropriate effort.  We will learn how to examine what we are being fed by others and what we are feeding ourselves.   We are offered a clear, basic definition of mindfulness and you will share in the creation of helpful new acronyms-- THNYA and THAA.  There is also a pop-quiz on the Prajana Dyad so be mindful!  Best of all, you will be given the best homework in the world history of teaching-- the requirement to be lazy.

The handout is here http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-6/view 

Enjoy 

Welcome Back and Happy New Year to our virtual Dharma classmates!

We hope you enjoyed your holiday and were offered many beautiful opportunities to cultivate, enjoy, and share your practice. Tonight's class is on Right Action.  Sr. Bich Nghiem shares that the practice of Right Action can help us be happier.  Right action means right action of the body, the practice of being in touch with love and preventing harm,  non-violence, and doing everything in mindfulness. She shares that our actions need to be good for ourselves and for others to be right action.  If it is good for others and not good for ourselves or good for ourselves and not good for others, then it is not right action yet.  We review the 1,2,3, and 5th mindfulness trainings.  You will also learn how to share the  dharma with snakes and our other animal friends.

Enjoy your practice and see you next week.

Dear Friends

Just in time for the holidays we have an opportunity to look deeply at Right Speech. The materials prepared for this talk are very useful and insightful. You can find them here: http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-4/view  Thich Phap Ho shares about ways to make our speech loving, kind, and using speech that grows our community in a harmonious direction.  Sister Quynh Nghiem shares about the important practice of Noble Silence.  We are sorry it took extra time to post this weeks class, we had a bit of technical difficulty but due to the great commitment of our dedicated dharma teacher Phap Ho, he has ensured that this class could manifest and we are very grateful.

Please enjoy this deep and timely class.

Today we offer a very useful and moving dharma talk given here at Deer Park Monastery by Brother Phap Dang, in which he speaks about depression and dark states of the mind, and the mind’s obsessions that can lead to these dark places.  We know it will bring benefits to many people.

Dear Friends:  Tonights podcast includes three amazing gifts--

00-8:00 a sitting meditation (there is a little additional resonance that makes the bells very long around minute 7:00)

8:00    Intro to the class

13:00   A beautiful song offering, Can't Stop Love,  by Washuntara (www.washuntara.com)

18:00   The teaching by Thich Phap Hai on Right Thinking/ Right Intention.  

Enjoy this amazing offering.

Dear Dharmacast Family:

We hope you are having a wonderful winter (or summer depending on where you are) and are enjoying the fruits of your practice. We continue with the Moment to Moment exploration with today's class on Right View.  The handout can be found at http://deerparkmonastery.org/teachings/moment-by-moment/course-material-week-2/view and it is highly encouraged that you download and review this.  It provides much wonderful information and insightful suggested practice ideas and reflection questions that can be put to very beneficial use by an individual or a sangha.  We learn from Sr. Bich Nghiem how to bring the joy of practice into our daily life.  She also offers a reminder that, at their base, all views are wrong views (having only one point of viewing) but that, through practice, the quality of our views can always be improved. 

Moment by Moment: A  90-day journey in the landscape of Buddhist Teachings & Practices

This winter a group of Monastic Dharma Teachers here at Deer Park will offer a course based in the Buddhas Teaching on the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path.

Nov 27, 2011  This winter's course - Moment by Moment: will be an opportunity to enjoy walking meditation through some of the vistas of central Buddhist teachings and practices.  If we look deeply at the Buddhist Dharma, we see concentric circles- at the very heart of the circles lies the Four Noble Truths. All of the foundational teachings and practices spring from this source. Out of the Four Noble Truths emerge the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha's guidance for realizing transformation in body, speech and mind at a fundamental level. From the various steps of the Noble Eightfold Path spring a multitude of sutras, practices and commentaries.

During this course, we will enjoy sharings on each of the Truths and the steps of the path; we will be offered concrete practices to apply at home and we will have suggested readings and reflections, as appropriate. These will be available on the Deer Park Monastery website.

The three month winter retreat is a time of focused attention and deep looking. It is also a time of simplifying, of settling... a time of recognizing how we use our energy in our daily life. Most of all it is a time of allowing ourselves to settle- to settle into our experience of the moment.

Making the commitment to attend this class- even knowing all of the challenges- is one way to bring that element of focused intention into our lives- even if we cannot spend ninety days in a practice center.

When:

Sunday afternoon at 3 pm, weekly

first session: November 27, last session: February 19

Where: in the Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall, Deer Park Monastery

or online Deer Park Dharma Cast: http://deerpark.libsyn.com/

How long: each session will be one hour

Why: because we like to

You can follow the course offerings and suggested ‘homework’ by going to http://deerparkmonastery.org/community/moment-by-moment

This very special Dharma Talk by Thay is offered by the wonderful Plum Village Monastery Online.  We encourage you to visit http://pvom.org/ for more of these wonderful teachings. Here is an excerpt from the website. "This is the final Dharma talk offered by Thay in the Together We Are One Retreat at Deer Park Monastery on the North American Tour, on September 11th, 2011. Thay shares compassion, love, and great understanding: Understanding of suffering allows compassion to arise, and the energy of compassion can be very healing. You feel much better after having understood your own suffering.  And your own suffering reflects somehow the suffering of the world. That is why once you have understood your own suffering, it is much easier and easier to understand his suffering, her suffering.  And when you are able to see the suffering in him and in her you're no longer angry.  He goes on to share about right view and how it can free us from notions of being and non-being. He finishes the talk discussing what is right action.'

Dear Community

Every year in summer,  Deer Park Monastery hosts a 5-day Teen Camp. The teens camp out, sleeping in tents, gathering around a camp fire in the morning, play and practice.  This year was a wonderful experience for over 50 teens.  Here is a wonderful Dharma talk from the Teen Retreat.

Enjoy you peaceful breath,

Enjoy your peaceful step