Dharma talks and guided meditations at Against The Stream Meditation Center. Against The Stream is an American Buddhist lineage founded by Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, Heart of the Revolution and Refuge Recovery.
Reading the feed…
The Six Sense Doors invite us to bring mindfulness into every moment of life—not just while sitting in meditation. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking all become opportunities to cultivate awareness and wisdom. The practice begins when we stop taking our experience for granted and learn to meet each moment with mindful attention. Which sense would you give up? How do you take your senses for granted?
Who do you think you are? The practice isn't about denying your experience—it's about investigating how the mind creates a sense of self through the Five Aggregates. Mindfulness helps us see experience more clearly, loosen our identification with "I," "me," and "mine," and discover the freedom that comes from taking things less personally. Who do you think you are? What do you think about yourself?
The Buddha taught the Five Hindrances as normal experiences of the human mind—not personal failures, but patterns that obscure clarity and create suffering. Craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt all become objects of mindfulness rather than obstacles to practice. Seeing these patterns clearly is how we begin to loosen their hold and cultivate wisdom. Which hindrance hinders you most?
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness build on one another—beginning with the breath, expanding to the body, feeling tone, and the mind. The fourth foundation invites us to investigate the objects of the mind, turning toward both the habits that create suffering and the qualities that support awakening. Mindfulness isn't about escaping experience, but learning to see it clearly with wisdom and awareness.
Most of us spend a lot of time either ignoring the mind or believing every thought it produces. The practice is to turn toward thoughts, emotions, craving, and fear with awareness instead of avoidance. When attention becomes steady enough, we begin to see the mind clearly rather than reacting to it automatically.
Most of our experience is being filtered through a simple reaction: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The Buddhist teachings on vedanā, feeling tone, point to how the mind perceives each moment and how quickly craving and aversion follow. Mindfulness begins with seeing clearly not just what’s happening, but how we’re relating to it. What are some of the things you find unpleasant?
Mindfulness of the body eventually leads to the contemplation of death and impermanence. The Buddha taught reflecting on the body not just through breath and sensation, but through decay, decomposition, and the reality that all bodies die. This isn’t meant to be morbid—it’s a direct practice of waking up to impermanence and letting go of attachment. What is your relationship with death? What happens to the body when you die?
We walk around thinking this body is fixed and solid, but on closer inspection it’s mostly water, heat, air, sensation, and constantly changing conditions. The practice of mindfulness of the body breaks experience down piece by piece, asking us to look directly instead of relying on assumptions. What happens when we really investigate the body we call “self”? How’s your relationship with your body? Do you relate to this body as a vehicle? Do you believe this body is who you are? Are you kind to your body?
Mindfulness isn’t just watching the breath—it’s a much broader training. The Buddha taught the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, starting with the body and expanding into a deeper, more inclusive awareness. What begins as a narrow focus becomes a practice of opening, seeing more clearly, and developing wisdom. How has mindfulness helped you so far? Does it help you manage stress, suffering, etc?
If you want to be free, it’s going to take effort—not once, but over and over again. Mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom don’t happen by decision alone, they come from consistent training. The path isn’t linear, and there’s no divine intervention—it’s the work you put in that changes the mind. How much faith do you have? How much do you believe in transformation?
How much of your suffering is tied to money—craving, fear, trying to secure the future? A wise livelihood isn’t just about what you do for work, but your relationship to money itself. Somewhere between clinging and avoidance, there’s a middle path that leads to freedom. What do you do for a living? How are you paying the bills? How do you earn money? Why did you choose this livelihood?
The Five Precepts point to a simple but powerful truth: our actions have consequences. Not killing, not lying, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, and staying clear-minded—each one protecting us from creating unnecessary suffering. This is the baseline of the path, where ethical action becomes the ground for freedom. Which precept do you feel you’ve learned the most from? How do you relate to the precepts?
Speech has consequences—every word shaping karma in ways we don’t always see. When we look closely, there’s a tendency to exaggerate, to minimize, or to leave things out altogether. The practice is learning to bring honesty and awareness into how we communicate. Are you an exaggerator or a minimizer? Or are you an omitter?
The path continues with intention—what’s behind our actions, not just the actions themselves. In the Buddhist teachings, karma is shaped by the motivation fueling what we do, whether it leads to suffering or to freedom. Learning to recognize and cultivate wise intention becomes central to the path. What is your intention? For your meditation? For your life aspiration? How do you think about the world?
