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Dharma Recordings

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Courses

January 1, 2024

Losing Yourself: How to be a Person Without a Self with Jay L. Garfield

Jay L. Garfield investigates one of the most pervasive and pernicious of illusions: the sense that we are selves. How do we come to see ourselves as selfless without falling into a nihilistic view that we don’t exist at all, that we have no agency, or no responsibility? The answer is to come to see ourselves as persons. Over four sessions, Jay explores what it is to be a person, but to lack a self, and the understanding of human life and morality that this enables.
January 1, 2024

Finding Sea Legs in Saṃsāra: An Online “Householder” Retreat with Bill and Susan Morgan

Bringing mindfulness into our daily lives is a significant challenge. Even when we get a taste of clarity while on retreat, our insight and resolve tend to weaken in the busyness of our multi-tasking lives. This retreat is specifically designed to address this disheartening practice dilemma. It is intended to support the integration of a meaningful meditation practice into the flow of our everyday lives. During this precarious time, with fear and anxiety and uncertainty running high, making meditation supportive and relevant to our lives feels more important than ever.
January 1, 2024

A Secure Core of Compassion and Awareness for Insecure Times with Lama John Makransky

Co-sponsored by Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Foundation for Active Compassion. This practice, called Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT), was adapted from Tibetan Buddhism by John Makransky into a form that is fully accessible to people of all backgrounds and world views. SCT has three modes of meditation that are introduced in this on-line program: the receptive mode, the deepening mode, and the inclusive mode.

Events

Six Kinds of Nonduality: A Conversation with Pierce Salguero

  • This recorded conversation features Pierce Salguero and William Edelglass exploring "A Lamp Unto Yourself", Salguero’s new book on diverse experiences of nonduality. They discuss six varieties of nondual realization found in Buddhist teachings, other Asian traditions, and contemporary Western spirituality—ranging from unity consciousness to psychic integration—and examine how these experiences differ, overlap, and relate to classical Buddhist insights.

Thus Have I Heard: American Buddhism Through the Lens of Tina Turner

  • This recorded conversation features Ralph Craig and William Edelglass exploring *Dancing in My Dreams*, Craig’s spiritual biography of Tina Turner. They discuss Turner’s Buddhist practice—rooted in Soka Gakkai, Afro-Protestantism, and metaphysical traditions—and how her life reflects broader trends in American Buddhism, race, popular culture, and religious experience.

B. R. Ambedkar’s Dharma of Liberation and Justice

  • After B. R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism, millions followed. A key architect of India’s Constitution, he championed social justice and saw the Dharma as a path to reconstruct the world. This conversation explored how Ambedkarite Buddhism centers ethics, justice, and democracy, engaging both classical teachings and a living tradition that continues to inspire millions today.

Women in the Buddha’s Life

  • Discover the often overlooked stories of the women who shaped the Buddha’s life in this thought-provoking event. Moderated by BCBS Director of Studies, William Edelglass, the conversation features the team behind Women in the Buddha’s Life: Wendy Garling, Charles Hallisey, Georgia Kashnig, and Janet Surrey. Their work has inspired a new website dedicated to sharing these powerful narratives with resources for study, practice, and reflection, offering fresh insight into Buddhist history.

The Relationship Between Jhanas and Emptiness in Practice

  • In this conversation between good friends and colleagues, Leigh Brasington and Heather Sundberg explore their personal practice stories in jhanas and emptiness, stories about their teachers Ayya Khema and Ajahn Jumnien, and dialog about the riches to be found in deepening concentration through jhana practice to support deepening into emptiness-awareness practice.

Poetry as/and Practice: A Conversation with Jane Hirshfield

  • Jane Hirshfield, one of America’s foremost poets, is also a long-time Buddhist practitioner. For Hirshfield, who lived for years at a Zen practice center, the attention cultivated through reading and writing poetry is itself a meditative practice. As a poet practitioner, she follows in a long tradition of Buddhists who have turned to poetry to express their experience and wisdom and to help others along the path.

“Meditation Sickness”: Classical & Modern Approaches to Adverse Effects with Dr. Pierce Salguero

  • Mindfulness and other types of Buddhist meditation are now routinely being practiced by large segments of the population in many Western countries. However, recent psychiatric studies have shown that about 10% of participants will encounter psychological imbalances or psychosomatic ailments when engaging in intensive meditation.

Poetry as/and Practice: A Conversation with Joseph Goldstein

  • In recent years, Joseph Goldstein has made poetry a part of his practice. In this, he joins many other Buddhist teachers and practitioners who turned to the language of poetry to express their experience and wisdom and to help others along the path.

Becoming A New Saint: A Conversation with Lama Rod Owens

  • Explore the path of how we might emerge as warriors from our broken hearts. Saints, spiritual warriors, bodhisattvas, zaddikim—no matter how they are named in a given tradition, they all share a profound altruistic wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Each of us can be a new saint,” says Lama Rod Owens. “In our pain, our trauma, and all our complexity, we all can—and must—awaken the virtue of our compassion for the benefit of our communities, our planet, and our own souls.”
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Related resources

The Insight Journal

The Insight Journal was started in 1989 and is dedicated to exploring some of the insights that a Buddhist inquiry uncovers about ourselves, our world, and our fellow beings.

The Daily Sit

The Daily Sit, offered through zoom, is facilitated by Bill and Susan Morgan and their students.

Bhikkhu Anālayo Offerings

Bhikkhu Anālayo Offerings is a list of teachings freely offered by our resident scholar and monastic.

Bookshop and Library

BCBS Bookstore BCBS receives 10% of all sales made through our online bookstore through Bookshop.org. This applies to all books bought through our site, not just those on our highlighted lists.
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Deepening Practice,
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