Wisdom and compassion are sometimes called the two wings of awakening — and a practice built on only one of them will eventually veer off course.

In this talk, Travis Hicks introduces the four heart practices — loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — and makes the case for weaving them into a meditation practice that might otherwise lean heavily toward insight and awareness.

Travis walks through each of the four brahmaviharas, including both their far enemies (hatred, cruelty, envy, indifference) and their subtler near enemies (sentimental attachment, pity, forced cheerfulness, aloof detachment). He offers practical guidance on how to work with the phrases, when visualization helps, and why starting with someone easy — kindling the fire with small twigs before adding the wet log — matters more than people often realize. He closes with a reflection on how these practices off the cushion, noticing that genuine metta toward a difficult person isn't just an exercise — it's a retraining of the heart.

About Travis

Travis Hicks has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1995 and teaching since 2005. He completed a two-year teacher training program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center under the guidance of senior teachers in the Theravada tradition. Travis brings a warm, accessible style to the dharma, drawing on both classical Buddhist teachings and contemporary psychology. He leads weekly sittings, daylong retreats, and occasional residential retreats for the IMH community.

Whether you're new to meditation or have been practicing for years, coming back to the basics is always worthwhile.

In this introductory talk, Travis Hicks lays out the essential qualities of mindfulness — presence, non-judgment, awareness, acceptance, and returning — and explains simply what we're actually doing when we sit down to practice.

The talk covers why the body is such a reliable anchor for presence, what it means to observe the mind without trying to change it, and how the classic simile of the two arrows points to where our real suffering comes from. Travis also touches on the relationship between mindfulness and skillful effort — how accepting what's here and working to change unskillful habits aren't contradictory, but actually depend on each other. Clear and accessible, this is a good talk for anyone wanting a grounded overview of what this practice is and why it matters.

About Travis

Travis Hicks has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1995 and teaching since 2005. He completed a two-year teacher training program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center under the guidance of senior teachers in the Theravada tradition. Travis brings a warm, accessible style to the dharma, drawing on both classical Buddhist teachings and contemporary psychology. He leads weekly sittings, daylong retreats, and occasional residential retreats for the IMH community.

Dependent origination is one of the deepest teachings in Buddhism — and also one of the most misunderstood.

In this talk, Travis Hicks works through the Buddha's teaching on dependent co-arising, the framework that answers a question the Four Noble Truths point to but don't fully explain: how exactly does suffering arise, and where can we actually intervene?

Moving through the chain — from aging and death back through birth, becoming, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, and consciousness — Travis shows how each link conditions the next, and why most of them aren't places where we have much practical leverage. The one place we do? The gap between feeling tones and craving. That's where meditation practice does its quiet work, moment by moment. He also walks through three common ways of understanding the teaching: as a map of moment-to-moment mind states, as a framework for a single lifetime, and as the traditional three-life view that connects karma and rebirth. No definitive answer is given on which is right — just a clear, honest look at what the teaching says and what it asks of us.

About Travis

Travis Hicks has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1995 and teaching since 2005. He completed a two-year teacher training program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center under the guidance of senior teachers in the Theravada tradition. Travis brings a warm, accessible style to the dharma, drawing on both classical Buddhist teachings and contemporary psychology. He leads weekly sittings, daylong retreats, and occasional residential retreats for the IMH community.