Ep. 12 - Right View

Explaining the ways our minds can be seduced, Joseph Goldstein teaches us how to let go into non-clinging.

This 2007 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

In this episode, Joseph Goldstein teaches listeners about:

• Letting go into the wisdom mind of non-clinging
• Awakening to the nature of the mind
• Working with the hindrances of mind
• Noticing how the mind can be seduced
• Skeptical doubt and being frozen in indecision
• The ways that doubt can masquerade itself as wisdom
• Telling ourselves that it is okay not to know
• Resting in experience rather than being caught in thought loops
• Investigating our aversions and their hold on the mind
• Seeing everything with perfect wisdom
• Transforming our attitudes about our aversions
• Being inclusive to our difficult experiences

“Struggle is a great feedback because it signifies non-acceptance of something. Because if we were accepting, we wouldn’t be struggling. Whenever we’re in that sense of striving, of struggle, of tension, take that as a feedback, not as a problem. That’s telling us something. That’s saying something is going on in the body, in the mind, in the emotions, in the thoughts, in our external experience, something is going on that we’re not open to, that we’re trying to exclude, and that’s why we’re struggling.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Taking a journey through the Buddha’s history, Joseph Goldstein reveals how we can relate the Bodhisattva’s experiences to our own lives.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

In this Episode, Joseph teaches on:

• The history of Siddhartha Guatama
• Archetypes and myths within the Buddha’s journey
• Connecting individual experiences into universal principals
• Joseph Campbell’s description of the Buddha’s life stages
• Calls to destiny and the illusion of having a self
• The profound truth of impermanence and change
• Anxiety and unease from trying to posses things
• Facing realities such as death and disease
• One of Joseph’s first major insights into his mind
• Renunciation and getting out of the seduction of appearances
• Meditation and recognizing vastness
• Examining what is a hindrance and what is skillful
• The great struggle and developing a courageous heart
• The Bodhisattva’s three watches of the night
• The great awakening and working for the good of others

“In this archetypal level, the Buddha’s life reveals to us aspirations in our own. It helps us find a deeper meaning, a deeper purpose, a fuller context for our own life choices. On this archetypal level, it connects the Buddha’s journey with our own.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein joins Rohan Gunatillake to share the meditative story of how he first learned to integrate his spirituality into everyday life.

This episode was originally aired on Meditative Story, a podcast that combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of mindfulness practice – all surrounded by breathtaking and cinematic music. You can find Meditative Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more!

 Joseph Goldstein shares a personal story about:

• One of the most transformative moments in Joseph’s life
• The beginning of Joseph’s enlightenment journey
• Integrating the spiritual gifts Joseph learned from the East into his everyday life in the West
• Learning to embrace the uncomfortable feeling of not-knowing
• How Joseph first connected with Ram Dass
• Joseph’s first job teaching a meditation class
• Saying yes and allowing opportunities to present themselves
• A guided mindfulness practice

“It’s as if my life exists as two separate strands. One is the strand of my practice, which feels clear and stable. The other is how that practice will manifest and how I can ever hope to apply it to the world. Spiritually, I am flying high. But I have no idea where to land.” – Joseph Goldstein

About Joseph Goldstein:

Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and loving-kindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

About Rohan Gunatillake:

Rohan Gunatillake is a writer, entrepreneur, and host of the podcast Meditative Story. By artfully crafting meditations to compliment each guest’s story, Rohan blends mindfulness with narrative to create a unique listening experience, encouraging listeners to use someone else’s transformative moment as the basis for their own. He’s also the founder of the best-selling app Buddhify, and author of Modern Mindfulness: How to Be More Relaxed, Focused, and Kind While Living in a Fast, Digital, Always-On World.

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Discussing the differences between knowing, awareness and wisdom, Joseph Goldstein helps deepen our insights into the nature of body and mind.

This 2007 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph lectures on:

• The Satipatthana Sutta
• The four foundations of mindfulness
• Overcoming suffering and attaining freedom
• How wisdom combines awareness and investigation
• Struggling as the manifestation of non-acceptance
• Grounding in awareness of different sense objects
• Attuning to the patterns and conditioning in our minds
• The attitudes and judgements we have about experiences
• The ability to learn about our minds in any situation

“Wisdom arises out of awareness and it combines the qualities of investigation, of what the Buddha called right understanding/right attitude. With mindfulness as the platform, that is the foundation. Without mindfulness none of this happens.“ – Joseph Goldstein

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Going through questions submitted by meditators on retreat, Jill Shepard asks Joseph about discernment and other Buddhist practices.

