Explore every episode of the podcast Easing Awake with Doug Kraft
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Heroics | 06 Aug 2021 | 00:12:16 | |
Resting in the Waves, Epilogue : This final episode of Resting in the Waves helps us recognize our own habits of mind, move beyond our home base, and engage with the practice. | |||
| Fluidity of Fluidity | 20 Jul 2021 | 00:14:45 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 8: This episode considers how to integrate swirls upon swirls of life's interdependent aspects and how to navigate absolute and relative realities—all with fluidity. Ultimately, it explores the emptiness of fluidity itself. | |||
| Fluidity of Life | 06 Jul 2021 | 00:26:12 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 7: The practice is not just about meditation, but how clearly and heartfully we relate to the rest of our life. This episode discusses how we can bring awareness and compassion into our daily life as we move through the world around us. | |||
| Fluidity of Practice | 20 Jun 2021 | 00:47:14 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 6: This episode considers how to tether the wild mind to a home base. It also compares and contrasts awareness with will, and weaves together four factors that comprise the process of "mind" with the 6 R’s. | |||
| Steadiness of Practice | 06 Jun 2021 | 00:30:17 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 5: This episode features the prerequisites for spiritual practice and an overview of three branches of Buddhism. It also examines three essential practices at the root of the Buddha’s teachings and the 6 R’s of wise effort. | |||
| Fluidity of Awareness | 20 May 2021 | 00:45:12 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 4: Buddhist meditation is about awareness. This episode explores indirect experience—exploring phenomena without intellectual bias. If we can see our actual experience accurately without distortion, that is enough to liberate us from suffering. The Buddha promoted direct, unmitigated, clear awareness as the bedrock of spiritual practice. | |||
| Fluidity of Mind | 06 May 2021 | 00:26:36 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 3: This episode examines awareness, mind, self, and the four ingredients that make up the process that we call mind. | |||
| In the Buddha's Words | 20 Apr 2021 | 00:26:16 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 2: This episode offers an introduction to the teachings of the Buddha, how they can be summed up as “everything is in process,” and what that means for us as practitioners. | |||
| Senses of the Self | 06 Apr 2021 | 00:14:20 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 1, part 2: This episode examines a spectrum of senses of self, from extreme distortion, through coping mechanisms, to freedom of non-identification with self. | |||
| How We Perceive the World | 20 Mar 2021 | 00:18:53 | |
Resting in the Waves, Chapter 1, part 1: This episode examines subconscious phenomena in the brain that influence how we perceive the world around us and our own sense of self. | |||
| Welcoming the Mind's Fluidity | 06 Mar 2021 | 00:14:48 | |
Resting in the Waves, Introduction: This book begins with an allegorical poem about a duck in the ocean waves. The Introduction then breaks down the title and subtitle of the book in a word-for-word study of what it means to rest in the waves and to welcome the mind's fluidity. | |||
| Befriending the Demons | 20 Feb 2021 | 00:57:12 | |
Hindrances can be viewed as distortions, obstacles, or demons. They distort consciousness but show us where there's imbalance that hides wisdom. Tension, aversion, and yearning distort our perception, but we don't need to look at these hindrances as a problem. We can see them as crossed intentions, spiritual trainers, and split between self and other. Recognizing, allowing, and returning to uplifted qualities then help clear perception and the mind-heart. | |||
| "The Conscious Perspective" Interview | 06 Feb 2021 | 01:14:14 | |
Doug Kraft discusses a wide range of topics with Gary Haskins of The Conscious Perspective Podcast (#29). Their topics include confronting suffering, suffering is to be understood, different ways to express universal truths, turning toward the wholesome, when sending and receiving kindness feel the same, behind it all I'm not separate, the identification process, and ennobling truths. | |||
| Introduction to Meditation | 20 Jan 2021 | 01:06:57 | |
Meditation is remembering to see the movements of the mind's attention. We don't need to change ourselves; we release and get out of the way. The Buddha left instructions on how to do this. The paradox is that we don't turn away from anything. Instead, we turn toward the mind-heart and relax into it. This is the process of learning how to rest in the waves of life. We see how mind operates, turn toward that realization, and release. Seeing clearly enough will free us. | |||
| Unfolding into Nibbana | 06 Jan 2021 | 01:03:23 | |
