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.

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Episode 224: Tradition and Ritual – Part II

Today, we listen to the second part of Reggie’s talk on ritual - Tradition and Ritual. In offering instruction on ritual in Vajrayana Buddhism, he introduces three chants that connect us to three domains of mystery: love, the body, and the unseen world. This talk was...

Episode 223: Tradition and Ritual – Part I

In the first part of this talk on the place of tradition and ritual in Vajrayana Buddhism, Reggie discusses how symbolism, liturgy, and community can serve to help connect us with mystery as modern practitioners. This talk was given at the 2006 Advanced Meditating...

Episode 222: Awakening Through Relationship – Part III

Episode - Awakening Through Relationship Part III: In the third part of this series on consort relationship, Reggie says that the journey of awakening through relationship requires a commitment to receiving all aspects of our partner with love. In this way, the open...

Episode 221: Awakening Through Relationship – Part II

In Awakening Through Relationship Part II, in the second part of the opening keynote from Reggie and Caroline’s weekend program on the journey of consort relationship, Reggie discusses the somatic experiennce of beholding one’s beloved from the empty open state of...

Episode 220: Awakening Through Relationship – Part I

In today’s episode,Awakening Through Relationship Part I,  Reggie and Caroline are introduced to a public audience at Naropa University for a weekend program they taught together called Awakening Through Relationships: The Tantric Consort. Caroline opens the program...

Episode 219: Life is Not a Problem

Reggie begins this talk by saying, Episode - Life is Not a Problem: “There is nothing wrong with anyone here.” When we approach meditation practice as a way to solve a problem, we miss the basic message of this lineage: that life is perfect, right now, as it is. This...

Episode 218: Growing Neurological Capacity

In this talk, Growing Neurological Capacity, Reggie discusses the neurological capacity that develops through the somatic practice of pure awareness. He says that an important step in the practice involves setting aside preconceptions about the goal of meditation....

Episode 217: Basic Sadness

In Basic Sadness, Reggie discusses the basic sadness we feel in relation to the fundamental loss of connection to the Source. This sadness gives rise to a longing to reconnect with it, which is the basis of the spiritual journey. This talk was given at the 2006...

Episode 216: Freedom for Life – Part II

In the second part of this talk on human freedom, Freedom for Life, Reggie describes how somatic meditation helps us “decode karma.” Unlike heaven oriented approaches to spirituality, the embodied journey involves releasing tension and opening to the totality of...

Episode 215: Freedom for Life – Part I

In the first part of this talk on human freedom, Freedom for Life, Reggie describes the ways we become imprisoned in modern society. He says that when reality penetrates our numbness, longing is awakened for liberation. This longing leads us to the dharma. This talk...

Episode 214: Direct Experience

In Direct Experience, Reggie says that direct experience is the touchstone of the Buddhist tradition, and the gateway is the body. Through disembodiment, we lose our connection with reality and, therefore, our humanity. This excerpt is taken from Reggie’s online...

Episode 213: The Truth of Suffering

In this episode, The Truth of Suffering, Reggie introduces the first Noble Truth, the truth of suffering, in context of the somatic practice of pure awareness. He says that this ancient teaching allows us to see the reality of our lives, in this moment, as modern...

Episode 212: Somatic Descent

In Somatic Descent, Reggie introduces the practice of Somatic Descent. He says that when we touch the primordial body, the soma, we receive information about the practicalities of our everyday life. This excerpt is from a talk given in Somatic Descent: Experiencing...

Episode 211: Gateway to the Awakened State

In this talk, Gateway to the Awakened State, Reggie says that we are born to fly in the eternity of our true nature. We long for the vastness and freedom of the awakened state, and this longing inspires us to become passionate about tasting this freedom in each moment...

Episode 210: Vajrayana Feast – Thanking the Lineage

In this episode, Vajrayana Feast – Thanking the Lineage, we listen to a talk Reggie offered at the close of a residential retreat intensive. He says that in the Vajrayana, we close retreats with a final banquet. It is a practice of making offerings to the ancestors,...

Episode 207: Realm of the Inconceivable – Part III

In the final part of this talk on dark knowledge, Realm of the Inconceivable, Reggie says that in the tradition of the practicing lineage we understand that the body is the enlightened alaya—the primordial source of all experience. To trust the body, is to trust...