This episode was recorded as part of a three-month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society and originally published by Dharmaseed

In this episode, Joseph answers questions on:

• What it means to waste your suffering
• Turning attention inward and looking at the cause of suffering
• Attachment, resistance, and false perception
• Self and anatta (not-self)
• The wholesome and unwholesome roots of all skillful actions
• Looking honestly at our intentions and motivations
• Honoring the presence of our emotions versus being caught by them
• The message we can receive from anger
• Discernment and bringing mindfulness into love
• Liberation through non-clinging
• Working with doubt and the inner voice that fools and seduces us
• Surrendering to the Dharma
• How practice prepares us for growing old

“It’s really important to be honest about the range of our own motivations because if we’re not honest about it, we’re not going to see it. If we don’t see it, we may very well be acting on the unwholesome motivations.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Describing how perceptions and constructs shape our experiences, Joseph Goldstein teaches on the concept of self.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

In this episode, Joseph describes:

• The liberating jewel of the Buddha’s teachings
• The Self as the fabrication of our minds
• The relief of selflessness
• Abandoning unwholesome qualities
• Using Buddhist psychology to understand how The Self is created
• Recognizing, naming, and remembering
• Perception in the service of mindfulness
• Seeing the frame instead of the picture
• How concepts can limit our understanding
• Division and the concept of space
• Past, present, future, and the concept of time
• The constriction within self-image
• Projection and self-assessment
• Age, culture, race, and other created constructs
• When concepts can be useful

“Our perceptions are concepts about what we are experiencing. This overlay on experience very often conditions how we feel about that experience. And, one of the startling things about all this, is that often our perceptions are inaccurate and yet they are conditioning the experience we are having.”– Joseph Goldstein

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On Tuesday, December 19th, join acclaimed Buddhist meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Ethan Nichtern for a free online conversation on staying grounded, available, and engaged, even when the world is on fire.

Sharon and Ethan will also discuss the upcoming Dharma Moon Yearlong Buddhist Studies program and offer their insights on how studying Buddhism can help us show up more fully for ourselves and others during these challenging times.

Visit dharmamoon.com/event for more info and to reserve your free spot!

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In this question-and-answer session, Joseph Goldstein explores skillful means for non-clinging, how to work with the comparing mind, the intricacies of walking meditation, and much more.

This dharma talk, recorded on October 20, 2023, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

In this episode of Insight Hour:

• Joseph offers a series of tips on walking meditation
• He responds to questions about working with the comparing mind and working with the mind that is desperate to fix everything
• Joseph talks about how it is possible for a layperson to awaken and why enlightenment is all about lightening up
• He explores the importance of not being attached to our beliefs or our disbeliefs and keeping an open mind
• Finally, Joseph offers his perspective on how the Dharma has helped him in difficult times and why the Buddhist teachings are all about skillful means for non-clinging

“So when I began to hear these different teachings, rather than frame it – ‘Which is true?’ or ‘Which is right?’ – just to take the teachings as skillful means. So then the question is, skillful means for what? And here is where all the traditions of Buddhism are unified, and that is a skillful means for non-clinging. That’s the essence of the free mind in all the Buddhist traditions.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein delves into the concepts of loving-kindness, compassion, and the fear of discomfort. He highlights the transformative power of loving-kindness, mindfulness, and compassion in overcoming fears and limitations, ultimately fostering genuine happiness.

This dharma talk, recorded on February 18, 1997, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

In this lecture, Joseph:

• Affirms that at the depths of our hearts and minds there is a basic reservoir of goodwill
• Defines mettā, or loving-kindness, as the basic generosity of the heart
• Takes note of the “upward spiral” of happiness that mindfulness and loving-kindness promotes
• Reminds us to stay open to suffering and
• Ruminates upon the empty nature of fear itself

“If you keep shining your compassion and understanding on it, your fear will soon crack and you will be able to look into its depths and see its roots.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Joseph Goldstein expounds upon the relationship between thought and emotion as it relates to both our spiritual practice and our daily lives.

This dharma talk, recorded on June 4, 2013, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

In this lecture, Joseph:

• Dissects the nuanced meaning of the Pali word sati, often translated as "mindfulness"
• Highlights the importance of applying mindfulness to both skillful and unskillful thoughts
• Helps us understand the very nature of thought
• Outlines the inherent connection between thoughts and emotional responses
• Proposes that we stay open to afflictive emotions without identifying with them

"When we engage with thoughts and emotions from a place of interest and a place of investigation, a place of inquiry, we can see them all arise and pass away in this open sky of the mind." - Joseph Goldstein

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Already downloaded by over 15k people, visit dharmamoon.com/ebook to get YOUR free copy of The Art of Teaching Mindfulness!

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Joseph Goldstein investigates the links between suffering, compassion, and the concept of the self.

This dharma talk, recorded on July 2, 1994, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

In this talk, Joseph:

• Breaks down the three kinds of suffering according to the Buddha
• Advises us to remain open to suffering, reminding us that avoiding or resisting pain and unpleasant mind states only serves to feed them
• Posits that compassion grows from letting suffering in
• Proposes that we drop into the flow of existence
• Asserts that the root cause of suffering is our deeply conditioned senses of self 

“When we’re associated with what we don’t want, it’s suffering. And when we are separated from what we do want, it’s suffering. And this is the push-pull happening throughout our lives.” – Joseph Goldstein

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