Dharma Ocean Podcast

Episode Archive

The Dharma Ocean Podcast is made possible by the generous support of our donors.

The Dharma Ocean podcast began in 2012 and offers hundreds of episodes relating to the path of embodied meditation practice and applying the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism to the unique problems, inspirations, and spiritual imperatives of modern people.

You can subscribe to this podcast with Apple Podcasts, or by using this RSS feed with your podcast app.

Episode 274: For the Welfare of All – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the training of a Bodhisattva, For the Welfare of All, Reggie discusses the last five of the six paramitas: discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom. Through examples, he shows how the truth of each paramita is not...

Episode 273: For the Welfare of All – Part I

In this talk on the training of a Bodhisattva, For the Welfare of All, Reggie discusses the last five of the six paramitas: discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom. Through examples, he shows how the truth of each paramita is not necessarily what we...

Episode 272: Clear Circle of Brightness

In this episode, Caroline discusses the somatic unfolding of the awakening heart. She says that the journey involves three concentric circles: an outer circle of enchantment, an inner circle that is like a ring of fire, and a third circle of complete freedom—the clear...

Episode 271: Loss of Reference Points

In this talk, Loss of Reference Points, Reggie speaks to the groundlessness that we experience when situations don’t fit into the known world of ego. In such moments, strong feelings of anxiety, fear, and ambiguity might arise. Instead trying to secure territory, he...

Episode 270: Being with the Journey

In this talk, Being with the Journey, Reggie describes the moment when we check-out during experiences that are painful, unsettling, or disconcerting. He says such moments of intensity offer an opportunity to step through our fear and resistance, open to our feelings,...

Episode 269: Practice Dismantles

In Practice Dismantles, Reggie points to the process that unfolds on the journey of somatic meditation: personal stories fall apart and we come to trust the intimacy, humor, openness, and love that emerges when our solid sense of self is dismantled. This talk was...

Episode 268: Basic Space

In this talk, Basic Space, Caroline discusses the true nature of reality—the Dharmakaya—that we experience when we rest in the space of the lower belly in the practice of yin breathing. She says that this space is open, free, and not constrained by conditioned...

Episode 267: Life Force – Part II

In the second part of this talk, Life Force, Reggie asks: where does the Life Force come from? He says that the empty nothingness of space gives birth to the primordial isness and rabid passion we feel when we rest with the raw energy that emerges from the emptiness...

Episode 266: Life Force – Part I

Here, Reggie speaks to the utter power of the Life Force that courses through our body as pure unadulterated love. This force, he says, speaks the message of this lineage: to trust our uncompromising, wild, reckless, implacable lust for being alive. This talk was...

Episode 265: Journey of Individuation

In today’s episode, Reggie discusses the meditative journey of individuation. He acknowledges societal obstacles, such as institutional bureaucracies, that can undermine inspiration and waylay personal development. True freedom requires taking responsibility for our...

Episode 264: Loving Presence

In today’s episode, Caroline asks a shrine hall of retreatants: what are we doing here? The answer: letting be. In this process, we discover the felt sense, or non-conceptual awareness of the body, which has distinct qualities: loving presence, attentiveness,...

Episode 263: Sacred Mysteries

In this teaching, Sacred Mysteries, Reggie discusses the experience of pain as understood in the Vajrayana tradition of meditation. When we let go of judging and rejecting, moments of pain are experienced as sacred ornaments of tenderness that connect us to Life in...

Episode 262: Awakening Heart

In this talk, Awakening Heart, Caroline teaches on bodhicitta, the wakeful intelligence of the body that is concentrated in the heart. She says that the essence of bodhicitta is space, the manifestation is love, and the activity is connection. This talk was given at...

Episode 261: Stripped Down to Nothing

In Stripped Down to Nothing, Reggie points to the often hidden and unrecognized dimensions in the life journey of the Buddha. He says that Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Old Path White Clouds shows how the Buddha’s renunciation of conventional norms was quite radical and...

Episode 260: Under the Rose Apple Tree

In today’s episode, Under the Rose Apple Tree, we listen to a talk Caroline offered on the experience of the natural state in childhood. She offers a Vajrayana account of the story of the Buddha who, at age 9, recognized rigpa while sitting under a rose apple tree....

Episode 259: Pain is Not a Problem

In Pain is Not a Problem, Reggie teaches on experiences of pain that we encounter on the path of meditation. He says that people often judge pain as a bad thing, but the foundation of Buddhist practice is the First Noble Truth: the more we try to avoid pain, the more...

