Awake in the World Podcast

In this podcast episode, Michael introduces the bodhisattva path and the paramitas. The bodhisattva ideal is you at your best – rather than simply a code of ethics, it is the cultivation and realization of your particular form of creativity, responsiveness, and compassion. This talk is an excerpt from our Six Practices for Awakening the Heart online course. Drawing on ancient Buddhist knowledge, this 7-week online course offers six practices for becoming more compassionate, courageous, and imaginative in how we live. Find out more: https://michaelstoneteaching.com/product/six-practices-for-awakening-the-heart/

Michael explores Patanjali’s teachings on samadhi (Pada 1, 41-51) and points out that if practice becomes too self-focused and too centered on achieving “special” mind states it can be easily co-opted by social forces like institutionalized greed, hatred and delusion. He argues that practice was meant to lead to a cultural and civilizational awakening, not just personal liberation. Recorded on March 16, 2010.

In this deep dive into the first four lines of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra Michael talks about the nature of awareness and the goals of yoga. Recorded March 14, 2010.

Starting with a poem by Gary Snyder, Michael explores the Fourth Pada of the Yoga Sutra and argues that without the experience of a solid meditation practice it cannot be comprehended. Patanjali, he says, “is leaving you speechless.” But waiting at the airport watching everything come and go, isn’t a bad analogy. Recorded on March 9, 2007.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. A tender and personal talk Michael gives during silent retreat about his father, forgiveness, and how we need to practice forgiveness all the time. He talks about how, and why. He talks about the painter Hellen Frankenthaller’s death and practicing in good times and bad. Recorded on December 29, 2011.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. An hour before New Year’s Michael gives a quiet talk on the Heart Sutra and Forgiveness. “When I hold someone’s hand as they are dying I chant the Heart Sutra. Or when I watch my son sleeping.” A tender and quiet talk on silent retreat. Recorded on Dec 31, 2011.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. Michael Stone talks on silent retreat about how meditation works over the long-haul, how to practice with a teacher that encourages independence, and how to live without gain. This is the second last talk of the year and the group was in deep silent practice, and it was snowing. Recorded at Sugar Ridge Retreat Centre in Midland, Ontario on Dec 30, 2013.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode from a New Year's retreat. Michael speaks about modern Buddhism as a “culture of awakening,” and then talks on the Zen koan “Save a Ghost.” We are broken. That’s why meditation is an ambulance service for love. Mindfulness is a practice of mourning. The dead live on in us as ghosts and as we mourn we make them into culture. Recorded during the Silent New Year’s Retreat in Chapin Mill, New York.

In this talk, Michael explains that the way we choose to view the obstacles we encounter in practice can either take us off the path, or allow us to use them as signposts that help us move forward. He argues that social action, spiritual practice and psychological awareness are all required if we wish to wake up. Recorded on March 7, 2006.

Drawing on several ancient texts, Michael describes practice as a deep investigation into the nature of how things are and how we are—which requires letting go of our tendencies to create categories, cling to preferences, and grasp for the unattainable. Recorded March 5, 2008.