Podcasts

Here are two of the four talks offered at our most recent Spring Retreat at the Mount Madonna Center entitled, Living From Abundance. Please come join us some time.

What would it be like to be able to welcome any challenge as an invitation into awakening? Our relationship to our troubles determines the answer to this question. Are we avoiding anything? Are we at war? Harboring ill-will? Acting from desperation? Hungry for...

In this evening's Dharma talk, Michael addresses how beauty, and our sense of it, can be impediments to awakening. "It's not," he says, "that there is anything wrong with beauty. In fact, beauty is everywhere, all the time. The problem is that by labeling something as...

In this Dharma talk, Michael addresses how the ego is more comfortable with its own misery than it is uncovering the mystery of existence. This presents some problems for most of us since we rarely have either the courage or the guidance to move past this kind of...

This podcast was originally offered in February of 2006. ___ In tonight's talk, Michael discusses how our practice can be light, medium or deep. Deep practice takes us to the ragged edge of our personal limitations and in the process show us the view of the...

In this video podcast of Michael's most recent talk, Michael discusses how even in darkness, light can guide us. Perhaps the greatest desire for any of us, he suggests, is to be free of pain. But what happens in relationship to practice when we feel heavy with pain....

This podcast was originally offered in August of 2007. ___ Can we become familiar with what the ego feels like? In this talk, Michael discusses uncovering the fundamental truth that is beyond name and form. When we feel resistance to this truth, we are feeling the...

In this Dharma talk, Michael challenges each of us to look for the source of the ego. In doing so, we find that the "eGO!" as his 3 year-old daughter refers to it, is simply the name we give to the mind in motion. This label isn't anything substantial unless we...

In this video-taped Dharma talk, Michael McAlister discusses how beginning to objectify the experiences of both body and mind will help us to experience life and love more fully. Seeing, for example, that our sensations and perceptions are objects, allows for us to...

This podcast was originally offered in August of 2005. ____ If it's all only Spirit, why should we meditate? Couldn't it be that meditation is designed to fail in getting us closer to what's already totally present? In this talk, Michael discusses these questions and...