Podcast

 

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Dharma Ocean presents compelling talks by Reggie Ray, a unique and dynamic teacher in the lineage of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Reggie has a special gift for applying the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism to the unique problems, inspirations, and spiritual imperatives of modern people. As spiritual director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, Reggie mentors a worldwide community of practitioners committed to meditation as a path of discovering wakefulness in everyday life. His teaching is marked by humor, insight, and an absolute trust in the relevance of meditation to all aspects of human experience: our relationships and jobs, our dreams and heartbreaks, our fears and aspirations.

 

 

 

Episode 17: Bravery of the Bodhisattva - Listen Online 

This week, Reggie discusses the bodhisattva -- one who has committed their life to relieving the suffering of others. Far from being an unattainable ideal, the way of the bodhisattva is discovered in how we express our own innermost nature. The minute we overcome our habitual thinking, we realize that everything in our life is a source of joy and nourishment. Having tasted this life-giving "water" for ourselves, we are naturally compelled to offer our lives to others, no matter the cost. In the end, Reggie says, "the only way to find happiness is to love other people."

 


This talk is from a bodhisattva vow ceremony that was offered at the 2011 Winter Dathun -- a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download more of Reggie’s teachings and to explore a variety of audio listening guides to assist you on your spiritual journey, please visit our store.

 

 

 

Episode 16: Vajrayana Tonglen - Listen Online 

In this episode Reggie discusses tonglen, a Buddhist compassion practice, within the context of the Vajrayana understanding of interdependence. He says that when we encounter any difficult person, situation, or emotion we are meeting a part of ourselves that we have rejected. By opening to these rejected aspects we become whole.

 

Today's episode was drawn from two talks given at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download more of Reggie’s teachings, find out about upcoming retreats, and explore a variety of audio listening guides to assist you on your spiritual journey please visit our store.

 

 

Episode 15: Awake Heart - Listen Online 

In today’s episode, Reggie discusses the somatic experience of knowing the world through our hearts. He says that the thinking mind has become the primary way of knowing in modern society and as a result we’ve lost touch with the intelligence of our hearts. By connecting with our hearts in meditation practice, we regain the ability to meet the world in a non-conceptual way.

 

This talk was given at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download more of Reggie’s teachings and to explore a variety of audio listening guides to assist you on your spiritual journey please visit our store.

 

 

Episode 14: Wellspring of Love - Listen Online 

Although meditation has become popularized as a tool for stress reduction and basic wellness, it can, in fact, take us much further. In this week's podcast, Reggie discusses how the practice of meditation can carry us beyond the confines of ego to true liberation.

 

This talk was given at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download more of Reggie’s teachings, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 13.1: Sacredness of the Human Person - Listen Online 

In this special edition of our weekly podcast, Reggie discusses the ways meditation helps us shed habitual patterns so we can discover the true purpose of our life. The human journey, he says, is not about getting rid of our ego but rather connecting more deeply with our authentic person.

 

Today’s teachings are drawn from recent a talk hosted by members of the Crestone, Colorado community. To download more of Reggie’s teachings, visit our online store.

 

  

Episode 13: Meditation and the Path of Healing - Listen Online

Today’s teaching expands on last week's theme of the importance of healing on the spiritual journey. Reggie shows how healing begins when we open to our deepest pain and trauma. And surrendering to the reality of our lives, painful though it may sometimes be, is how we discover unconditional freedom. 

 

This talk was given at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 12.1: Mahamudra and Modern Physics - Listen Online

This is a special edition of our podcast featuring a teaching from our recent retreat Mahamudra for the Modern World. Today, Reggie invites us to consider a recent discovery in modern physics: that everything in the universe ultimately is born from nothing, from the universe itself down to the tiniest particles at subatomic levels. We are able to have direct experiential knowledge of this basic reality when we allow our limited viewpoints to dissolve into emptiness through meditation practice and witness the energy of our existence arise from that. In this way, the journey of meditation reflects a universal process of death and birth that occurs for all that is: from atoms and trees to stars and galaxies, and all of being itself.

 

This talk was given at the Mahamudra for the Modern World retreat that was recently held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, CO. To download more of Reggie's teachings, please visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 12: Healing, Wholeness, and Compassion - Listen Online

In the today's Dharma Ocean podcast, Reggie discusses the way the human journey of spirituality involves three aspects: healing, wholeness, and compassion. In order to progress in our meditation practice, he says, we must look at our overall health and open to our pain and traumas in an integrative way. In this way we heal ourselves, and our world.

