AUDIO Discourses

Below are live audio recordings taken from various retreats and workshops given by Burgs. If you find these recordings helpful and useful, then please help us raise money for those who are less fortunate than ourselves by making a donation. All proceeds are given to our charitable causes.

Newly Added Audio Talks

• Committing to Sila (Discourse): Burgs discusses the basis in which we can expect to be successful in our meditation practice.

Guided Meditations

• Anapanasati  (Guided Meditation): An introductory guided meditation by Burgs, to establish concentration and mindfulness on the breath.

• Four Elements (Guided Meditation): A guided meditation by Burgs to develop awareness and mindfulness of the Four Elements of materiality.

• Mindfulness of the body (Guided Meditation): A guided meditation by Burgs to develop mindfulness of the body part by part either as a Samatha or Vipassana practice.

• Lovingkindness (Metta) (Guided Meditation): A guided meditation on Lovingkindness or Metta Bhavana. “Bhavana” means “cultivation” or “development,” and “Metta” is a word that means “love,” “friendliness,” or “loving kindness.”  This is a meditation practice where we actively cultivate positive emotional states towards others, as well as to ourselves. As we begin to experience forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and unconditioned love we can turnaround the negative mind states of anger, resentment, envy and fear. Metta can be developed as a Samatha practice up to absorption. The practice of Metta is always taught at the end of all the retreats.

• How to set up your meditation to get beyond the lower mind  (Guided meditation): An instruction in tuning into the stillness of the room, which connects us to the ‘Higher Mind’ or awareness as ‘such’.

Reflections and Discourses taken from the Beginners Usada
and The Art of Happiness Meditation retreats

• Introduction talk on anapanasati (mindfulness of the breath) with a few tips (Discourse): This short discourse talks about setting up your breathing meditation practice using a few tips from Burgs. It can be especially helpful for those who experience headaches or a ‘busy mind’ during their meditation practice.

• Four Elements  (Discourse): An introduction to the Four Elements meditation practice.

• Four Elements (Discourse): A discourse on ways to further develop the Four Elements meditation practice.

• So what is this meditation all about?  (Discourse): Burgs discusses the true essence of the Dhamma and what is the real sign of progress. Recorded on January 2011 Usada retreat.

• The Warriors Stance  (Discourse): How we might find the courage to truly surmount the challenges in our life, taken from a retreat in 2006.

• Pure and impure mindfullness (Discourse): This discourse discusses the difference between the deliberate but contrived application of Mindfulness as an exercise in paying attention and restraint in the early stages of meditation, and the higher state of pure awareness which is the direct perception of things within the experience of the awakened mind.

• The basis for lovingkindness to arise in our mind  (Discourse): The opening discourse taken from The Art of Happiness retreat in March 2011

• Love Yourself Now (Discourse): Recorded at The Art of Happiness Retreat in March 2011.

• Developing forgiveness through the practice of LovingKindness (Discourse): Recorded at The Art of Happiness Retreat in March 2011.

• Reflections on Love  (Discourse): Reflections on the hearts longing for true love, and to know God, in our quest to try and make sense of this world.

• Two Kinds of Happiness (Discourse): A discussion on the pursuit of Happiness in the here and now, and the happiness that is the result of the causal cessation of suffering.

• The Hearts Deepest longing (Discourse): A discussion on the True Nature of Love and how the knowledge of this Love is one of the Hearts Deepest Longings.

• Help for the Dying  Part 1 (Discourse): A discourse given when the father a participant on retreat fell and broke his neck on the evening before he was meant to join the retreat.

• Help for the Dying  Part 2 (Discourse): Concluding the reflections on helping the dying.  How we might make our life meaningful and let go the vexations that could hinder us at the end of this life and interfere with our ability to make peace with ourselves.

Discourses given whilst on longer retreats

• The Basis of Samatha Meditation (Discourse): An introduction to the serenity and tranquility aspect of mental cultivation, taught by The Buddha as Right Concentration in The Noble Eightfold Path.

• Anapanasati (Discourse): An introduction to the practice of mindfulness of breathing. This meditation practice is often the starting point for beginners. It is a foundation for Samatha practice – Right Concentration – as taught by the Buddha in The Noble Eightfold Path, and cultivated up to, and including, the absorption or Jhana states.

• Loving Kindness to Absorption (Discourse): Burgs discusses Metta in more depth and how it may be developed as a Samatha practice to absorption, explaining that the greatest happiness that the human mind is able to experience is when taking Metta as the object for third Jhana.

• Love and Wisdom as Healing Energy (Discourse): A short discourse by Burgs on how Love and Wisdom are used to heal sickness.

• Mindfulness of the Body (Discourse): A discussion on how mindfulness of the body, one of the four foundations of mindfulness taught  by the Buddha in the Mahasatipatthãna Sutta, may be developed in different ways: as a Vipassana practice for cutting off attachment by viewing the body’s impermanent nature and inherent loathsomeness; as a practice for bring about healing in the body; and as a Samatha practice for developing concentration up to Upacara Samadhi or 1st Jhana.

• Reflections on Jhana (Discourse): Burgs discusses the first four absorption or Jhana attainments.

• The Direct awareness of No Self in Vipassana (Discourse): A reflection on how the direct experience of No Self in Meditation can greatly accelerate progress upon the path of Vipassana meditation. “He who perceives emptiness as empty will not complete the path. He who perceives emptiness as not empty may complete the path”.

• Various Experiences of Enlightenment (Discourse): Burgs describes some of the more rarefied states of consciousness that we may experience in our meditation. These include the state of spontaneous presence known as the clear mind element, or Rigpa; the various stages of jhana experienced by a concentrated mind; and also the deathless state, Nibbana.

French Translation Discourses

• The Direct and Gradual Paths Part 1 (Discourse)[English & French]: Part one of a discourse where Burgs discusses the differences between the Direct Approach found in Dzogchen teachings, and the Theravadan teachings of  the gradual, systematic path to an awakened experience. Laying the grounds for each of these practices.

• The Direct and Gradual Paths Part 2 (Discourse)[English & French]: Part two of a discourse where Burgs discusses the differences between the Direct Approach found in Dzogchen teachings, and the Theravadan teachings of  the gradual, systematic path to an awakened experience. When is it appropriate to practice each of these paths?

Miscellaneous Discourses

• Introducing Dreaming (Discourse): Burgs start to introduce some of the ideas behind the dream retreat. Recorded on retreat in March 2011.