Wild Heart Meditation Center

Andrew shares his life experience with faith, inspiration & conviction. He discusses how spirituality (opening to mystery) is a key aspect of his own practice.

In this episode, Andrew draws questions from participants, discussing "Spiritual Bypass", "Dukkha & My Mom", "Staying Positive in the Face of Adversity", and "Our Relationship to Money".

In this episode, Andrew provides and overview of the Buddhist View and Practice of Equanimity. How can we learn to come to terms with things the way that they are, rather than how we want them to be? Mindfulness help us to make space for the dis-ease of our lives by resting in compassionate awareness and helps us to make space for the joy in our lives by resting in non-attached appreciation. Enjoy!

Mikey Noechel offers personal stories and practices around Mudita, or appreciative joy, as a way to work with isolation and incline the mind towards seeing the pleasant aspects of life.

In this episode, Andrew provides an overview of the eightfold path. He discusses the Buddhist path as a training in happiness. From a Buddhist perspective, happiness is a collection of good habits - wise view, wise intention, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, wise effort, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration.

Why do we practice meditation? In the Western world, meditation is often packaged as a catalyst for developing more focus and relaxation; however, in the Buddhist context, meditation is practiced for the purpose of developing liberating insight into 3 fundamental characteristics of human existence. Andrew discusses these 3 marks of existence in this week's talk.

Andrew offers a talk on "Sympathetic Joy", which is the practice of taking active delight in the joy and successes of others. We often get caught up in comparison, competition, and insecurity when we hear about others' successes; this usually comes from a place of scarcity (that there is not enough) or a fear of falling out of our place in the tribe (that we are losing our status). The Buddha offered a practice for working with these common expressions of fear, calling "Sympathetic Joy" one of the sublime states of mind.

So much of spiritual practice is about getting into the weeds and looking into the messy areas of our lives. It's important to balancing the "dirty work" with the enjoyment and appreciation of what is going well in our lives. In this talk, Andrew explores some themes related to the practice of gratitude.

Andrew offers a guided gratitude meditation. Enjoy!

Mikey Noechel discusses how suffering creates addiction and the practice of compassion at the Southeast Refuge Recovery Conference in Asheville, NC.

Scott Tusa & Andrew Chapman discuss perspectives on Metta (loving-kindness) as a way of overcoming self-importance and self-obsession. This talk includes a portion of Q&A. Enjoy!

Scott Tusa visits from Brooklyn, NY to teach at Wild Heart Meditation Center. In this talk, Scott speaks on the topic of "Finding More Joy Through Embodied Awareness". Enjoy!

Andrew continues his discussion from last week on Mindfulness of the Mind, highlighting the role of effort in meditation practice. He specifically focuses on the topics of equanimity (non-reactivity) & active awareness (cultivating skillful mind states and abandoning unskillful mind states) and how they work together.

Andrew offers some practical perspectives on engaging skillfully with distortions of thought and perception through mindfulness practice. He shares about how the goal of mindfulness is to cultivate a wise view of the world (to see things as they are, instead of how we want them to be). Enjoy!

Andrew shares some reflections on the Buddha's personal path to awakening - leaving the comfort of worldly pleasures in seek of deeper abiding fulfillment. He discusses how the Buddha uncovered the cause of much of human dissatisfaction to be led by a seemingly unquenchable desire for things to be different than the way they are in the present experience - this is what is called, tanha, or craving. The Buddha taught a way of cultivating a deeper sense of abiding happiness that is not dependent upon craving for temporary conditions to be pleasant; this deeper happiness is what we call the Noble Eightfold Path (wise view, intention, speech, action, effort, mindfulness, and concentration).

Andrew discusses one of the most essential of the Buddha's teachings: the reflection into the nature of dukkha -- dis-ease, stress, & dissatisfaction. How do we learn to cope with the inherent fragility and unpredictability of living in a world that is ruled by ever-changing conditions? Learning to embrace the vulnerability of the human condition is the heart of the Buddhist quest for awakening. Seeing clearly into the nature of reactivity in the mind and learning to embrace what is, instead of what is wanted or not wanted.

Andrew offers some perspectives on approaching relationships with mindfulness, highlighting the eight-fold path factor of "wise speech".

Andrew offers some reflections on setting intentions for the New Year & recommitting to spiritual practice.

Andrew discusses the Buddha's teachings on "Metta" (loving-kindness). The Buddha taught kindness as a path to having a liberated heart and mind; the following talk discusses some of the ways of approaching this practice in daily life. Enjoy!

Andrew continues a discussion on the Buddha's liberating teaching of "not-self". He describes how our sense of self arises through what the Buddha refers to as the "5 bundles" - form, feeling, perception, sankhara (inclinations / impulses), and consciousness.