Stages of meditative understanding, jhanas, are based on direct experience that unfolds into nibbana. In meditation, jhanas provide arbitrary markers for gradual transitions to nibbana. With uplifted qualities and softening in meditation, we can be clear about the quality of awareness that we cultivate. What liberates is seeing with clear, open, and sensitive awareness. | |||
| Engaging Mindfulness for Rest of Life | 20 Dec 2020 | 01:00:30 | |
Clear awareness is possible when the attitude of mind is clear and light. If our minds are full of grasping and aversion, what we see is distorted. We tend not to notice distortion because we look through our attitudes instead of at them. By observing tightness in body and thought, we can discover the mind's distortion. | |||
| "What are you?" Inquiry | 06 Dec 2020 | 01:41:38 | |
This workshop is based on going deeply into the question “What are you?” and responding from a place that is deeper than concept and story lines. | |||
| Three Essential Practices | 20 Nov 2020 | 00:44:21 | |
The so-called Four Noble Truths are the core of the Buddha’s teaching. They are not capital “T” truths, but simple meditation instructions. The first three could be translated as turning toward, relaxing into, and savoring. And they are powerful. | |||
| How Buddhism Entered the World | 06 Nov 2020 | 01:45:53 | |
Reconstructing the historical Buddha — who he was, the culture and traditions that shaped him, and how he would have been perceived by his contemporaries — helps give insights into how he thought and what he taught. | |||
| Buddha and the Human Experience | 20 Oct 2020 | 01:07:31 | |
The essence of what the Buddha taught is universal; it shows up in other places, including contemporary poetry and lyrics. He discovered wisdom deep in human experience. Buddhist practice starts with the notion that nothing needs to be fixed. When we get ourselves out of the way, we turn toward difficulties and then relax into them. There's love, wisdom, clarity, and flow with us already. | |||
| Being Nothing | 06 Oct 2020 | 01:47:57 | |
Most of humanities problems arise from a hyper-developed sense of self. Yet do we really have a self? A century from now, will my existence have made any difference? What matters? How can we lighten up a sense of self and be nothing? | |||
| Dhamma Gifts | 20 Sep 2020 | 00:59:17 | |
Dhamma gifts reflect the ways we are already enlightened and the ways we are most vulnerable. Through them we connect with the core of life itself. Ahimsaka’s story illustrates how our natural sensitivities can be both gifts and hindrances. | |||
| Buddha's Map: Jhanas | 06 Sep 2020 | 01:59:02 | |
The jhanas are the Buddha’s map of how the mind-heart unfolds from quiet joy to the edge of enlightenment. Each stage includes and transcends its predecessors. This talk describes how to recognize and work this map and beyond. | |||
| Thriving in Difficult Times | 20 Aug 2020 | 00:38:07 | |
When faced with difficulty, we instinctively tighten up. The tension focuses our attention onto the world around us to go after something we want or get away from something threatening. But sometimes there is no solution out there: There are no other jobs. The disease has no cure. The relationship strain is unresolvable. The friend who died just isn’t returning. These are the truly difficult times. To thrive during truly difficult times we have to turn our attention inward and learn how to be with the instinctual tightening in a relaxed and open way. | |||
| Inner Landscape, part 2 | 06 Aug 2020 | 01:31:24 | |
This three-part talk is a 3-way conversation between our direct experience, the Buddha’s comments on experience, and science. It explores the components of phenomena (khandas), how to work with them, and ways to skillfully alleviate suffering. This episode is part 2 of 2. | |||
| Inner Landscape, part 1 | 20 Jul 2020 | 01:26:46 | |
This three-part talk is a 3-way conversation between our direct experience, the Buddha’s comments on experience, and science. It explores the components of phenomena (khandas), how to work with them, and ways to skillfully alleviate suffering. This episode is part 1 of 2. | |||
| Hindrances as Friends | 06 Jul 2020 | 01:18:36 | |
We will never fully overcome the hindrances that obstruct our meditation until we can view them as genuine friends rather than foes to be vanquished. This presentation uses story and dialog to explore how hindrances can help strengthen awareness. | |||
| Ennobling Questions | 20 Jun 2020 | 00:42:33 | |
This discussion uses the Four Noble Truths as the core of four ennobling questions to be explored in dialog. They are: • How does life rub you the wrong way? • How do you relate to difficulty? • Where do you find contentment? • What helps? | |||
| Roots of Suffering | 06 Jun 2020 | 02:04:30 | |
Everything has a cause, and that cause has a cause. Like following a string of dominoes, Dependent Origination traces suffering to its roots. This talk shows how to recognize and work with these links. It’s the Buddha’s core teaching. | |||
| Awareness Jhānas | 06 May 2020 | 02:29:08 | |
The awareness jhānas are the Buddha’s map that leads from ordinary awareness to freedom from a self, from joy to profound peace, from effort to ease. This talk provides a general orientation to the jhānas as well as the specific stages. | |||