Dharma practice encourages us to see the present moment clearly – to meet and respond to it well. What is here in this moment? Another dimension of practice is to learn to appreciate absence: What is this moment free from? Having skill in both these dimensions brings us closer to the joy and peace that the Buddha spoke of.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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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 Human Face of the Buddha
Recorded :
February 28, 2021 Most of us know the Buddha as a revered spiritual sage. Less is known about the person, Siddhartha Gautama, who was also a social revolutionary. In this talk, we will explore how Gautama upended the caste system in India and examine his problematic relationship to women. We’ll see how understanding the Buddha as a human…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Apr 29 – 3 May, 2024
This week’s topic is “Mindfulness of the nervous system: transforming fear, struggle and separation into love and connection”. We humans are social animals and need each other to feel safe and secure, to grow and to nourish ourselves. How can we live with a sense of connection, loving-kindness, and inner family? Our meditation practice allows us to take a break between stimulus and response. When we come into contact with our loved ones, we all too easily lose the inner freedom we think we have achieved and avoid our difficulties, also called spiritual bypassing. This week we explore what supports us to react flexibly to the internal and external world, to relax and to allow closeness and real intimacy. We will look into the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, including harmonizing the body formations and nervous system to meet our difficulties with gentleness.
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Courageous Conversations, and Speaking from the Heart
Recorded :
July 28, 2024 Join us for an experiential practice and embodied inquiry into speaking from the heart and engaging in courageous conversations. Our challenges are gateways to relational presence. By bringing compassionate awareness to habits of mind that can obscure clarity within the relational field, we can perceive more clearly from the heart. Through deep listening — to…
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Dharma, Desire and Eros
Recorded :
May 9, 2021 Eros is life force, the energy that animates our being. Eros fills our spiritual life with vitality, our minds with creativity, our ideas with embodiment and our relating with rich intimacy. To live full lives we need access to eros; without it we become dry, rigid, flacid and withholding. Yet what place does it have…
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Living From a Sense of Call and Response
Recorded :
November 26, 2023 Deep listening goes beyond merely using our ears; it encompasses engaging our eyes, hearts, and bodies as well. As practitioners of meditation, we can also learn to listen with mindful awareness. In this session, we will explore how call and response, a musical concept, also applies to meditation and our daily interactions. Join us, and…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of September 19, 2022
This week’s topic is “Compose Yourself”. Dharma teachings appear to pull ‘us’ in two directions: on the one hand we pacify, renouncing and let go of everything, even of ourselves; on the other we energise, expanding our being into interconnection, to extend a limitless, inclusive welcome to all everywhere. But in actuality, we discover that there is no contradiction with this mismatch. For the well-composed practitioner, expanding goodwill and liberating release harmoniously and melodically intertwine.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Caverly Morgan – Week of June 1
We’re very grateful to have Caverly Morgan hosting our Daily Meditation Series for North America. To find out more about Caverly, and to view her past recordings and contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, June 1 Collective CARE and addressing whiteness Wednesday, June 3 Grounding and releasing “shoulds” Friday, June 5 Honoring the song…