Episode 206: Realm of the Inconceivable – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the dark knowledge of the body, Realm of the Inconceivable, Reggie says that in the practicing lineage we learn how to rest with the soma and wait. What unfolds is a process of vertical transformation that fundamentally changes our...

Episode 205: Realm of the Inconceivable – Part I

In Realm of the Inconceivable, Reggie discusses the conceptual maps that we use to overlay experience. Direct experience, he says, is found in the body. It is the gateway to the dark knowledge of the soma: the totality that is beyond thought. This talk was given at...

Episode 204: The Bodhisattva Path – Part III

In the final part of this talk on the training of a bodhisattva, The Bodhisattva Path, Reggie offers instruction on how the practice of somatic descent shows us how to attend to the body when we are activated in a relationship. Through the discipline of waiting, our...

Episode 203: The Bodhisattva Path – Part II

In The Bodhisattva Path, Reggie describes the second step in the training of a Bodhisattva: the practice of Vajrayana maitri. He says that the way we heal our relationships with sentient beings is through healing the injured beings within us. This talk was given at...

Episode 202: The Bodhisattva Path – Part I

In this episode, The Bodhisattva Path – Part I, we listen to the first part of a talk Reggie offered at a Bodhisattva vow ceremony. He says that the first step in the training of a bodhisattva involves slowing down and opening to the wounded aspects of ourselves that...

Episode 201: The Living Water of Spirituality

Episode - The Living Water of Spirituality: Reggie offered this talk at the midway point in a month-long winter meditation retreat. He reminds the practitioners that meditation practice allows us to bring the living water of human spirituality into the dry desert of...

Episode 200: The Yogic Tradition of Somatic Meditation

In this episode, The Yogic Tradition of Somatic Meditation, Reggie asks us to relinquish Western conceptions of the body. He offers the view of the Vajrayana yogic tradition, in which the body is understood as not solid, but rather as an energetic expression of...

Episode 199: Uncertainty

In Uncertainty, Reggie says that mind states are like rainbows, they are apparent, but empty. True freedom is discovered when we stop trying to pin things down. To demonstrate this, Reggie offers an account of how it was impossible to pin Chögyam Trungpa down. This...

Episode 198: Connecting with the Ancestors

In this talk, Connecting with the Ancestors, Reggie reflects on the liberating experience that occurred in the space of a Dathün retreat after an embodied connection was established with the local ancestors and indigenous spirits of the natural world. This talk was...

Episode 197: Meditation in the Modern World

In this episode, Meditation in the Modern World, we listen to an excerpt from the opening talk of the first audio program Reggie recorded with Sounds True in 2003. He says that meditation helps us cut through the busyness and distractions of the modern world so that...

Episode 196: The Flowering of Modern Buddhism – Part III

In the final part of this talk on Buddhism in the modern world, The Flowering of Modern Buddhism, Reggie discusses the flowering of the three jewels: the Buddha as the lineage of emptiness; the Dharma as the profound teachings on meditation; and the sangha as the...

Episode 195: The Flowering of Modern Buddhism – Part II

In The Flowering of Modern Buddhism Part II, Reggie asks: what makes meditation unique when compared to other approaches to health, well-being, exploration, and discovery? He says that it is the direct experience of emptiness found in the practice of completely...

Episode 194: The Flowering of Modern Buddhism – Part I

In the first part of this talk on modern spirituality,The Flowering of Modern Buddhism,  Reggie says that organized religion is not the legacy of the Buddha, nor is the narcissistic materialism that underlies many individualistic approaches to meditation in global...

Episode 193: Every Mind State is Workable

In this talk,  Every Mind State is Workable, Reggie discusses the destabilizing process of somatic meditation. Practice, he says, opens space in our state of being that gives rise to surprising and unexpected experiences. This talk was given in April 2005 at the...

Episode 192: Path of Opening Down – Part 2

In the second part of this talk on the journey of meditation, Path of Opening Down, Reggie says that it is important to not hang on to anything in our practice. Integrity in meditation is opening to what is, not chasing daylight, and letting go of what we think. This...

Episode 191: Path of Opening Down – Part I

In this talk, Path of Opening Down, Reggie says that the samsaric approach to chaos is to try to limit it, control it, and shut it down. The purpose of meditation is to make room for chaos. In doing this, we open to the unknown and the unencumbered birth of our life....

