Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein

Joseph Goldstein explores gradual cultivation, highlighting that even if we are suddenly awakened, we still must have an ongoing practice to work with hindrances and ingrained habits.
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This week on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein discusses:
The areas of life where clinging shows up most
How clinging to sensory pleasures is so embedded in our culture
Lightening up for enlightenment and not taking ourselves so seriously
How a sense of humor can benefit our practice
Unhelpful attachment to view and opinion
The unity of clarity and emptiness (self-existing wakefulness)
The Buddhist meaning of unborn/unformed
Uprooting of the view of self with the understanding that there is still more work to do
Having an ongoing, gradual cultivation of skillful means
This episode was originally published on Dharmaseed and recorded at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, a non-profit organization founded by renowned meditation teachers Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg to integrate Buddhist study and practice.
“Very often, people can have genuine realization and have a really deep understanding, and then get attached to that as if everything is done. So very often these folks can get engaged in skillful behavior, thinking it’s all coming from their deep realization, it’s really coming from all the work that still needs to be done.” –Joseph Goldstein
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Continuing his exploration of selflessness, Joseph Goldstein helps listeners live in the balance of both relative and ultimate truth.
This episode is a continuation of a talk that started in episode 259, "Selflessness, Dukkha, and Freedom."
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.
This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein discusses:
The impersonal nature of experiencing peace
Seeing with consciousness rather than with the subjective mind
Reframing the language of experience with a passive voice
Being fully present in the moment without identification
Understanding death and dying as the natural flow of impermanence
Having an easeful mind even when the body is afflicted
Understanding both relative and ultimate truth
The wonderful and joyful practice of generosity
This episode was recorded at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and originally published on Dharmaseed
“We work to understand the dynamics of our conventional reality and all the challenges of it, even as we understand the essential selfless nature of it all. This is really the heart of a mature spiritual practice, the union of these two, not the separation." –Joseph Goldstein
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Unpacking the Buddha’s notions of self and nonself, transience and suffering, Joseph Goldstein leads listeners into the heart of liberation.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.
This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein illuminates:
Why the Buddha paid so much attention to the concept of self
How a felt sense of self traps us in desire and attachment
Seeing the term ‘self’ as a designation rather than something that exists in and of itself
Slight adjustments to our language during practice: ‘the body breathes’ rather than ‘my breath’
Using the template of The Five Aggregates to describe experience
Genuine experiences of momentary peace as a peak into Nirvana
Taking an interest into the landscapes of our own minds
Transience and the way that things are always becoming otherwise
The ungovernability of the mind, the body, and all aspects of reality
How selflessness can lead to both Dukkha and freedom
This episode was recorded at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and originally published on Dharmaseed
"As long as we are caught up, identified, and entangled in the view of self, then we spend our lives defending it, gratifying it, grandiosing it, judging it; we have all these responses that come out of this felt sense of the self." –Joseph Goldstein
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Distinguishing aspiration from striving with ego, Joseph Goldstein gives listeners permission to have a sense of purpose along their spiritual path.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.
This week on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein discusses:
Having a sense of purpose within the impersonal nature of all things
Aspiration: understanding why we are practicing
What the Buddha said about purpose and aspiration on The Eightfold Path
Seeing the world objectively without reference to the self
Being a great faith follower versus a dharma follower
Resting in our practice and letting go of unhealthy striving
Insight Meditation Society and its commitment to diversity
Maintaining the right attitude and openness to all experiences
This episode was recorded at the Insight Meditation Society Forest Refuge and originally published on Dharmaseed
"The Buddha definitely laid out a goal. The Eightfold Path leads someplace—it's not just meandering around, not going any place. The Eightfold path is leading to awakening, to enlightenment. We can have that aspiration which sets the direction for our practice, we can say that is a sense of purpose, but we're seeing it not so much in terms of an egoful striving, but a realization of our values and what leads to the accomplishment of our values." – Joseph Goldstein
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Joseph Goldstein discusses equanimity and how to remove the self from the knowing, effectively freeing ourselves from identification with awareness.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.
This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein mindfully explores:
Thoughts as passing phenomena that do not truly belong to anyone
Seeing all experiences as the simultaneous arising of both knowing and object
Letting go of our identification with knowing and awareness
Shifting from active voice to passive voice as a mindfulness practice
The near enemies of the mental qualities listed in the Brahmaviharas
Equanimity and holding all things equally, seeing things for what they are
The difference between impartiality and indifference, openness versus carelessness
Navigating the complexity of our lives through the balance of compassion and equanimity
Maintaining an interest in exploring rather than relying on our preconceptions about people and situations
This episode was recorded at the Insight Meditation Society Forest Refuge and originally published on Dharmaseed
“When you look for the mind there’s nothing to find and the not finding is the finding. It’s to see that there is nothing to find and when there is nothing to find, there is nothing to identify with.” –Joseph Goldstein

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