Offering instruction for metta practice, Joseph Goldstein explains the many flavors of loving-kindness that we can try.

This 2018 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein explicates:

• The unconditional quality of metta
• Helping each other see our individual loveliness
• Using mantra to evoke the feeling of loving-kindness
• Metta as a tool for deep concentration
• Experimenting with the different ways metta can be applied in meditation
• The three aspects of practicing of loving-kindness
• A 12-minute guided metta practice to settle into the feeling of well-wishing

“There are two main purposes for doing metta meditation. One is metta, or loving-kindness, which can be used as a vehicle for developing concentration. So, not only for the metta quality itself, but it is a technique or a method for developing strong concentration, even to the point of absolution.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Guiding us in three short, guided meditations, Joseph Goldstein helps us break down our identification with the body and the self.

This talk from the Insight Meditation Society was originally published on Dharmaseed.

In this episode of Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein guides us in:

• Accessing deeper meditative states outside of a retreat
• Turbo-charging our practice through shorter meditations we can do in our daily lives
• Finding the mental areas where our mistaken sense of self is created
• Listening to sounds and considering the ‘knowing’ rather than being a “knower”
• Breaking through the identification we have with the body
• Directly experiencing bodily sensations and their changing nature
• Watching our thoughts and being aware in their moment of arising
• Enlivening our understanding of the Buddha’s teaching through a combination of practices

“This exercise allows us to see the selfless nature of thought and gives us the ability to choose which are helpful, which are not. Which do I act on, which do I let go of.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Focusing on equanimity and compassion, Joseph Goldstein teaches about staying open and responsive to collective and individual suffering.

This talk from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on Dharmaseed.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein divulges :

• How to stay open and responsive while experiencing both individual and global challenges
• Compassion and equanimity as tools to work with difficulties
• The definition of equanimity and seeing all things as a whole
• Equanimity as the basis of wise discernment and skillful responsiveness
• Re-framing difficult experiences as an opportunity to practice openness
• An invitation to look within rather than blaming outside forces
• Examining what emotions are underneath our reactions
• Letting go of the illusion of being in control
• Accepting our feelings instead of allowing them to limit us
• Freeing ourselves through the awareness of impermanence
• How compassion arises out of our willingness to come close to suffering
• Sorrow as the near enemy of compassion
• Having humility on our path to explore equanimity and compassion

“Equanimity gives us the foundation, the ability to approach the suffering without reactivity. And compassion, precisely arises out of the willingness to come close to suffering.” – Joseph Goldstein

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