Episode 258: Surrendering Ego – Part II

In this episode, Surrendering Ego: Going deeper into the theme of refuge, Reggie teaches on the difference between the inner and outer view of taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Inner refuge means that we are committing to our non-existence, the nature...

Episode 257: Surrendering Ego – Part I

In this talk on refuge, Surrendering Ego, Reggie discusses the history of refuge in the Buddhist tradition and describes the different styles of “emergency ego” that arise when we find ourselves challenged by reality. He says that surrendering ego is the basis for the...

Episode 256: Path of Dharma – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the path of dharma, Reggie discusses the developmental journey that unfolds as we deepen in our meditation practice. When meditation becomes the ground of life, transformation becomes a way of being. This talk was given at the 2004...

Episode 255: Path of Dharma – Part I

In this teaching on the path of Dharma, Reggie encourages us to trust inspiration, stay with discomfort, and leap to the unknown. Each stage of the path—Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana—involves ever deeper levels of these themes. This talk was given at the 2004...

Episode 254: Lineage of Dismantling – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the esoteric tradition of meditation, Lineage of Dismantling, Reggie suggests that mahamudra practices of direct experience serve as a compelling gate for modern people who long to connect with reality. By dismantling concepts, we...

Episode 253: Lineage of Dismantling – Part I

This talk begins with an account of the ancient forest tradition of meditation that began with the Buddha. Reggie discusses the values represented by these meditators and says that our lineage is in alignment with other sanghas that practice with nakedness and...

Episode 252: The Impediments of Religion – Part II

In the second part of this talk on genuineness in spirituality, Reggie says that relaxation in somatic meditation allows us to see how the forces of oppression, control, and busyness in the world are also within us. When tension in the body dissolves, we discover not...

Episode 251: The Impediments of Religion – Part I

In this talk on our natural spiritual inheritance, Reggie discusses the impediments presented by religious institutionalism, consumerism, and fundamentalism to the unfolding of each unique human life. In the modern world, authenticity is a lonely journey. This talk...

Episode 250: The Practicality of Spirituality

In this talk, Reggie says that the tantric path does not separate spiritual practice from the ordinary circumstances of everyday life. Rather, tantric meditation invites us to see the sacredness within the earthiness, messiness, emotions, and chaos of our human...

Episode 249: Genuine Spirituality – Part II

In the second part of this talk on genuine spirituality, Reggie describes the outer, inner, and secret forms of the retreat container. By respecting the forms, practicing silence, and staying present to waves of pain, we come to discover the abundance of our true...

Episode 248: Genuine Spirituality – Part I

Spiritual materialism is the ambitious ego-centered approach of striving for perfection through meditation practice. Here, Reggie speaks to genuine spirituality—the willingness to face our insecurities, depression, anger, darkness, and pride with an open heart. Such...

Episode 247: Meditating with the Elements

Here, Reggie says that when we practice with the elements we discover that their basic nature is space. For instance, by allowing our awareness to completely enter the into the life of fire, we touch the emptiness, openness, and warmth of being. This talk was given at...

Episode 246: Practicing in Cold Places – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the challenges, demands, and grittiness of retreat practice, Reggie says that the way through involves developing trust in our feelings of disruption, uncertainty, anxiety. In the Vajrayana, difficult emotions are a source of...

Episode 245: Practicing in Cold Places – Part I

After circumstances did not unfold according to plan, a group of devoted practitioners in England erected a tent so that a late autumn retreat could go on. Reggie offers a talk of encouragement, sharing lore about the hardiness of the lineage in times past. This talk...

Episode 244: Invoking the Primeval Fire – Part II

You are listening to the Dharma Ocean Podcast. In the second part of this talk on entering into relationship with the energetic aspect of the elements, Reggie says that the journey of becoming who we are is found in surrendering to the primeval birth of the five...

Episode 243: Invoking the Primeval Fire – Part I

In this talk, Reggie discusses the burning quality of space that is felt when we open to heightened awareness of emptiness. By offering our agendas, strategies, and concepts to the primordial Fire, Life is liberated to flare forth—utterly wild and free. This talk was...

Episode 242: The Edge of Fear

In this talk, The Edge of Fear, Reggie reflects on the fear we experience on the somatic journey of meditation when we lose reference points and enter into the world of the shadowlands, a world that is utterly new and unfamiliar—the realm of our true self. This...

