Using dhamma talks

Thanissaro Bhikkhu has a website with audio dhamma talks, that is simple and easy to use.

His talks were completely different than the books I had read about meditation in my 20s. Those books were written to understand meditation intellectually. The problem with that is that the practice of meditation is not primarily an intellectual thing, like learning chemistry or the law, but a skill, like learning to drum or play football. There are people that know all about football, and can even make a living talking about football, but have never played football in their life. The books of my past taught me how to talk about meditation, but not how to actually do it, and use it as part of my life. So Thanissaro's talks were like a revelation, and I ate them up. His website has over 20 years of almost daily talks, and a page that will let you choose a random talk and listen. So at first I was hitting random, listening to a talk, and doing that over and over. Sometimes I'd listen to a half dozen talks a day.

I learned how these talks are used at his monastery. In the evenings, the monks would meditate for an hour. At the beginning of the hour, Thanissaro would give the talk while the monks began to meditate, and then when the 10-20 minute talk was over, they would continue to meditate for the remainder of the hour. I started to do this, and created a little 20 minute mp3 of silence, and a bell sound mp3, and then I would download a random talk, and then with the VLC media player and drag first the talk, then the bell, then the silence, then the bell again into a little 4 items playlist and then use that to meditate. The bells and silence let me know when the time was up, and I didn't have to keep my eye on the clock.

I've been doing this for years, and I've found it really helpful. I spend no time searching other meditation sites or books, and all my time is spend simply listening to the dhamma talks from these two teachers, and meditating. I think many folks, especially intellectuals spend way to much time randomly searching for information, and talking about the ideas of meditation, but are not actually meditators. I try to avoid talking about meditation, and concentrate on doing it. If someone asks me stuff, I generally try to direct them to the meditation page, were you'll find links to both Thanissaro Bhikkhu and Gil Fronsdal dhamma talk library, one or two other useful links, and tell them how they have helped me.