Libsyn Directory

Why Practice?

Release Date: 05/20/2025

The Eightfold Path, Part 1: The Path to Freedom

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores how the Buddha’s Eightfold Path offers a clear, practical guide to living with greater wisdom, compassion, and inner freedom in everyday life. We’ll look at how each step on the path supports both personal transformation and the well-being of others. Wise View, the first step, invites us to see life as it truly is—recognizing impermanence, the causes of suffering, and the possibility of liberation. It’s about shifting from a narrow, self-centered perspective to a broader understanding that our thoughts, actions, and attitudes shape our experience.

Begin Where You Are: Laying the Groundwork of Mindfulness

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores how to begin a mindfulness practice by starting exactly where you are. Rather than striving for a particular state or trying to “do it right,” we look at how mindfulness arises through simple remembering—the act of returning to presence, again and again. We’ll reflect on how the breath can become a reliable ally, how intention can quietly shape our experience, and how there’s no wrong way to begin. We’ll explore four key themes: (1) how mindfulness is the practice of remembering presence, (2) the power of starting just as you are, without needing to fix or...

Choose What is Already Changing [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores how to embrace impermanence. You’ll learn about the inevitability of change and how understanding your reactivity and biases can help you access a quality of awareness that can help you move from reactivity to wisdom, compassion, creativity and enthusiasm.

Your True Nature is Already Here [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the nature of ‘true nature.’ You’ll learn more about the nature of ‘true nature,’ what gets in the way of experiencing this primal quality of being and some doorways of practice that can bring you into an intimate, embodied sense of presence.

How to Access the Flow State, Part 2 [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the mechanics for entering the flow state. You’ll learn the role mindfulness plays in setting up the flows state, a review of triggers that can be helpful, how applying the principles of flow to meditation can deepen your practice and some cautions and concerns about the practice.

How to Access the Flow State, Part 1 [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores what it means to be in flow. You’ll learn about the magic of being in the flow state, some distinctions between mindfulness and flow and how to be more aware of how you consciously or unconsciously sabotage the flow state.

How More Focus Can Transform Your Life, Part 2 [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the power of willful attention inwardly as well as in the world. You’ll learn some strategies for inner focus in your meditation as well as some outer focus to cultivate sustained attention on what is most important to you in your life right now.

How More Focus Can Transform Your Life, Part 1 [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the power of willful attention. You’ll learn what the Buddha said about concentration and liberation, some essential practices for deepening focus and how skillfully applying concentration can open up new inner worlds.

Am I Dreaming? Thoughts on Thinking Part 5: Love is the Highest Thought of All [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the power of streaming thoughts toward love, compassion, kindness, joy and equanimity. You’ll learn about the origin of the heart practices, how here love starts as a thought and moves into an experience, the system for loving kindness and what it means to be awake both in heart and mind.

Am I Dreaming? Thoughts on Thinking Part 4: Bare Attention and Gratitude [archive talk]

Jonathan Foust

This talk explores the practice of Bare Attention and how suffering ceases in the experience of gratitude. You’ll learn about the distinction of the linear mind and the intuitive mind, the practice Bare Attention and a technique for opening to gratitude as a way of shifting the mind to a more fluid and intuitive state.

More Episodes

Mindfulness practice can get dry and rote. When you remember why you are practicing you'll reconnect with your passion and deepest intention. When you can sustain your practice, you may notice a number of benefits.

Beyond the physiological and emotional boosts you'll feel, ultimately you'll notice the arising of two distinct faculties. Wisdom is your capacity to recognize what is true. Compassion is your capacity to allow and open to truth.

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