The Ten Perfections #5: Engage with Skillful Effort

This talk explores how to attune to what is true.   You'll learn how to discern between conventional and eternal truth, two essential teachings of truth and how to use your relationships and wise speech as a doorway to greater clarity and self-awareness.

This talk explores how to cultivate the quality of patience and self-restraint.   You'll learn about the power of refraining from those who have caused you harm, how to endure hardship, how to cultivate greater confidence in ultimate truth and about the near-enemies of patience and forbearance.

This talk explores how to cultivate vitality, courage and resilience in your life.   You'll learn how you can manage the energy you have and how to build vigor and confidence to pursue that which calls you.

This talk explores how to cultivate wisdom and insight. You'll learn about the importance of cultivating the wise heart, what gets in the way of seeing clearly, the anatomy of an insight and how to balance wisdom with compassion.

This talk explores the potential of mindful renunciation.   You'll learn how critically important it is to know what is most important, cultivate the thoughts, behaviors and actions that will bring about that outcome and as well, identify and modify the the thoughts, behaviors and actions that get in the way of that outcome.

This talk explores how paying attention to your behavior can support you in your life. You'll learn how all traditions have guidelines regarding your moral behavior, how morality is often based on a negativity bias and how ultimately, it's up to you to determine what you really want and define for yourself what it means to be virtuous and in integrity.

This talk explores the power of cultivating an attitude of love and care in your life. You'll learn what the Buddha said about giving, how intimately receiving is connected to generosity, the shadow-side of the practice and the power of taking generous actions when you feel called.

How has your meditation practice shifted and changed since you first took it up?   Please join this conversation with Stephen Josephs, who shares how his mediation has evolved over 60 years of daily practice.   As one of the leaders in the Kundalini Yoga tradition at it's peak in the west, Stephen was a devoted practitioner in what he calls the 'fire practices,' willful and powerful practices that can dramatically change one's state.   But after many years of dedicated effort, the fire started to go out. His practice evolved into what he calls the 'water practices' - techniques and attentional strategies that are more about dissolving the sense of a separate self.   In this conversation he shares some of the essential elements of the water practices and we explore that gnarly question: What it is that is actually dissolving?     You'll come away with some key insights from a depth practitioner and a taste of how the dissolving practices might be of benefit to you.       With over 60 years of daily meditation practice, Stephen Josephs, Ed.D., brings a wealth of wisdom to his work. His expertise spans a diverse array of mind-body systems—including yoga, tai chi, and qigong—as well as specialized training in NLP, psychodrama, and body-centered psychotherapy. This breadth of experience fosters an open-hearted approach that helps students quickly realize the benefits of mindfulness. For the past 40 years, Stephen has focused on leadership development, integrating meditation as a core pillar for executive growth. He is also the co-author of Leadership Agility, a definitive study on how leaders mature and expand their capacity to lead.   For more information and to reach out to  Stephen:  https://www.stephenjosephs.com/   Teachers and Resources: Connierae Andreas and Core Transformation:   https://conniraeandreas.com/ Dr. Les Fehmi and Open Focus:  https://openfocus.com/home/ Bruce Frantzis  https://www.energyarts.com/about/

This talk explores the culminating factor of the Eightfold Path—Right Concentration—and the profound power of a steady, unified mind. In a world of constant distraction and fragmented attention, we investigate how deep focus becomes a gateway to inner stillness, clarity, and freedom. Drawing from classical Buddhist teachings and lived experience, this talk reveals how training attention is not just about meditation, but about reclaiming the depth, presence, and aliveness of your entire life.   You'll learn how to strengthen and stabilize attention through practical, time-tested methods, how to work skillfully with common obstacles like restlessness and doubt, and how concentration naturally matures from effort into ease. You'll also discover how a steady mind supports insight, emotional resilience, and a deep sense of well-being—opening the door to a more fully lived and awakened life.

This talk explores the movement from doing to being—from the disciplined application of effort to the natural ease of presence. After training attention, stabilizing the mind, and refining investigation, there comes a threshold where practice no longer adds anything, but begins to let go of itself. Through stories, humor, and classical teachings, we'll examine how effort serves us and how clinging to it can quietly become another form of tension. We'll explore how investigation matures into direct seeing, how awareness can rest without collapsing into dullness, and how the deepest freedom emerges not from control, but from trusting the field of awareness itself.   You'll learn how to recognize when effort is skillful and when it's simply habitual, how to allow investigation to complete itself without turning it into a project, and how to rest in open awareness with clarity and balance. You'll explore the shift from trying to manage experience to allowing it to unfold, sensing how awareness is already present and functioning without your help. We'll also point toward a deeper trust—how to relax into awareness without drifting, and how to live from this understanding in a responsive, engaged way. By the end, you'll have a felt sense of when to apply effort, when to release it, and how to let practice reveal the freedom that has been here all along.