 

This talk was given at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 11: Refuge in the Sangha - Listen Online

Today, as we finish our exploration of the meaning of Refuge, Reggie discusses the intimacy we share with one another in retreat and how that intimacy gives rise to a sense of profound devotion to our community of fellow practitioners.

 

These excerpts were taken from two different talks given at the 2003 and 2006 Winter Dathuns in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from these retreats, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 10: Refuge in the Dharma - Listen Online

Today’s talk is a continuation of last week’s topic: the role of refuge on the Buddhist path. In this episode Reggie discusses refuge in the Dharma. He shows how our understanding of the meaning of dharma deepens in profound ways as we grow in the different stages of the journey.

 

This talk was given at the 2006 Winter Dathun, a month-long retreat held at the White Eagle Conference Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 9: Refuge in the Buddha - Listen Online

What does it mean to take refuge in the Buddha? In this episode, Reggie explores this question from the standpoint of the outer, inner, and secret dimensions of the Buddhist journey. He explains that fundamentally the Buddha is the very essence of our being - the very source of our life.

 

This talk was given at the 2006 Winter Dathun, a month-long retreat held at the White Eagle Conference Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 8: The Meaning of Refuge - Listen Online

Refuge is an important moment in the Buddhist journey. It is a ritual event in which we have the opportunity to commit to the practice of meditation as a spiritual path. In today’s talk, Reggie discusses how in taking refuge we learn to abandon distractions and leap to the choicelessness of each moment.

 

This talk was recorded at the 2011 Winter Dathun - a month-long retreat held at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 7: The Life and Legacy of the Buddha - Listen Online 

As a religious historian, Reggie has closely studied the early Pali texts to better understand the human journey of the Buddha in ancient India. Today, we’ll listen to excerpts from three different talks Reggie has given on the life and legacy of the historical Buddha. He asks us to reconsider our assumptions about who the Buddha was.

 

This week’s episode features three talks originally recorded at Dharma Ocean community weekends in Boulder, Colorado.

 

 

Episode 6: View of Renunciation - Listen Online 

Renunciation is an important topic in the traditional teachings of the Buddha, and is commonly misunderstood. In today’s talk, Reggie explains that renunciation is not about turning away from our relative lives, but instead is a natural outgrowth of meditation practice. Renunciation spontaneously occurs when we stop following our habitual impulses and expectations in everyday life.

 

This week’s episode features a talk originally recorded at the 2005-06 Winter Dathün, a 28-day meditation retreat held annually at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 5: Relating to Groundlessness - Listen Online 

This week, Reggie addresses the experience of groundlessness that often occurs when we engage in intensive meditation practice. He explains how we can trust those moments when we lose our sense of identity and encourages us to open to the uncertainty we feel when we encounter the vast pace of our being.

 

This week’s episode features a segment of a talk given at the 2010-11 Winter Dathün, a 28-day meditation retreat held annually at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 4: Journey of Authentic Becoming - Listen Online

In this week’s episode Reggie expands on the topic of Buddha Nature offered in last week’s podcast. When we are able to let go into our own basic nature, we begin to uncover our individual authentic personality. Through the practice of meditation, we discover that that the imperative of our spiritual journey is to become fully who we are, without reservation.

 

This talk was taken from a longer teaching Reggie gave at the 2010-11 Winter Dathün, a 28-day meditation retreat held annually at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 3: Finding Purpose in Spirituality - Listen Online

Reggie discusses the unique spiritual imperative facing modern people and in particular the state of disconnection that is prevalent in modern society. He explores how unique the Buddhist journey is at this time and how we can discover our own Buddha Nature afresh in each moment through the felt sense of our embodied experience. Wisdom, he offers, “is contained within every cell of our body.”

 

This episode features a segment of a talk recorded at the April 2009 Meditating with the Body Retreat at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.

 

 

Episode 2: The Embodied Journey - Listen Online

Over the last fifteen years Reggie has developed a unique system of practices called Meditating with the Body. In this episode Reggie offers an introduction to the view of the body in Vajrayana Buddhism. He discusses the importance of the practice of meditation and the particular role of the body in meditation. Reggie explores how in the Vajrayana, the body is understood as the gateway through which the entire universe is discovered.

 

Episode 2 features a teaching originally recording during the 2010-11 Winter Dathün, a 28-day meditation retreat held annually at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store. 

 

 

Episode 1: River of Life - Listen Online

Reggie explores Buddhist tantra as a spiritual path and discusses inspiration in the practice of meditation. He offers guidance for how we develop trust in the magic and perfection of our lives and explores how the practice of meditation is about dismantling our doubt.

 

This episode features a talk originally recorded during the 2010-11 Winter Dathün, a 28-day meditation retreat held annually at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. To download the complete teachings from this retreat, visit our online store.