Tonight and maybe next week we’ll bring up politics. It feels like, it’s true for most people or a lot of people, the political impending election is a topic of conversation. It’s on our minds. It brings up, for a lot of people, a lot of fear, a lot of judgment, a lot of craving for a certain outcome. Craving for another outcome to be in favor of whatever side you're on.

I'm going to talk about this perspective that the Buddha is referred to as the great physician. That Buddhism is medicine to heal and treat the human condition. The First Noble Truth, the suffering of the human condition, and that it can be treated.

Tonight, I'm going to talk about the Buddhists emphasis on inquiry and questioning. I don't know exactly where the talk will go, but I want to bring up the importance of questioning, questioning your own mind, questioning your own views and opinions. Questioning society's views and opinions, questioning religion, questioning teachers. I feel like Buddhism maybe one of the few religions that really encourages a kind of healthy skepticism, even about its own teachings.

My topic for tonight, what I've been thinking about today, and what I want to talk about in the meditation, we're going to do loving kindness. The Buddhist word is metta, loving kindness meditation. It's going to be about how we treat ourselves, how we feel about ourselves.

I don't have a topic for you tonight, but I'd like to encourage you to just, introduce yourself to some people that you don't know yet and take a couple minutes to meet some new folks.

The topic tonight is enlightenment, awakening and liberation. The big picture, the big promise of Buddhism. The third noble truth, the end of suffering is possible in this life. You can become a Arahant, a fully awakened being in this life, if you want to. If you're willing to do the work is the teaching of the Buddha. How enlightened do you want to be? How free do you want to be?

I'm going to talk a lot tonight about suffering because that's what we do in Buddhism. We talk about suffering and the causes of suffering and how to end suffering… or try to end suffering. What is your favorite thing to suffer about? What do you cling to?

Instead of giving a lecture tonight, I'm going to reflect on some of the changes that I've noticed over these last 36 years of practice and reflect a little bit on that. How my process has unfolded in a very personal way. What changes have you seen with your practice? What kind of progress have you seen? How has it helped you?

So I was going to do the six realms of existence tonight. Buddhist cosmology. I'm going to take it from both a cosmological as well as a psychological perspective. Before telling you what the six realms are, for the small groups, what I'd like you to talk about with each other is your own views, your own opinions, your own perspectives. Do you believe, do you think, are you open to the possibility that there are other realms? Other than this human realm.

I'm going to talk tonight about a combination of some of the Buddhist teachings about our innate personality tendencies. I'm also going to talk about some of the ways that maybe we are perceived and tend to behave in the world.

I often find it a little bit of a dilemma to be a householder Buddhist. To be following these teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, who was a renunciate, who was a celibate monk. This topic of pleasure and indulgence I find it a little bit of a dilemma that a lot of my teachers who are monks, are choosing this path of celibacy, renunciation and simplicity. They're not indulging in the kind of sense pleasures that I choose to indulge in. It can sometimes set up a little bit of a...

I'm going to talk about desire tonight. Sometimes there's the question about craving for, wanting, or clinging to, enlightenment or spiritual practices or experiences. There's so much emphasis in Buddhism on non attachment and letting go and craving being the cause of our suffering so don't crave anything. But what about our desire or craving healing, for happiness or transformation? For learning to love ourselves, learning to forgive ourselves. It's central in the Buddha's teachings...

Tonight I'm going to talk about the four foundations of mindfulness and how it works. Just that sort of reminder for most people, a clarification about how this instruction has the potential of liberation and transformation.

The topic tonight is this little book that my teacher Ajahn Amaro, recently published. I think it's his newest one, it’s called And In There Passing is Peace. It's about death and about impermanence.

The topic of the meditation and the topic of the practice and teaching for tonight is around forgiveness and compassion. Compassion and forgiveness go hand in hand. What’s your experience with Forgiveness? What are your feelings about it? Has it changed over time? #AgainstTheStream #Buddhist #Meditation

I'm going to go somewhere around the teachings of acceptance and accepting ourselves the way we are; accepting this world the way it is. With some level of creating a positive change. On one hand acceptance is a core practice, principle and teaching, but then also there's all of this change we're trying to create. A pot we're trying to wake up, not trying to accept “well I'm asleep and I'm ignorant and I'm suffering’. I'm just going to accept that. There's a level of “I don't want to be...

I'm going to go somewhere around the teachings of acceptance and accepting ourselves the way we are; accepting this world the way it is. With some level of creating a positive change. On one hand acceptance is a core practice, principle and teaching, but then also there's all of this change we're trying to create. A pot we're trying to wake up, not trying to accept “well I'm asleep and I'm ignorant and I'm suffering’. I'm just going to accept that. There's a level of “I don't want to be...

Almost all of our suffering comes from selfing. The thoughts and feelings around I, me, and mine. The insight that our meditative practice leads to is understanding that it's not that personal. There's not really a self here to be so attached to. Not a permanent, solid, separate I, me, or mine. So I'm going to talk about that tonight and I'll give some meditation instructions around that.

Dependent origination is a core popular Buddhist teaching that is about how the process, this of life and death and reincarnation work. There's the process of birth, death, life and why we suffer. Why we're not just born in a happy, peaceful life, but why life is difficult.

I was thinking of riffing a little bit on Memorial Day, where I mostly just want to talk shit about nationalism and the kind of ignorance of our culture. I think Memorial Day is about death. It's about memorializing, remembering dead soldiers. I'm gonna definitely go beyond the sort of nationalist, soldier, army, death or human death and impermanence. I'm going to talk a little bit about war tonight since that's what this sort of American holiday really is about.

Tonight I’m going to talk about the aspect of our practice of Buddhism that is about creating a positive change in the world: service, generosity, engagement. How are you using your life’s energy to create change? What compassionate actions are you taking? How are you helping others? What kind of service are you involved in?

There's a question about how do we ideally practice intimacy, sexuality, romance in the Dharma. Where there's all this emphasis on non attachment. How do we have love and non attachment? How do we have sex and not cling is the topic tonight. We're going to talk about sex tonight, and I'll share some Buddhist perspectives.

Tonight we're going to talk about appreciation, appreciative joy, empathy, attunement and gratitude. May you be successful at freeing yourself from suffering. May you be successful at finding true happiness, true well being Not just material and sensual pleasures, but may you have some real healing, some real awakening. May your path lead to freedom. This is a practice of having that sort of attitude and encouragement and training our heart to feel it.

I think a simplified way to think about equanimity is “keeping your cool”. Similar to the loving kindness teaching “being at ease” no matter what's happening, not just when life is easy, but also when life is quite difficult. Maintaining a sense of equanimity, ease, cool, well being, understanding and accepting that pain is unavoidable. That we will all experience pain in our lives and try to meet that with compassion.