Episode 241: The Life of Chögyam Trungpa

Here, Reggie introduces his teacher, Chögyam Trungpa. He offers a short account of Trungpa’s journey from Tibet, to England, and then to North America, and discusses how he transmitted the Vajrayana Buddhist teachings to his Western students. This excerpt is from a...

Episode 240: Initiation and Growth – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the journey of somatic meditation, Initiation and Growth, Reggie describes the initiatory process we experience when we enter the depths of the body. Initiations, he says, involve a process of dysregulation and entrainment with the...

Episode 239: Initiation and Growth – Part I

Episode-Initiation and Growth:  Reggie opens this Meditating with the Body retreat with a talk on the primordial sacredness of the human person. He says that the esoteric spirituality of the body that we are practicing has endured throughout the ages. No matter the...

Episode 238: Way of the Siddhas

In Way of the Siddhas, Reggie explores the roots of somatic meditation in ancient India. He says that the history of Buddhism was mostly written by monastics and reflects a “renunciation” approach to spirituality. However, there is a more unknown history of practice...

Episode 237: Beholding the Beloved – Part II

In the closing talk of their weekend program on the path of consort relationship, Beholding the Beloved, Reggie discusses the three vows of the consort relationship, and Caroline offers guidance on how to integrate consort practice into everyday life. This talk was...

Episode 236: Beholding the Beloved – Part I

In Beholding the Beloved, we listen to the first part of Reggie and Caroline’s concluding talk from their weekend program on consort relationship. They reflect on lessons learned in their own relationship, sharing insights about staying connected, the importance of...

Episode 235: The Spiritual Journey of Intimate Relationship

In The Spiritual Journey of Intimate Relationship,  we listen to Reggie’s opening talk from an online course he taught on meditation and the journey of intimate relationship. He says that the tantric consort tradition shows us how to discover ever deeper levels of...

Episode 234: Form Holds Freedom – Part II

In the second part of this talk on container principle, Form Holds Freedom, Reggie offers pith meditation instruction: let form hold experience. Using the example of ballet dancers doing plies, he says that fidelity to form in meditation practice allows us to discover...

Episode 233: Form Holds Freedom – Part I

In the first part of this talk on container principle, Form Holds Freedom, Reggie says that mindfulness meditation is often used as a technique to try to stabilize the ego by creating a sense of control, perfectionism, and safety. True meditation holds and protects...

Episode 232: Heart of Awakening – Part II

In the second part of this talk on bodhicitta - Heart of Awakening, Reggie says that after his enlightenment, the Buddha heard the cries of suffering in the world and felt a welling of compassion that compelled him to help free sentient beings from samsara through...

Episode 231: Heart of Awakening – Part I

In the first part of this talk on the experience of bodhicitta as related to trauma - Heart of Awakening, Reggie tells the story of how the Buddha's experience unfolded on the night of his enlightenment, and describes his ultimate realization of Life in its totality....

Episode 230: A Living Lineage

As a scholar of the history of religions, Reggie has a unique perspective on the way spirituality becomes codified by religious institutions. In this talk, A Living Lineage, he describes the historical development of orthodox structures in conventional Buddhism and...

Episode 229: Esoteric Tradition of the Body

Episode: Esoteric Tradition of the Body - Reggie comments on the tradition of Vajrayana meditation that he was trained in by his teacher, Chögyam Trungpa. He says that, even though the teachings of the practicing lineage are widely offered, few people choose to make...

Episode 228: Karma and the Body – Part II

In the second part of this talk on karma and the body, Reggie describes how the ego freezes the natural flow of experience in the body through physical tensing. This tension is stored in our cells as condensed karma. This excerpt is taken from Meditating with the...

Episode 227: Karma and the Body – Part I

In this talk, Karma and the Body, Reggie describes how traditional Buddhist teachings on karma relate to the process of liberation that unfolds in somatic meditation. The wisdom of the body, he says, leads us back to the natural state. This excerpt is taken from...

Episode 226: Interconnection

In this talk, Interconnection, Reggie reflects on the joyful experience of interconnection we feel when we practice tonglen in an embodied way. In resting with the space of the earth, compassion emerges, and our connection with others becomes apparent. This talk was...

Episode 225: The Fierce Energy of Awareness

Epidode: The Fierce Energy of Awareness - Following Reggie’s discussion of tradition and ritual in the last two episodes, we listen to a talk he offered on the compassionate energy of awareness. He says that we can invite this energy into our lives through offerings...

Powered By MemberPress WooCommerce Plus Integration