Oakville Zen Meditation

Dharma Lecture

#515 Do our beliefs create their own realities, and truth Aug 04 24

   Do beliefs create their own realities & Truth? Whether we like it or not, beliefs are shaping our behavior, and conducting our lives. They control our thinking, mindset, assumptions, feelings, opinions, labels, and judgments to finalize our decisions either good or bad. Therefore, one should ask these 2 fundamental questions:    “Is my belief in A […]

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#514 SETTING UP YOUR GPS in LIFE 28/07/24

                    Setting up your GPS in life Here is a metaphor: Live your life like a wise captain who is steering the boat, and setting the course when necessary, but also letting the wind, waves, and currents do most of the work. If you stand at the helm, and try to force the rudder against […]

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513: Our main affliction Jul 15th 24

OUR MAIN AFFLICTION The following is an adaptation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Dharma teaching.  Our main afflictions in this modern world are not suffering per se, or any kind of negative feelings.  Our main affliction is that we don’t know how to handle suffering, its causes, and consequences constructively to achieve equanimity. So, what do […]

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512: Awakening: what is it & how to experience it July 13th 24

 Awakening: what is it? & how to experience it? What is it?  Being Awakened or Enlightened means to free ourselves from our permanent daydreaming state  that is, not being a prisoner of our wandering mind-made fictional world main source of “suffering”.  How?    1)Directly in a mindful way, by observing, then by letting them go,  our […]

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511 The Second Noble Truth Part 2 : delusion & illusion July 6th 24 by Miranda

The Second Noble Truth (Part 2) Last time we were talking about the second noble truth, we started to examine the cause of Dukkha. The Buddha mentioned greed, aversion, and delusion as the three poisons, which bring problems for us and in the world. Today we will look at delusion or ignorance as one of […]

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#510 Our addiction to conceptualize, and interpret life June 29 24

Our addiction to conceptualizing, and interpreting life, and its content. Do we always need to conceptualize, analyze, interpret, judge, and label everybody, and everything that comes into our endless thinking? Yes, when a decision has to be made for whatever reason.  But these situations are rare, and yet, out of around 110,000 thoughts /day that […]

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509 Bursting our mental bubble June 23rd 24

Bursting our mental bubble  The stronger we are attached to our verbal, mental, and emotional habits to people, things, and situations, the more refractory, shallow, and lifeless we become to factual, genuine surrounding realities.  It is like living in a mind-made bubble full of a mental/emotional virtual world created by “the thinker me” rather than […]

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508 When there is no answer June 17th 24

    When there is no answer Quite often we question:  “ why?…why?….how comes!……I don’t understand this, that, her, him !……etc…… ……..because we have been educated to find answers, and get an opinion at all costs, all the time about almost everything, about everybody.  Having an opinion on almost anything is an important skill while chatting […]

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507: Only impermanence is permanent June 8 24

                                                        Only impermanence is permanent Asked what was the most important message of his 50 years of teaching, the Buddha, without hesitation, replied to these words. “Everything is transient, work diligently to appreciate and experience your impermanence.” It was his last words a few minutes before dying from mushroom poisoning. As Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki […]

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506: The secret of life is to die before we die June 2 24

The secret of life is to die before we die Death will evaporate if you don’t be too attached to all that stuff that is not the real you.  What is not you is how your ego is defining itself, and what your mind-driven self-talk is saying.         Examples: Possessions, the work you do, social status […]

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