Florida Community of Mindfulness

4-10-22

In this talk, Dharma Teacher Fred Eppsteiner share with us teachings on love and compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us "It is my conviction that we cannot change the world, if we are not capable of changing our way of thinking, our consciousness. That is why awakening, collective awakening, collective change in our way of thinking, our way of seeing things is very crucial. And all of us can help to promote that. Our task is to come together and to produce, to try to produce a kind of collective awakening.

And there are many ways in order to bring about that kind of collective awakening and change. And that is why to learn to change our way of daily life, so that there is more mindfulness, more peace, more love, is a very urgent thing. And we can do that – beginning now, today."

Peace begins with me. If we want a peaceful world, we have to become peaceful people; free of anger and hatred. We have to uproot the seeds of anger and hatred within ourselves through mindfulness, love, and compassion.

03-20-22

In this talk from our four-day silent retreat, Fred shares teachings and practices from a practice text that Thay wrote to summarize the meditative path, "Fourteen Verses on Meditation." It presents the practices of Stopping (samatha), Deep Looking (Vipasyana) and the non-intellectual experience of Emptiness and Non-self as the means of liberation from suffering (Breakthrough).

1-9-22

In this talk, Dharma Teacher Fred Eppsteiner share with us his experiences with Thich Nhat Hanh and share with us not only the history of Thay's Engaged Buddhism, but it's true meaning and how we can practice this engagement in all of our actions each and every day.

3-6-22

In this talk, Dharma Teacher Fred Eppsteiner share with us a letter he received about FCM's beautification of the gardens. Fred responds to the letter in his talk examining intention, generosity, beauty, and what does it mean practice generosity and be of benefit. He asks us to reflect on the question "is creating beauty an act of generosity?"

Bankei was a Zen master who presented the path of awakening as something simple, practical, readily apparent and available to anyone who would follow his directions. Although his early meditation practice was quite arduous and strident, after his enlightenment, he realized that accessing the Unborn Born Buddha Mind was a much easier and relaxed process than he had imagined. In this final talk of our online retreat, Fred shares with us the teachings and, most importantly, the practices taught by this illustrious master to understand and experience this Unborn Buddha Mind that each of us possess.

12-19-21

In this Dharma talk, Fred Eppsteiner relates the story of the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens', "A Christmas Carol." Through this story, Fred explains how we can all transform the suffering we experience from living a life devoted to self into a happy, meaningful life filled with love and compassion for others.

12-12-21

The Florida Community of Mindfulness has a very clear vision and mission that it seeks to realize. It also has eight essential principles, or "core values," that underlie, motivate, shape and guide the community. In this talk to students of FCM, teacher Fred Eppsteiner more deeply describes the core values of Awakening and Community.

11-21-21

Dharma teacher Fred gives a talk during a retreat titled "Learning How to Love."

In this four-day retreat, Fred guided participants in the teachings and practices found in the Buddhist tradition that train our hearts and minds to become vessels of love and understanding. No longer hoping that a change of heart will happen spontaneously or become a random occurrence, we practice developing the ability to generate the heart of love and compassion in all life situations and relationships. We also looked at those historical mind states and self-centered orientations that sabotage the loving heart and establish barriers.

October 24, 2021

In this talk, Dharma Teacher Fred Eppsteiner continues to shares with us early teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh found in Thay's writing "Zen Keys." Thich Nhat Hanh tells us "The aim of Zen Buddhism is a clear vision of reality, seeing things as they are, and that is acquired by the power of concentration. This clear vision is enlightenment."