Sources of Mindfulness Presentation Topics

Responding to a request, here are my main sources for presentation topics.  Why the list starts with Gil.

At the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Gil Fronsdal recorded an entire introductory course in mindfulness meditation.   The link above goes to the first of 9 one hour videos that constitute that course.  There is also second related of 8.  We can use these several different ways.

Every weekday, IMC has a 7am PDT (10am EDT) a 30 minute Guided Meditation followed by a 10 to 15 minute talk and puts it on YouTube.  Each of these videos has a link in its description that will jump to the beginning of the talk.  See example above.  Most are by Gil but a number of other people do them too.  To me, the quality is quite high.

Originally published in 2008, The Issue at Hand by Gil Fronsdal is a book with 32 short chapters that we've used in the past and I'd be happy to use again.  The book is online, available as a PDF, Kindle, & paperback.  IMC will also send it to you for free if you ask them.

Jack Kornfield is one of Gil's teachers and one of the founders of the Insight Meditation Society on the East Coast and Spirit Rock on the West.  Jack has written a lot of books all of which are good sources for presentation topics.  He also has a lot of videos on YouTube.   

A Path with Heart: Perhaps the most important book yet written on meditation, the process of inner transformation, and the integration of spiritual practice into our American way of life, A Path with Heart brings alive one by one the challenges of spiritual living in the modern world. Written by a teacher, psychologist, and meditation master of international renown, this warm, inspiring, and expert book touches on a wide range of essential issues including many rarely addressed in spiritual books.  [from the LA Zen Center website]

In Jack Kornfield's book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, he writes about the honest development of the wise heart within the cycles of day-to-day life; for instance "amid all the Western masters and teachers I know, some idealistic perfection is not apparent. Times of great wisdom, deep compassion, and a real knowing of freedom alternate with periods of fear, confusion, neurosis, and struggle. Most teachers will readily admit this."

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology is yet another good book of his.

Guides & Guiding Wednesday Afternoons

Over the years we've rather accidentally developed the role of a "guide" for our 90 minute Wednesday meditation sessions.  The guide was responsible for selecting a topic, doing a 10 minute presentation on that idea, facilitating the discussion, starting and stopping meditation, moving into our casual conversation time after the discussion, and bringing our session to a close -- while welcoming and managing every other aspect of our time together.

I think it is too much and too intimidating for too many of us.  Let's make it easier and more inviting to present an idea to the group.  

Here is my breakdown of the roles we need to replace the notion of a guide.  There are 3 that appeal to me:

Mindful Villages

I saw this poster at the Smithsonian's Portrait Museum the other day and was immediately taken by every aspect of it (and the photos it refers to).  I dream a quite specific world and try to speak of it whenever I think I might be heard, a world in which our social instincts are first to listen, be kind, help, collaborate, care for, etc.  To support that dream I also dream of a world where every neighborhood has at least one weekly meeting something like the 90 minutes on Wednesdays hosted by FHNN where anyone can show up and help create a space in which everyone has a chance to speak and be heard about what matters to them as well as to enjoy a refreshing balance of sharing silence and social time with their neighbors.  

I mention this because attendance on Wednesday @ 10:30 is down to 6, 6, & 7 for the last 3 weeks which is fine in itself, of course, but it's just the beginning of summer weather, summer travel, and the first "normal" summer after years of pandemic woe.  Last week it was suggested to go ahead and change our meeting time from 10:30am to 4pm since we'd been talking about it for a long time and don't have any formal way of organizing and directing our little group.  June 14 will be the first day we will meet at 4pm.