Sunday Dharma Talk

In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes the values of a dharma student and how we can develop these values.  The values that we cultivate as dharma students lead us to a greater happiness in this life.  And the teachings of the Buddha provides us with skills that enable us to cultivate these values.  The dharma talk was given in the spring of 2025. www.nydharma.org 

The path of the dharma is path that leads us home.  We find our true home inside us.  In the body.  And, ultimately, in the heart.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes the journey to our true home.  To the place where we know true happiness.  The talk was given in the spring of 2025.

The development of concentration, the unfolding of the path, is a process.  We move, in deepening our practice, from effort to pleasure to love.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin explains the elements of this process, the cultivation of the Buddha's path.  The talk was given on the final night of the NY Dharma April 2025 Eight Day Retreat www.nydharma.org 

In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin offers thoughts about the passing of time and that which transcends birth & death, coming & going.   The talk was given on the 6th night of the NY Dharma April 2025 Retreat at Powell House. May all beings live in ease and peace.

To know a greater happiness, to make the most of our lives, we're asked, as dharma students, to free the heart of its burdens.  We're asked in this effort to practice mindfulness of these burdens, the afflictions that prevent us from the heart.  Indeed, the Buddha's first noble truths gives us this task:  to comprehend these burdens:  dukkha.  In this dharma talk Peter Doobinin describes the burdens on the heart and the practice of insight that enables us to put them down.  The talk was given on the fifth night of the NY Dharma April 2025 Eight-Day Retreat. New York Dharma:  www.nydharma.org 

What does it mean to know contentedness...?  And how do we develop this sublime state of being...?  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin discusses what it is to be content ... and why it is something that we should aspire to.  The talk was given at the NY Dharma April 2025 Eight-Day retreat. www.nydharma.org 

When developed in strength of mind we're able to meet the difficulties and challenges in life; and we're able to make the most of life, to know the joy of living.  What does it mean to have strength of mind?  How do we develop it?  And why should we?  In this dharma talk Peter Doobinin discusses these important questions.  The talk was given at the April 2025 Eight-Day Retreat.

Meditation is the practice of training the mind.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes some essential skills for training the mind.  Particular attention is paid to working with the "fetters" of restlessness, doubt, and self identity view.  The dharma talk was given on the second night of the NY Dharma April 2025 Eight-Day Retreat.

Why, in practicing the dharma, is it important to learn to establish skillful resolve?  What does it mean to establish skillful resolve?  How do we establish skillful resolve?  In this talk Peter Doobinin discusses these essential questions for every dharma student.  The dharma talk was given at the NY Dharma April 2025 Eight-Day Retreat.

As we make an effort to be present, to practice the dharma, we'll encounter doubt.  Doubt in ourselves.  Doubt in the path.  All beings experience doubt; those who are able to move forward on the journey of awakening are those who learn to meet doubt skillfully.  In this talk Peter Doobinin explicates the skill for practicing mindfulness of doubt.  And how, in turn, we develop in conviction.  The talk was given in the winter of 2024.

Life is short.  If we learn to understand, truly, the brevity of the time we have in this life, we'll be able to make the most of the time we have.  In this talk, offered in the winter of 2024, Peter describes how to skillfully reflect on the truth of death.  As he explains, this practice of 'mindfulness of death' is an essential element of practice for the dharma student looking to know a true happiness.

Through wisdom and compassion we're able to abandon habitual patterns of unskillful thinking, our painful narratives.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes how we develop mindfulness of thinking and, in turn, how we develop compassion for thinking.  The dharma talk was given in September 2024.

There is a goodness in life.  But we're often not bringing our awareness to it.  In this talk Peter Doobinin explains how we develop faith in the goodness in life, how we learn to know this goodness, why it's essential that we make this effort.  The talk was offered in the spring of 2025.

Our capacity to know happiness in the this life - true happiness - depends on our ability to open to difficulty, pain, suffering.  Meditation practice enables us to meet difficulty ... and to respond with the heart, with wisdom and compassion.  From the heart, we move forward in life, happily, joyfully.  In this dharma talk Peter Doobinin explains how our practice leads us to the heart, to freedom, to true happiness.  The talk was given in July 2023.

The skillful response to suffering - our own suffering, the suffering of others, the suffering in the world - is compassion.  As dharma students, we're asked to cultivate this sublime attitude of the heart.  But it's not always so easy to do.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin discusses the challenges we face in developing compassion ... and how to develop in our skill so that we're able to cultivate compassion.  The talk was given in the summer of 2023.

In meeting life, in all its difficulties and challenges, it's essential that we have a place to go for refuge.  As dharma students, we find refuge in our communities.  And the ultimate refuge is the refuge that we find within.  Developed in our practice, we learn to rely, in all the circumstances of life, on being able to find refuge within.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin explains the skill of developing refuge ... and putting that refuge to good use.  The talk was given in November 2023.

The Buddha encouraged his followers to have "respect for concentration."  When we have this respect for concentration, we practice.  We develop our meditation.  We develop in the Buddha's concentration:  jhana.  When concentration, through effort and determination, becomes developed, we're more able to take skillful action in our lives; we're more able to understand our experience of life; we're more able to develop insight; we're more able to know true happiness.  This talk by Peter Doobinin was given in the autumn of 2023. Over there are the roots of trees; over there, empty dwellings. Practice jhana, monks. Don't be heedless. Don't later fall into regret. This is our message to you." (MN 19)

All beings, the Buddha tells us, have a wish for happiness of heart.  And, as the Buddha tells us, our happiness depends on our actions.  In this talk, Peter Doobinin describes how we cultivate discernment, the skill of understanding the consequences of our actions.  As we develop this skill we move toward knowing a greater happiness in this life. The dharma talk was given in November 2023.

A bodhisatta is a being who is striving for awakening ... a being who follows the dharma, who practices the dharma in accord with what the Buddha taught.  In this dharma talk, Peter Doobinin describes the qualities of the bodhisatta, and the elements of a practice in accord with the dharma.  As he explains, we all have the ability to follow this path ... and to know the happiness of heart that it leads us to.  The talk was given in November 2024.

Life, by its nature, is often difficult.  As human beings we're all faced with the inevitable truths of illness, aging, death, separation.  And of course there is much in the world that is difficult, challenging, painful.   And there is much that we find in ourselves that is painful.  The Buddha's teaching offer us a path through difficulty, and, in turn, to happiness. This, as Peter Doobinin, explains is the path of the heart:  the path of love.  In this talk, Peter describes how we learn to meet life, in all its joy and sorrows, skillfully, from the heart.  It's the heart that will see us through.  The talk was given in December 2024.