New year’s resolutions are often unrealistically ambitious and doomed to failure. In this first Sangha Live class of the year, our founding teacher Martin Aylward explores the art of wise commitment; how to refine what one is committing to in a way that is useful, precise, realistic and time-boundaried; elements that allow us to align our actions with our intentions in a way that is workable and empowering.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Awakening from fear.
Recorded :
December 6, 2015 We need not avoid fear. Fear belongs to the illusion of a self that is separate from life. It is the byproduct of identifying with that illusion. Often, fear arises in the very moment that our awareness practices are bringing us closer to a direct experience of who we authentically are. For this reason, in…
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Understanding Our Mind: Healing Blocks of Suffering in the Individual and Collective Consciousness
Recorded :
January 12, 2020 Drawing on Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching on the different layers of consciousness, we will explore the nature of the seeds that sleep in the depths of our mind. We can each learn to be skillful gardeners of our own and others’ minds, watering the wholesome seeds and skillfully caring for the unwholesome ones. As we…
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The Out Breath: Unlocking Concentration
Recorded :
June 16, 2024 Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.
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A Practical Approach to Understanding Right Effort
Recorded :
July 22, 2018 All schools of Buddhism acknowledge that if we are to “awaken” in this lifetime, our aim is to cultivate and develop the eight-fold path. This path consists of behavioral (sila), meditative (samadhi) and philosophical (panna) dimensions. When skillfully interwoven, this system of training directs us towards a liberation-based lifestyle by embracing the limitations and the…
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Dancing with Dukkha and Sukha: Meeting the 10,000 joys and sorrows of our daily lives
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May 7, 2023 In this ever-changing landscape of living, the buddha dharma and psychological inquiry offer us skillful ways to pause and soften into the things that bring pain and suffering, while also reminding us to fully embrace the many contentments and connections life also beautifully and innocently offers. In our time together, Sarah will invite us to…
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The beauty of the spontaneous movement of life
Recorded :
July 23, 2017 Nowadays, for most of us, life is so full, so fast and dispersed in so many directions: jobs, partners, children, family, house, everyday duties, mobile phone, internet, responsibility, stress, tiredness, worries … and when we find a small space, we fill it with hobbies, friends, sports, TV and every other little thing we usually don’t…
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The Four Sights
Recorded :
December 21, 2025 What truly inspires us to change our lives? Are aging, sickness, and death enough to make us turn things around? Today, we’ll explore the inspiration that drove the Prince on his journey, and ask whether it holds the same power for us. (Please note that unfortunately the guided meditation and start of the dharma talk…
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Your Most Expensive Resource
Recorded :
September 3, 2023 There is a substance we need for every meaningful part of our life. We only have a small amount of it, it’s being spent constantly, we can’t get more, and we’re surrounded by predators hungry for it. Attention: every moment we give it to something, and if we don’t choose wisely, a salesperson or an…
