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Arinna Weisman

Arinna Weisman
Author: Arinna Weisman
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Dharma talks and guided meditation offered by Arinna Weisman and co-teachers.
Recordings were made during Vipassana insight meditation retreats, and have been graciously provided by Lotus Insight Sangha of Seattle, Dhamma Dena of Joshua Tree, Dharma Seed, and others.
About Arinna Weisman
Arinna has been studying insight meditation since 1979 and teaching since 1989. Her root teacher is Ruth Denison, who was empowered to teach by meditation master U Ba Khin.
Arinna founded the Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts and, with Eric Kolvig, was the first to lead insight meditation retreats for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender-queer community.
She is co-author of the book A Beginners Guide to Insight Meditation and a contributor to Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences, edited by Peter Gregory and Susanne Mrozik.
Her practice and teachings are infused with her political and environmental activism. She leads "Uncovering the Heart" retreats which integrate the awareness of the social dynamics of inequity with the dharma practice of liberation.
Arinna's website and schedule
www.arinnaweisman.org
To give Dana to Arinna
www.arinnaweisman.org/donate/
Affiliated Sanghas
Dhamma Dena (Joshua Tree, CA): www.dhammadena.org
Lotus Insight Sangha (Seattle, WA): www.lotusinsightsangha.org
Blessings and gratitude to all of those who have recorded Arinna's teachings over the years. Particular gratitude to Lotus Insight Sangha and Dharma Seed, who have provided many of the recordings compiled here.
Recordings were made during Vipassana insight meditation retreats, and have been graciously provided by Lotus Insight Sangha of Seattle, Dhamma Dena of Joshua Tree, Dharma Seed, and others.
About Arinna Weisman
Arinna has been studying insight meditation since 1979 and teaching since 1989. Her root teacher is Ruth Denison, who was empowered to teach by meditation master U Ba Khin.
Arinna founded the Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts and, with Eric Kolvig, was the first to lead insight meditation retreats for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender-queer community.
She is co-author of the book A Beginners Guide to Insight Meditation and a contributor to Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences, edited by Peter Gregory and Susanne Mrozik.
Her practice and teachings are infused with her political and environmental activism. She leads "Uncovering the Heart" retreats which integrate the awareness of the social dynamics of inequity with the dharma practice of liberation.
Arinna's website and schedule
www.arinnaweisman.org
To give Dana to Arinna
www.arinnaweisman.org/donate/
Affiliated Sanghas
Dhamma Dena (Joshua Tree, CA): www.dhammadena.org
Lotus Insight Sangha (Seattle, WA): www.lotusinsightsangha.org
Blessings and gratitude to all of those who have recorded Arinna's teachings over the years. Particular gratitude to Lotus Insight Sangha and Dharma Seed, who have provided many of the recordings compiled here.
299 Episodes
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Lotus Insight Sangha: Returning to Our True Refuge, 5-day hybrid retreat at Camp Samish, Bow, Washington, with Arinna Weisman and Ian Challis, March 2025
Guided forgiveness meditation led by Arinna Weisman:
"Like loving-kindness, [forgiveness] doesn't insist on total absolution or absolute forgiveness, but is a journey held in our intention to free ourselves of the constrictions and the contraction of living in that small space of self-judgment"
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEe_hy2aak
Lotus Insight Sangha: Returning to Our True Refuge, 5-day hybrid retreat at Camp Samish, Bow, Washington, with Arinna Weisman and Ian Challis, March 2025
Morning instructions on vedana (feeling tone) by Arinna Weisman, followed by a guided meditation:
"Why is noticing feeling so important? This feeling of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? It actually is the direct link between whether we go on to suffering, or not. And why is that? Because [...] the habitual response when we go to pleasant feeling is for the mind to forget [...] The mind forgets and moves out and says — I want more of this."