Episode 190: Working with Psychological Distress

Episode - Working with Psychological Distress: Meditation allows space to open in our state of being for difficult, challenging, and distressing experiences to arise. Reggie says that these experiences are not pathological, but rather expressions of the unconscious...

Episode 189: Shadowlands

In this episode, Shadowlands, we listen to an excerpt from a talk Reggie offered on how the range of direct experience increases as we progress along the path of somatic meditation. He says that fear, anxiety, and apprehension in practice are often harbingers of...

Episode 188: Spirituality and Religion

In this talk, Spirituality and Religion, Reggie discusses the difference between religion and spirituality. He says that religious traditions often gain inspiration from living spirituality, but there is a distinction: religions offer maps, while spirituality is the...

Episode 187: Wholehearted Commitment

In this episode, Wholehearted Commitment, Reggie comments on how dependence on the teacher can stunt fundamental transformation. True growth, he says, requires unconditional commitment. Through letting go of options, we are cornered by the imperatives of the journey....

Episode 186: Tibetan Tantra: An Esoteric Tradition – Part II

In the second part of this talk on Vajrayana tantra "Tibetan Tantra: An Esoteric Tradition", Reggie reflects on the somatic journey of becoming transparent to the cosmos through our own body. He says that the siddha tradition does not involve renunciation of worldly...

Episode 185: Tibetan Tantra: An Esoteric Tradition – Part I

In this talk, Tibetan Tantra: An Esoteric Tradition, Reggie comments on the esoteric tradition of Buddhist meditation that Chögyam Trungpa taught to Western students. He describes the terrifying experience of encountering a person who completely embodied empty open...

Episode 184: Risk and Trust – Part III

Today, we listen to the third part of Reggie’s talk Risk and Trust, on the radical journey of individuation that occurs when we trust the inherent force of our unique karma. Through this process, we learn to let go of expectations and embody our individuality with...

Episode 183: Risk and Trust – Part II

In Risk and Trust Part II, Reggie says that the true path of Dharma is risky because it leads to full disclosure of who we are. In the lineage of Chogyam Trungpa, we cultivate a suspicion of spiritual ambition, narcissism, goals of attainment, and religious...

Episode 182: Risk and Trust – Part I

In the first part of this talk on the Vajrayana tradition, Risk and Trust, Reggie comments on the shocking nature of the meditative path of desire. He says that the wisdom of Buddhism is that is does not offer answers, but rather practices for realizing the lineage....

Episode 181: Space, Energy, and the Elements – Part II

In the second part of this talk on the nature of space, Space, Energy, and the Elements, Reggie discusses how the primordial expression of energy manifests as the five elementals: earth, water, fire, air, and space. Each element, he says, is inherently open and empty,...

Episode 180: Space, Energy, and the Elements – Part I

In this talk, Space, Energy, and the Elements – Part I, Reggie speaks to a group of longtime practitioners about the elemental energies of the cosmos that we encounter on the journey of somatic meditation. When we work with the elements, he says, we contact the...

Episode 179: Physical and Emotional Pain – Part III

In the final part of this talk on discomfort, Physical and Emotional Pain, Reggie discusses a second approach to working with painful emotions: to offer them to the lineage. By doing this, we discover that we are not alone, that our experience is worthy, and that it...

Episode 178: Physical and Emotional Pain – Part II

In Physical and Emotional Pain Part II, Reggie says that the pain we feel in meditation practice is a teacher, a gateway through which the body expresses the unconscious. When we welcome pain, we liberate reality. Suffering is the harbinger of enlightenment. This talk...

Episode 177: Physical and Emotional Pain – Part I

The practice of siting meditation often gives rise to experiences of pain and discomfort. In this talk, Physical and Emotional Pain Part I, Reggie offers instruction for working with pain on the meditation cushion. He says that pain is often caused by patterns of...

Episode 176: Journey of Refuge

In this refuge ceremony talk, Journey of Refuge, Reggie discusses the meaning of the three jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. He says that the ritual of refuge connects us with the lineage, the stream of awakened beings who we can call upon to assist us...

Episode 175: Spirituality and Trauma – Part II

In Spirituality and Trauma – Part II, Reggie explains how we heal trauma through identifying with the vast space and warmth of the earth. This "groundless ground" is the source of the life force that we work with in somatic meditation. It is a state of being that is...

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