The Contemplative Science Podcast Authentic Intelligence: The Brahma Vihāras and the Future of Secular Dharma w/ Dave Smith
Jul 21, 2026
Dave Smith, Dharma teacher and founder of the Secular Dharma Foundation, blends Insight Meditation with secular approaches. He explores loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity as practices that support insight and emotional regulation. They discuss real-world teaching in prisons, integrating these practices with awakening factors, nature-supported retreats, and plans for an Authentic Intelligence program.
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Turning To Metta After A Dark Night
- Mark Miller recounts a personal early-retreat phase where excluding kindness led to destabilizing dark-night experiences and stalled view maturation.
- He shifted to making metta his principal practice and experienced smoother, spontaneous unfolding of the rest of the path.
Awakening Factors And Metta Form An Integrated Baseline
- The seven awakening factors map onto the Brahma Viharas so kindness and mindfulness form a shared baseline and alchemize into compassion and joy when meeting pleasure or pain.
- Dave stresses alternating breath awareness and metta until they fuse and cannot be separated in practice.
Alternate Breath And Metta To Titrate Insight
- Do alternate mindfulness-of-breath and metta practice to build a stable, habitually kind orientation so you can safely engage difficult material without getting blown out.
- Back off into metta when insights get 'too hot', stabilize, then return—this is titration like trauma therapy.