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVlK7EqF6Ng
Lotus Insight Sangha: Returning to Our True Refuge, 5-day hybrid retreat at Camp Samish, Bow, Washington, with Arinna Weisman and Ian Challis, March 2025
Dharma talk on enlightenment by Arinna Weisman:
"In the present — moment to moment — we begin the healing process of disentangling, of dismembering, of dismantling again and again those energies [that harm], so that they become less and less of a force in our lives. And so, it's said that the simple description of this path is: don't cling to anything, don't hate anything. That is the path. Because when they're not present, the mind is freed, the heart is freed."
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKo_gTB-yGA
Lotus Insight Sangha: Returning to Our True Refuge, 5-day hybrid retreat at Camp Samish, Bow, Washington, with Arinna Weisman and Ian Challis, March 2025
Guided lovingkindness (metta) meditation led by Arinna Weisman:
"Lovingkindness — or metta — is our heart's wish to find itself in friendship. It is our heart calling us back into a connection of friendship and caring, or kindness"
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4vi0PptCPE
Lotus Insight Sangha: Returning to Our True Refuge, 5-day hybrid retreat at Camp Samish, Bow, Washington, with Arinna Weisman and Ian Challis, March 2025
Morning instructions on reclaiming our beauty and love, and resisting through peace, given by Arinna Weisman. Instructions followed by short guided meditation:
"We are in this retreat to reclaim what is beautiful about ourselves — what is liberatory [...] We're growing through this practice into the capacity to be resilient, and to feel our beauty and our vision of what is healing, not just for ourselves, but our communities and for all of life"
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIbzDEjnWaQ
Lotus Insight Sangha (Online): Online Day of Mindfulness with Arinna Weisman - How Do We Care for Ourselves and the Outer World in this Political Climate? Jan 11, 2025
Arinna leads a guided compassion meditation:
"A really very important part of compassion practice is making a distinction between allowing for the feeling, and also being able to drop the storyline. If we don't drop the storyline, we can't actually hold the feeling empathically, and with compassion and friendship"
This meditation is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlcwfTmx-KE
Lotus Insight Sangha (Online): Online Day of Mindfulness with Arinna Weisman - How Do We Care for Ourselves and the Outer World in this Political Climate? Jan 11, 2025
Arinna leads a guided meditation:
"Before we go into the meditation, contemplate maybe a couple of the energies living inside of you right now that you really appreciate — just naming that for yourself and greeting those energies — thank you"
This meditation is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWwmrDlU4c0
Lotus Insight Sangha (Online): Online Day of Mindfulness with Arinna Weisman - How Do We Care for Ourselves and the Outer World in this Political Climate? Jan 11, 2025
Arinna opens the daylong retreat with a talk on cultivating the beautiful energies, then leads the refuges and precepts:
"And so part of today is acknowledging the beautiful, the beautiful energies that live inside of us that have sustained our life. And then part of the theme of today is also exploring the obstacles to this"
This talk is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoV0kd9Km8
Lotus Insight Sangha: Taking Refuge in Presence and Love (5-day hybrid retreat online and at St. Andrew's House), Apr 7-12, 2023
Arinna gives morning instructions on mind states, The Third Foundation of Mindfulness, on the fifth day of the retreat, followed by a guided meditation of gratitude toward our bodies:
"The cultivation of the wholesome in right thinking begins with renouncing — and renouncing whatever doesn't support this embodiment of the possibility of peace, equanimity, and kindness. And we forget. And we get entangled. And then we remember"
Lotus Insight Sangha: Taking Refuge in Presence and Love (5-day hybrid retreat online and at St. Andrew's House), Apr 7-12, 2023
Arinna gives morning instructions on vedana (feeling tone) for the fourth day of the retreat, and closes with a guided meditation:
"...and that is a different way of talking about what the Buddha is inviting us to — that it is possible to stay connected to that wish, not to be moved by reaction to the pleasant or the unpleasant, so that we might live in a field of non-harming"
Lotus Insight Sangha: Taking Refuge in Presence and Love (5-day hybrid retreat online and at St. Andrew's House), Apr 7-12, 2023
Arinna gives morning instructions for the third day of the retreat, and closes with a guided meditation:
"Turning towards what is difficult and being willing to feel it does become the strength that in a way holds all those beautiful qualities together in this boat"
Lotus Insight Sangha: Taking Refuge in Presence and Love (5-day hybrid retreat online and at St. Andrew's House), Apr 7-12, 2023
Arinna gives morning instructions on mindfulness for the second day of the retreat:
"We could say that each of us are here because there has been living inside of us this stream of understanding and of love that knows that we are on a journey to realize, to fully embody our beauty"
Lotus Insight Sangha: Taking Refuge in Presence and Love (5-day hybrid retreat online and at St. Andrew's House), Apr 7-12, 2023
Arinna opens the 5-day retreat with a short talk, then leads the refuges, the precepts, and closes with a guided meditation:
"The Buddha's invitation in supporting us to take refuge is in our capacity to actually embody this letting go and surrender to being willing to meet what it is that we find"
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Dharma as a Mirror of Our Own Lives and Possibilities - A Residential Retreat with Dina Aish and Arinna Weisman, Mar 10-13, 2023
Arinna leads a guided loving kindess (metta) meditation:
"I was asked to offer different type of metta meditation that actually was first communicated to me by the Dzogchen tradition. In your mind, imagine yourself in one of your sacred spots in nature. Whether it's by the water or in mountain — one of those places where the place invites you"
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Dharma as a Mirror of Our Own Lives and Possibilities - A Residential Retreat with Dina Aish and Arinna Weisman, Mar 10-13, 2023
Arinna leads a guided loving kindess (metta) meditation:
"The condition for loving kindness to grow is seeing the goodness in ourselves and others. Not to say there aren't challenges, but for this practice, turning towards our goodness"
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ZJ0T7Rdyo
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Dharma as a Mirror of Our Own Lives and Possibilities - A Residential Retreat with Dina Aish and Arinna Weisman, Mar 10-13, 2023
Arinna gives a dharma talk on karma:
"Every intention that has an unwholesome energy associated with it will bear the fruit of that unwholesome energy [...] And any intention to be generous will sow the seed of generosity. And because of that law, every wholesome, internal energy that we enact and feed, every wholesome energy will build the movement and power of our transformation"
This dharma talk is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsOx4aWPo6k
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Sangha - Reclaiming Connection, Reclaiming Community with Arinna Weisman, Ian Challis, and Fresh "Lev" White, Feb 17 - 20, 2023
Arinna gives a dharma talk on The Four Noble Truths:
"What the Buddha saw is that every human being is born with these energies, as well as the beautiful energies [...] And that our work is to develop the capacity to discern what's happening, and whether what's happening in our minds, in our speech, in our behavior, in our thoughts, are supporting the opening, or supporting the obstruction"
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Sangha - Reclaiming Connection, Reclaiming Community with Arinna Weisman, Ian Challis, and Fresh "Lev" White, Feb 17 - 20, 2023
Arinna leads a guided loving kindness (metta) meditation:
"The Buddha said if we were to search the whole wide world, we would find no one more deserving of love than ourselves. No matter what we have felt or thought or said or done. We are always deserving of this love"
Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Sangha - Reclaiming Connection, Reclaiming Community with Arinna Weisman, Ian Challis, and Fresh "Lev" White, Feb 17 - 20, 2023
Arinna gives morning instructions on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness from the Satipatthana Sutta, then leads a guided meditation:
"The foundational teachings of liberation are held in a sutta and teachings called the Satipatthana, the four foundations of mindfulness, and in this description are the practices that create the conditions for the ending of suffering in our lives"
Note: The recording cuts short and is missing the conclusion of the guided meditation
Lotus Insight Sangha (Online) - Wildflowers of the Heart: The Paramis, January 27- 28, 2023
Arinna leads a guided forgiveness meditation:
"Forgiveness is this beautiful energy and quality of the heart that allows for relinquishment and a letting go, frees us from judgment and shame and blame, invites us again onto the path from being lost"
This recording is also available as a video on Arinna's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHLRQUf7yX0