Joseph Goldstein discusses how working with fear is absolutely essential in our practice of understanding, opening, and accepting.

This 1983 dharma talk was originally published on Dharmaseed.

This week on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein teaches us about:

• Releasing tension through awareness
• The body as an energy system
• Opening up to the Buddha nature
• Working with fear and emotional pain
• Resistance and unwillingness to be uncomfortable
• Becoming open to pain and discomfort
• Insecurity and the fear of being judged
• How the fear of feeling certain emotions keeps us bound to negative habits
• How openness allows our hearts to be touched
• Death and fear of the unknown
• Being okay with being afraid
• Having space for fear without demands
• Lovingkindness as the antidote for fear

“What we’re doing in our practice is learning how to work with those experiences which often cause trouble, which often cause resistance, which we’re afraid of.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Offering instruction for metta practice, Joseph Goldstein explains the many flavors of loving-kindness that we can try.

This 2018 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed.

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This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein explicates:

• The unconditional quality of metta
• Helping each other see our individual loveliness
• Using mantra to evoke the feeling of loving-kindness
• Metta as a tool for deep concentration
• Experimenting with the different ways metta can be applied in meditation
• The three aspects of practicing of loving-kindness
• A 12-minute guided metta practice to settle into the feeling of well-wishing

“There are two main purposes for doing metta meditation. One is metta, or loving-kindness, which can be used as a vehicle for developing concentration. So, not only for the metta quality itself, but it is a technique or a method for developing strong concentration, even to the point of absolution.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Guiding us in three short, guided meditations, Joseph Goldstein helps us break down our identification with the body and the self.

This talk from the Insight Meditation Society was originally published on Dharmaseed.

In this episode of Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein guides us in:

• Accessing deeper meditative states outside of a retreat
• Turbo-charging our practice through shorter meditations we can do in our daily lives
• Finding the mental areas where our mistaken sense of self is created
• Listening to sounds and considering the ‘knowing’ rather than being a “knower”
• Breaking through the identification we have with the body
• Directly experiencing bodily sensations and their changing nature
• Watching our thoughts and being aware in their moment of arising
• Enlivening our understanding of the Buddha’s teaching through a combination of practices

“This exercise allows us to see the selfless nature of thought and gives us the ability to choose which are helpful, which are not. Which do I act on, which do I let go of.” – Joseph Goldstein

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