Consider that your presence on the cushion doesn’t guarantee balance. It’s what you bring to the cushion that matters. The same could be true of the fullness of our lives. It’s what we bring to it. What shifts when we focus on creating a life of certainty? A life of certainty that whether you are in the darkest spot of a tunnel or whether you are in the blazing sunlight of an open meadow, your inner state doesn’t change. Your understanding of yourself doesn’t change. It is in your consciousness that spaciousness exists.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Time and Timelessness: Finding Refuge, Finding Inspiration
Recorded :
October 30, 2022 Certain moments, events and experiences open our awareness beyond the everyday to a sense of something more eternally present. Meditation points our attention to just this place, which the poet TS Eliot called ‘the point of intersection of the timeless with time’. Contemplating life from such a perspective we can often find fresh resources of…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of Mar 11, 2024
This week’s topic is “To Be on the Road Without Leaving Home”. Zen Master Hakuin reveals an apparent tension between movement and stillness in this statement. What may the road refer to? What is called home? Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Meditations this week, inviting us to engage with this paradoxical dynamic. We’ll discover that stability and ground can become more spacious in every situation, every experience, and every condition. How it is possible to discover, or re-discover, home … endlessly.
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The Inquiring Mind
Recorded :
June 21, 2026 The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand each other. In this talk, we’ll be discussing some foundational understandings that provide a framework of this inquiry. It will include such topics as training our habits of attention, suffering as…
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Faith in the Three Jewels
Recorded :
February 24, 2019 Booker writes: “Growing up in the Baptist faith, I was taught to believe what I was taught, and to not have my own experience or exploration; to not know for myself. This didn’t sit well with me as a child! During this teaching, I will share my spiritual journey from Bright Faith to Verified Faith….
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Deep Ground Living
Recorded :
November 10, 2024 How can we live from the ground of presence, being ourselves in peace with others, while doing what needs to be done? This Sunday we’ll explore what is essential for living in the midst of life with both peace of mind and peace of heart.
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How to be an Earthling
Recorded :
March 14, 2021 During this session we will use mindfulness meditation to explore our nature as nature, helping us to become more at ease and accepting of our lives and our place in the scheme of things.
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Freedom without Expectations
Recorded :
October 1, 2023 One of the Buddha’s primary realisations was ‘Life is painful and then you die.’ If this is true, then how do we respond to the difficulties of life? This session will explore how we are conditioned to protect, promote and satisfy a ‘self’ which can never be satisfied because ‘we are the slaves of craving.’ There will…
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Gladness of the Wholesome: The Buddha’s Teaching on Awakening Joy
Recorded :
January 15, 2023 The Buddha was known as The Happy One. Though Joy is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening, with so much emphasis on working with suffering, joy can sometimes seem frivolous or unspiritual. His teaching on attending to the ‘Gladness Connected with the Wholesome’ is a key aspect of Wise Effort and developing a loving heart. We will practice and explore together this foundation for awakening joy.
Discussion