The Heart of Light Podcast

This is my dharma talk on May 20, 2024, about Impermanence. How do we see through our many illusions of permanence? What does impermanence imply how our personalities change throughout our life? How deeply do we acknowledge the profound fragility and vulnerability of human life? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on May 13, 2024, about the Drawing Power of Love. How comfortable are you in allowing love to draw you into emotional intimacy? How do we work with the magnetic pull of our own wholeness? How do we cultivate the experience of Archetypal Love? This Dharma talk fell in the week before the Christian holy day of Pentecost. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on May 6, 2024, about Saying Yes to Life. How heavily do you lean on excuses in your life? How willing are we to experience the full spectrum and depth of all our emotions? What are we willing to risk in order to experience the bliss at the center of our being? This Dharma talk fell a couple days after the Celtic holiday of Beltaine. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on April 22, 2024, about Story Stewardship. How deeply do you treasure the stories of those dear to you? In what ways are the stories that you tell yourself holding you back or keeping you small? Where did we find the stories that call forth our deeper strength and wisdom? This was the final in a series of three Dharma talks about Brené Brown’s Theory of Cultivating Meaningful Connection. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on April 15, 2024, about the Courage to Walk Alongside. How well do you respect your own boundaries and the boundaries of others? How much do you focus on how you can empower others? How attentive are you that all the aspects that make a relationship thrive? This was the second in a series of three Dharma talks about Brené Brown’s Theory of Cultivating Meaningful Connection. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on April 8, 2024, about Grounded Confidence. How deeply have you arrived in yourself? How rigorously honest are you with yourself? How fully do you accept the totality of who you are? This was the first in a series of three Dharma talks about Brené Brown’s Theory of Cultivating Meaningful Connection. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on April 1, 2024, about Facing Difficult Truths. How open and undefended are we in the face of feedback? How do we expand our emotional capacity? How rigorously honest are we with ourselves? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on March 25, 2024, about Surrender. Why do we cling so tenaciously to the illusion of control? How is letting go conducive to our growth, joy, and freedom? How do we learn to trust the deeper and wiser forces that govern our destiny? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on March 11, 2024, about Self-Love. Why is one's level of self-love such an important issue in all areas of one's life? What is the relationship of self-love and self-discipline? How does the path of self-love involve embracing the paradoxes of healing? quote sheet

This is my dharma talk on March 4, 2024, about being a Spiritual Warrior. How deep is the strength of your discipline? How courageous are you in facing yourself? How fiercely do you pursue what you know is best for you? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on February 26, 2024, about White Privilege. For white people, how does the challenge of seeing and unpacking our white privilege resemble many other challenges on the spiritual path? How does Buddhism help us to understand the harm caused by white privilege? How willing are we to embrace all the sacrifices necessary to love all beings? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on February 19, 2024, about Living a Noble Life. What does it mean to move through the world in a noble way? What truly motivates our virtues and our efforts to do good in the world? Why does Buddhism describe the four central truths and the eightfold path as noble? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on February 12, 2024, about Emptying and Emptiness. Why do the world's religious traditions all urge us to empty ourselves out? How does the deep spiritual logic of emptying ourselves run so counter to the stories about consumption and filling ourselves up that are so prevalent in this culture? What is meant by the Buddhist idea of emptiness? This talk fell on the Monday before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on February 5, 2024, about Radical Self-Responsibility. What does it mean to take deep responsibility for how we feel and for our emotional states? How do we embrace responsibility for our boundaries and for how others impact us? Why is it that we cannot find the rich satisfaction that we seek and that we intuitively know we deserve unless we make the decision to grow up fully in life? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on January 29, 2024, about the Archetypal Feminine. How deeply and how well do we receive life? What is our relationship to flow? How do we understand our place in the interconnection of all things? This talk fell during the week of the Celtic holiday of Imbolg. This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on January 22, 2024, about the Buddhist path to facing difficulties. What is our attitude toward difficulties? Do we recognize the futility of playing the blame game? What would it look like to embrace deep responsibility in our lives? This is the quote sheet for the talk. This is the blog article quoted in the talk.

This is my dharma talk on January 15, 2024, about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. How just and fair are the “rules” that we follow and that we use to judge others, especially when we’re upset? In what ways are we merely lukewarm in our commitment to what we know is right? How much are we willing to embrace being extreme in the pursuit of what we know is for the highest good? This is the quote sheet for the talk. Letter from a Birmingham Jail full text

This is my dharma talk on January 8, 2024, about starting a meditation practice. What does it mean to commit to meditation? What are the predictable challenges to this commitment that we should expect? What does it mean to trust our capacity for growth? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on January 1, 2024, about commitment. What are the tangible self-care practices, if any, that you practice every single day without fail? Why do we expect rigorous commitment from romantic others, but can manifest nothing like that level of commitment toward ourselves? How is commitment the doorway to our freedom? This is the quote sheet for the talk.

This is my dharma talk on December 26, 2023, about loving the outcast. What is our relationship to people we avoid and/or consider our enemies? What are the parts of life that we completely reject or avoid? Do we have the courage to give a bold YES to absolutely everything that we are, including the places we have long avoided or neglected? This is the quote sheet for the talk.