Because today’s world appears to be reflecting times of great polarization and divisiveness, you probably have felt disturbed after hearing varying viewpoints that do not align with your priorities and values. In fact if you’re like most people, you have most likely felt rather emotionally triggered and incredulous when faced with radically different views. Join Asheville Insight Meditation’s founding Buddhist teacher and therapist, Ronya Fakhoury Banks as she explores how to bring your practice to include varying viewpoints with the outcome of feeling less reactivity and more love and acceptance of other’s views, without compromising your ethical values.
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Mindful Inquiry: A Path of Freedom and Joyful Responsibility
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January 20, 2019 Mindful Inquiry is the path of asking the question that points to freedom. This practice can support even long-time practitioners to find more relief from suffering and clarity about the ever-present wholeness of True Nature. A good teacher can point the way, but it is up to each of us to take responsibility for our…
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The Roots of Discouragement
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September 12, 2021 Progress in meditation may be slower than we anticipate. Discouragement develops when the comparing mind holds unrealistic expectations, demands perfection, and craves for measurable progress, predictable results, or signposts of success. This talk explores the obstacle of discouragement and its roots in conceit and the comparing mind. To prevent discouragement, we develop skillful ways to…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of 20 October, 2025
This week, we’re delighted to have Miles Kessler guiding our Daily Meditation sessions. May they enrich your practice.
This week’s theme is: Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul
The “Dark Night Of The Soul” is nothing less than an ego death, and rebirth process that everyone goes through from time to time in life. As it happens, the “Dark Night Of The Soul” is also beautifully “coded” into insight meditation practices through a series of advanced stages know as the “Dukkha Nanas”. The “Dark Night” stages are awaiting everyone who is walking the path of meditative insight.
In this week of Daily Meditations with Sangha Live, you are invited to join in a teaching of “Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul.” Throughout this week, you will explore how the “Dark Night Of The Soul” process unfolds in the stages of insight meditation. And more importantly, how the insights of these stages inform us in our lives.Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
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The Out Breath: Unlocking Concentration
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June 16, 2024 Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.
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The Concentration Algorithm
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May 4, 2025 Discover a “concentration algorithm” that transforms your practice. Instead of fighting distractions, this approach teaches you to work with them skillfully. When your concentration wavers, notice what captured your attention, then make that distraction your new meditation object. This process reveals two valuable insights: first, that any sensory experience can serve as a meditation anchor…
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From conditioned perception to true and free seeing
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September 2, 2018 What do we call reality? How can we free ourselves from conditioned vision and taste life more fully and truly? Acknowledging that our perception of what we call reality is completely subjective, Christine explores the world of perception to find out what is conditioning our vision. Each one of us has been often surprised, deceived…
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Discovering the Joy of Sensory Awareness: Mindfulness in Nature
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February 12, 2023 When we turn our attention to the sensory, natural world around us, mindfulness practice can become easeful and expansive. Nature allures awareness through her beauty, and range of dynamic, enchanting experience. In this session we will practice cultivating attention to our sense experience, and discovering joy, peace and wonder in this very moment. Tune in from any peaceful environment outdoors with an internet connection, or indoors, ideally with a view of the outdoors.
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Awakening Joy: Practice as a Path of Happiness
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January 13, 2019 Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with news that heightens our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it’s vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. We need to remember how to stay…
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