Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with news that heightens our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it’s vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. We need to remember how to stay connected to that place inside that makes life worth living. In this session we explore principles and practices from the teachings to incline the mind towards true well-being.
With James Baraz recorded on January 13, 2019.
Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
-
The meaningful life
Recorded :
November 11, 2017 How can we use our meditation practice to repair attachment disturbances caused by our early conditioning, so that we can be completely ourselves in our relationships with others and in our work, as we pursue the path of awakening?
-
Daily Meditation Recordings with Nathan Glyde – Week of January 29, 2024
This week’s topic is “Getting A Feel For Feeling”. As we perceive, we add a feeling (vedanā) to our experience. When we are unaware of this process and react to the projected feeling, it causes unnecessary suffering (dukkha). However, understanding this process and responding skilfully leads to one of the deepest senses of freedom available. Let’s explore this freedom through our daily meditations this week.
-
The Appropriate Response
Recorded :
May 8, 2022 When a monk asked the 10th Century Zen master Yunmen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?” Yunmen replied, “An appropriate response.” What is this appropriate response and how do we know we’ve got it right? Beyond linear formulas, Dharma teachings point to a natural intelligence that guides us in a spontaneous responsiveness to life….
-
Body and Heart: Qigong and Meditation for Harmony and Ease
Recorded :
November 3, 2024 Our heart’s experiences do not only affect our mental and emotional states. They also impact bodily experience, creating tension, tightness, spaciousness or ease. Likewise, our bodily experiences do not only generate physical sensations, but also inform and determine the energies of our heart. In this Sunday Sangha session, we will use qigong and meditation to…
-
The Paradox of Being: Alive & Aware
Recorded :
February 17, 2019 “The World is its Own Magic” – Suzuki Roshi As we practice and our understanding deepens, we’re often surprised by paradox. We begin to discover what the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra pointed to: Things are not what they seem… Nor are they otherwise. We intuitively know that there is more to life/reality then the usual, the familiar…
-
The Two Fundamental Roots
Recorded :
January 25, 2026 I reflect this Sunday on the profound Surangama Sutra teaching of the Two Fundamental Roots: The root of “beginningless birth and death,” and the “primal bright essence of consciousness.” The Buddha warns that not knowing these two essential principles renders one’s spiritual efforts into a doomed futility, like “cooking sand in the hope of creating…
-
The Procurement of Kindness and Sanity
Recorded :
April 26, 2020 Jill writes: “We all possess the capacity to be very aware of our internal landscapes of body, heart and mind. And fortunately, with practice, we can tend to what we see, feel and know as it all arises in the moment, rather than days, months or decades later. It sure saves a lot of pain…
-
Faith: Cultivating an Undivided Life
Recorded :
May 22, 2022 The divisiveness we see around us begins in the binary mind: self and other, me and you, us and them. In each moment, we like and don’t like, pick and choose, evaluate and judge. How can we untangle this tangle? This talk will explore how practice helps liberate us from our views and opinions, and…
Discussion