Every year, Joseph Goldstein does a three month silent meditation retreat by himself at his home in Massachusetts. In this conversation you're about to hear, Joseph had just emerged from one such retreat with a bunch of thoughts on what are called the three proliferating tendencies or three papañca to use the ancient Pali term.
These are three ways in which we perpetuate an unhealthy sense of self. Joseph has explained that you can think about the process of going deeper in meditation as a process of lightening up or getting less self-centered. You're about to get a masterclass in doing just that.
For the uninitiated, Joseph is one of the co-founders of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. His co-founders are two other meditation titans, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Joseph has been a teacher at IMS since it was founded in the seventies and he continues to be the resident guiding teacher there.
In this episode we talk about:
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The framework for understanding the three proliferating tendencies; the basic building blocks of our experience in the world
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Six things that make up what the Buddha called “the all”
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What non-self means and why it's essential to the Buddhist teaching of liberation
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The two levels of truth: conventional and ultimate
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Why language is so important in conditioning how we experience things
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How the three proliferating tendencies provide a very practical guide to understanding how we manufacture our own suffering
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Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here!
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