Joseph Goldstein explores the path to freedom that the Buddha laid out for all of us and talks about the importance of developing and sustaining the quality of ardor in our practice.

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“What is ardency? I think we all have some sense of it in our very worldly lives. Just think of the feeling of ardor in the great love of your life, or in the first days of the great love of your life. What is that feeling of ardor like? There’s this powerful and sustained energy that is just so full in us. And it’s characterized by tremendous warmth of feeling and passion and enthusiasm and interest. That’s what ardor means. So can we cultivate that kind of ardor in our love of the Dhamma? In our love of the truth? That’s the quality that the Buddha is saying we need that, we need that passionate interest, that passionate energy to explore and discover.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode, Joseph talks about:

The path to freedom that lies in Vipassana practices and how these practices are rooted in the Buddha’s discourse, the Satipatṭhāna Sutta
The deeper meaning of some of the Pali words used in that discourse and why the Buddha frequently repeats some phrases
The importance of developing and sustaining the quality of ardor in our practice
How reflecting on the preciousness of human birth and understanding impermanence can help cultivate ardor
How Metta practice works together with Vipassana practice
How we begin to see that practice is not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of the whole world

This dharma talk from September 27, 2004, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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Ep. 153 – Ardor and the Path to Freedom

Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein