Audio: Toni Packer 1993
The following talks by Toni Packer are available on audio tape only.
February 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
- Where are we this moment?
- How are we listening?
- Are we looking at the same time?
- Fear, knowing, authority.
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| Day 2 |
- Why do we come together as a group?
- Is there some significance to working together?
- This state of no separation is not what is going on for me.
- Is it possible to listen to inner stuff in the same way as one perceives something outside?
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| Day 3 |
- What's the use of this work when everything just keeps repeating itself?
- How freshly can we be with something that is so repetitive.
- What is the value of being awake?
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| Day 4 |
- Fear - is it possible to remain with it.
- Choice.
- What is free choice.
- Is there a chooser?
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| Day 5 |
- Why don't we see the danger of our ideas?
- Can one really be of help if there's a motive?
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| Day 6 |
- Is effort needed to come to insight?
- Where does insight come from.
- Is it possible to live without judgment?
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April 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
- What is this kind of listening that is talked about?
- Imitating.
- Taking over each other's repertoire.
- Can we find out what is being said and not just believe it?
- Authority.
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| Day 2 |
- Does effort have any meaning in spiritual practice?
- Is there any such thing as right effort?
- Is my yearning for stillness also an illusion?
- Right understanding.
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| Day 3 |
- What is effort and what is resistance?
- Tiredness.
- Rushing.
- When our energy is blocked do we feel we have to make an effort to overcome it?
- Allowing energy to gather.
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| Day 4 |
- Resisting change.
- Isn't there some effort involved in attention?
- The deeper my attention the more fear I feel.
- Is it dangerous to attend too much?
- Existential anxiety.
- Death.
- Is it possible to come upon love without demanding it in someone else?
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| Day 5 |
- Anger, violence.
- Annoyance with others.
- Anger and children.
- How can one look at anger?
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| Day 6 |
- Are we just psychological beings, concerned with anger, fear and other psychological phenomena?
- What are the basics of human life?
- What do we think we need as an alive human being?
- Attachment to a continued existence.
- Clinging to the security of what I think I know about myself.
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June 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
- Creating authority in someone else (he or she knows better); in oneself (I know better).
- What is listening?
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| Day 2 |
- Discouragement over the persistence of discursive thought.
- What can I come back to in a moment of awareness?
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| Day 3 |
- What is meant by "looking at thoughts"?
- Is it possible to be aware while thinking?
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| Day 4 |
- The sense of self, its formation and our experience of it.
- Identification with the body, with everything we think we are.
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| Day 7 |
- Does the chattering mind cover something that beckons to be looked at?
- Is it possible to illumine the network of "me" that is there with thinking about oneself?
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| Day 8 |
- Why do we "forget" that there is a different, open, way of being?
- Trying to become someone.
- Getting used to things and people.
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| Day 9 |
- Is there free choice?
- What happens in the moment of reaching for that extra helping of food?
- Fear of dying.
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July 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
- Can we become aware of a conditioned way of listening?
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| Day 2 |
- What shall my focus be?
- Allowing the body to be felt.
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| Day 3 |
- Effort.
- What is spirituality?
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| Day 4 |
- Why do I get hurt?
- Listening without an observer.
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| Day 5 |
- What is the "me" and this feeling of separateness?
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| Day 6 |
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August 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
- Listening.
- Authority.
- Meeting each other anew.
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| Day 2 |
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| Day 3 |
- Hurt.
- Defensiveness.
- The importance of working together.
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| Day 4 |
- Change.
- Choice.
- Thought and storyline.
- Addiction.
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| Day 5 |
- Choice.
- Intelligence.
- Suffering.
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| Day 6 |
- Self-image.
- Love and compassion.
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September 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
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| Day 2 |
- Pain in sitting.
- Is any practice recommended here?
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| Day 3 |
- Judgemental labels.
- Wondering if we're making progress.
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| Day 4 |
- How can one not judge what is going on in the world?
- Right and wrong.
- Prejudice.
- Seeing that the "I" is just image and thought, not reality.
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| Day 5 |
- What is this "I"?
- Absorption in thoughts and feelings of self-concern.
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| Day 6 |
- The fight for survival.
- One's life story.
- Being everything and nothing.
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November 1993 Retreat
| Day 1 |
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| Day 2 |
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| Day 3 |
- Discouragement.
- What is meditation?
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| Day 4 |
- Meditation.
- What happens when we get hurt?
- Joy and love.
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| Day 5 |
- Dangers in meditation.
- Why do our habitual scenarios return over and over?
- Can we wake up in the morning and see the world as new?
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| Day 6 |
- Dealing with sorrow.
- Is this universe just "meaningless impermanence" or is there love and intelligence?
- Who loves all of this?
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