Dear Friends, welcome to the Deer Park Dharmacast. Today we offer a dharma talk from Brother Phap De on Mother Earth, given here at Dear Park with the approach of the Christmas holiday.  Brother Phap De is an American born monk, to whom Thich Nhat Hahn gave a monastic name meaning “Young Monk.” Here Thay Phap De speaks about his Christian upbringing and beliefs, and describes how Thich Nhat Hahn taught him to bring his heavenward attentions down to a loving and peaceful Mother Earth.

Please find a solid, upright, and relaxed position to enjoy today’s dharma talk.

Dear Friends

Deer Park is offering a series of theme weekends during the year.  The first weekend was a wonderful offering from Dharma Teacher Eileen Kiera.  Eileen is a resident Dharma teacher at Mountain Lamp near Bellingham Washington.  http://mountainlamp.org/  Eileen Kiera is an ecologist by training and a vegetable gardener by passion, but the practice and support of the Dharma has been her primary focus for the past 24 years. She's a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and Robert Aitken, Roshi. Thich Nhat Hahn acknowledged her as a dharma teacher in 1990, and since then she's led retreats in many places in the U.S., Europe and Australia.  This wonderful weekend Alive as a Bodhisattva Eileen shared about the practice and the path of a Bodhisattva.  This talk was the opening orientation.   If you would like more information on the theme weekends at Deer Park, please visit http://deerparkmonastery.org/events/theme-weekends 

Please find an relaxed, upright, and stable position and enjoy this beautiful offering.

On the second talk of the weekend, Dharma Teacher Eileen Kiera shares about the practice, presence, body, and  great vows of three powerful bodhisattvas-- Avalokiteshvara, Manjusri, and  Samanthabhadra.  We learn that if we can cultivate the energy and practice of compassionate listening, looking deeply, and responding with appropriate action we can embody these bodhisattvas in our lives.  When they are embodied in us, it can be said that they live in the world.

We hope you enjoy these talks.  Please explore other talks by Dharma teacher Eileen Kiera at the Mountain Lamp website at http://mountainlamp.org/audio/eenkiera.html

Dear Thay, Dear Sangha, Dear Virtual Community

Today, we close our Three Month Winter Retreat and our Moment by moment class.  The Third Noble Truth--the end of suffering is discussed by our teachers.  We are encouraged to look into our suffering and to be aware of what is real and how much we create in our own mind.  What is our real experience and what is suffering because that is what we label it?  We are reminded that the path is not a straight line and our view of our suffering can change depending where we are on the path. We are reminded that we are not just one thing, we are many things.  We can look deeply to see where we have a skillful relationship with our suffering and where we have a not-yet-skillful relationship. As our monastics recite, 'when a monk goes into the world, he looks straight ahead and walks mindfullly'.  May we all cultivate the ability to stay compassionately on the path--walking with mindfulness and concentration.  In this way, we offer our beauty, presence, and practice each other.  Our practice is not a conceptual exercise, it is one to be lived in real life, moment by moment, each and every day. 

Our teachers ask, does anything really end?  With Right View we see there is no beginning and no end.  Our course has ended, but it has also just begun as the 3,000 practitioners in 40 countries who are following the course walk mindfully into the world.  We bow in gratittude to all of you and to our wonderful teachers who show us the way in this life. 

Find your path. Enjoy your step. Enjoy your breath. Treasure your life. 

Last week, we learned about the first turning of the wheel-the recognition of our suffering and our situation.  With the second turning of the wheel, Thich Chan Phap Hai encourages us to explores the causes of our suffering.  We learn more deeply about the three poisons-- Greed (or 'ever-seeking' or 'always wanting'), Hatred (or ill-will or 'closed-down heart') and ignorance or delusion (not ignorance as in lack of learning but in the inability to see things as they really are).  These are the three roots of suffering that the 4 noble truths offered by the Buddha will transform leading to liberation. The weekly practices focus on 'bare recognition' or 'bare experience' and handout includes many important readings.

Tonight's talk is a beautiful offering of the dharma that is practical for us to use.  It offers guideposts that help us on the journey in the Dharma that each of us must experience for ourselves.  We hope you will find it immediately useful and effective.

Dear Virtual Family:

For the past 8 weeks, we have studied the Noble 8-fold path, the 4th of the 4 Noble truths.  In a kind of Zen order, we have studied the last, first.  Tonight, we look into the first of the Four Noble Truths- The Existence of Suffering/Stress.  Thich Chan Phap Ho (Protection of the Dharma) guides us to look deeply into the fact that we have suffering, what it is, and how to handle it.  We can bring our awarness to the reality of our suffering and bring our courageous Buddha nature in us to face it and not run away any more. If we can cultivate the courage and stability in ourselves necessary to turn toward our suffering, we are closer to the peace and freedom offered by our practice.  We aren't afraid and we don't need to run away any more.  We can look at the base situation and see what is the real suffering and what is our mind adding to the situation.  Our teacher discusses the three poisons and the things that our suffering is often attached to.  Remembering the original fear and the original desire, we can liberate ourselves in this life.  Together, we can reflect on how transformation happens within us, and how we can be as alive and transformative as  the beautiful Deer Park compost pile! 

Please, sit with stability, breathe deeply, and enjoy this talk.  It can bring a lot of healing to ourselves, our families, and our world.

Today's talk is a talk and a practice.  A chance to come back and touch the moment.  A chance to cultivate the evenness and concentration of our mind and to connect our body and our mind.  We learn new ways to enjoy being ourselves and nourish ourselves with right concentration.   Concentration also means 'to dwell with'.   We learn how to keep the weather within the same, no matter what the weather outside is.

Please enjoy this wonderful practice.

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.