Understanding isn’t about information—it’s about direct experience, insight into how things actually work. Dependent origination points to this: everything is connected, each moment arising out of causes and conditions, shaping the next. When we see this clearly, we begin to understand how suffering is created—and how it can be interrupted. What do you like seeing? What do you like hearing? What do you like touching? What do you like smelling? What do you like touching? What do you like to think about? What sense door gives you the most pleasure?
When you start paying attention, you begin to see that what we call the self isn’t as solid as it feels. There are thoughts, sensations, reactions arising and passing, but no fixed identity behind them. Understanding this directly starts to loosen the grip of clinging and opens the possibility of freedom. What do you believe about your self? Do you believe in a soul or that there’s no soul? Is it all meaningless? Is it liberating?
We’ve explored the cause of suffering and the end of suffering, and now the path itself begins with understanding. The first factor of the Eightfold Path points directly to karma—cause and effect—and the consequences of our actions. Every intention, every act of generosity or anger, kindness or judgment, is shaping the conditions of our lives. What do you think about karma? What do you believe about the consequences of your actions? Good or bad… Is karma on your radar?
Tonight’s topic is the Third Noble Truth—the possibility of liberation, awakening, freedom from suffering. The Buddha said he only taught two things: the truth of suffering and the end of suffering. This path isn’t about cosmology or belief; it’s a practical discipline of understanding the mind, transforming craving and aversion, and realizing the end of suffering. What’s your definition of enlightenment? What would it feel like for you to experience Nirvana? How would you know you’re there?
Tonight’s topic is the Second Noble Truth—the cause of suffering. The Buddhist word is tanha, often translated as craving, but more directly as an unquenchable thirst. That restless hunger shows up as desire, obsession, wanting, insatiable pleasure—the mind chasing satisfaction and never quite landing. When you think of desire, craving, wanting, what other words come to mind? What is causing your dissatisfaction?
Tonight’s talk is a conversation on spiritual friendship and the role of community in awakening, recovery, and practice. The Buddha emphasized taking refuge in the sangha—relationships and friendships that support wisdom, compassion, and meditation. This dialogue explores how spiritual friendship sustains us and why practice was never meant to be done alone. Do you have friendships that support your practice?
Even after years of forgiveness and compassion practice, there can still be things that push our buttons. The human mind holds resentment all by itself—it’s a natural, instinctual response to being hurt, a survival mechanism, not a personal failure. In this talk, we explore how resentment creates unnecessary suffering, and how it’s possible to meet pain with compassion and even those who have harmed us with forgiveness rather than anger. What’s the most difficult scenario for you to bring in compassion? What about forgiveness?
Tonight, we'll briefly reflect on your progress this year—specifically in areas like compassion, kindness, generosity, and reducing self-identification. I usually advise against checking your growth too often; spiritual development is better measured over decades than months or years. However, after a year of diligent practice, you might notice increased mindfulness, self-acceptance, and kindness compared to last year. Keep in mind that current moods can distort your perception of progress. The key is to reflect honestly: Did you consistently practice, attend retreats, and take actions support
This evening, I want to discuss a fundamental lesson from Buddhist meditation: learning to respond thoughtfully rather than simply reacting. I’ll explore this topic with you and aim to offer some practical tools for developing this skill. I believe that understanding how to respond instead of react is an essential aspect of meditation practice and something we continually strive to master. What’s your first reaction when you stub your toe? What’s the first thing you do? What’s the first thing you say?
Welcome, everyone. I don’t have a major topic planned for tonight. Instead, as I’ve mentioned before, I’d like to talk about a book that I’ve had for years but recently picked up additional copies of while visiting Sri Lanka last month. This book was originally written in 1901, making it one of the earliest translations of the Pali Canon—the foundational Buddhist texts—first translated from the Sri Lankan language into German in 1901, then later into English around 1907 or 1914. The book itself is quite simple and small, but it’s been an important companion throughout my decades of Buddhist st
Tonight, I'd like to discuss the challenges and suffering that come from being attached to being right, as well as the role of Buddhism and meditation in reducing this ego-driven tendency. Even when our views are correct, attachment causes distress. The Buddha notes that those who haven't meditated—“untrained worldlings”—lack the insight into the impermanent nature of things. How’s it feel to be right? How do you feel when you’re right? What does if feel like when you’re certain your right but someone else thinks you’re wrong?
