The Buddhist Studies Program is designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. The course includes dharma talks, small and large group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus of their meditation and daily life practice. Led by Mark Nunberg.
Welcome to folks participating from out of town! All Common Ground programs are offered freely in the spirit of generosity. To learn more about supporting the center and our teachers, click here.
Current Class – The Four Noble Truths: Understanding Suffering, its cause, its release, and the way toward its release
The Buddhist Studies Program is designed for people who have attended three or more mindfulness meditation retreats and have a commitment to daily meditation practice. This ongoing program is designed to deepen our understanding through the study and application of the teachings of the Buddha. Each class will include a short talk, small-group discussions, and guided sitting time. Participants will be expected to use the teachings as a focus for their daily practice. Find the livestream on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/commongroundmeditationcenter
The Four Noble Truths is traditionally understood as the Buddha’s first teaching. In this eight-week course, we will explore the spiritual transformation that is activated whenever we open more fully and clearly to the deep and subtle truth of the unreliability and unsatisfactoriness of all experience, what in the Buddhist tradition we name as dukkha. These teachings are offered as a way of directing our wise and calm attention to the truth of suffering, and the natural lawful process of how it arises and how it comes to be released. Seeing this over and over clarifies the path of awakening that leads onward toward more full and unshakeable release of the heart.
Seven Mondays beginning September 14th, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Register Here
Resources
Course Meditations and Talks:
Resources:
- The Four Noble Truths, by Ajahn Sumedho
- The Message of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, by Sylvia Boorstein
- The Art of Letting Go, by Ruth King
- Deep Dukkha: Getting Down in the Trenches with the First Noble Truth, by Toni Bernhard
- Pema Chodron on the Benefits of Hopelessness
- The Four Noble Truths: A Study Guide, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked, by Pema Chodron, Lion’s Roar, December 26, 2017
- The Grit That Becomes a Pearl: Dukkha Explained, By Thanissara, December 16, 2014
- The Joy Hidden in Sorrow, From Freeing the Heart by Ajahn Medhanandi
- The Far Shore, By Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Tricycle, SUMMER 2018
- Attadanda Sutta: Arming Oneself, Translated from the Pali by Andrew Olendzki
- Ud 3:10 Surveying the World (Loka Sutta)
Additional Study Materials:
- Twelve Insights in the Four Noble Truths by Mark Nunberg
- Brother Martin Was a Blues Man, A Boston Review Book Talk with Cornel West
