Our current situation is giving us great practice with discomfort. whether we’re experiencing small inconveniences or significant disruption. Dharma teaches us that this very discomfort is a gateway to realization. Once our efforts to soothe or transcend run dry, we gain the opportunity to develop insight, freedom, and true bodhisattva compassion. Compassion that is at ease with entering and engaging in even the most uncomfortable realms. This Sunday, Justine will take us on a tour of the ancient sutras of Vimalakirti, exploring how we can stay open and even playful with the uncertainty and discomfort of this time. And how that just may make us better bodhisattvas.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Two Wings to Fly – Cultivating Both Wisdom and Compassion
Recorded :
July 25, 2021 In traditional Theravada Buddhism it’s said that for one to truly experience freedom one needs to engage in the practices of both wisdom and compassion. Like a bird that needs two wings to fly, wisdom and compassion are two necessary parts on the path to a well-rounded enlightenment. At first glance, practices that cultivate loving-kindness…
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The Dharma and the Drama of Sex: Everything you Wanted to know about Dharma and Sex but were too Spiritual to Ask
Recorded :
November 18, 2018 Sex is everywhere. It’s how we got born, it teases us from advertising boards on every city street, it drives some of the biggest industries, and it provokes some of the most intense stimuli in body, heart and mind. Yet dharma teachings, even in a lay context, mostly ignore sex. It is not spoken about…
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Settling Into Your Body In Meditation
Recorded :
December 8, 2024 Finding a comfortable body posture when meditating is a crucial element in our practice. We can use our bodies as a way of experiencing change and impermanence. In this session, we will be looking at ways to make our bodies comfortable for meditation – both standing (if appropriate for your body) and sitting. We will…
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Awakening to the New Year: creating conscious intentions
Recorded :
January 7, 2018 When we move on behalf of the recognition of our true nature, a conscious intention becomes a way to align all aspects of our lives with our deepest understanding and recognition of truth. A conscious intention is seeped in possibility. While it may even look similar on some level, on the surface, to a conditioned…
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Appreciation and joy
Recorded :
September 11, 2017 We can cultivate the attitude of appreciation and allow it to enhance and strengthen our mindfulness practice. Shaila Catherine speaks about the powerful impact that joy and appreciation can have on the quality of our minds, and the development of our spiritual path.
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Awareness Shift: Knowing the Nature of the Body, Heart/Mind through the 5 Elements
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February 27, 2022 Sometimes a simple shift of our perception can change our sense of everything and allow for a fresh experience of the personal and transpersonal simultaneously. There is so much more ease in a relaxed, open view. By widening our awareness aperture and somatically exploring our composition, we revisit connection. Sensing the organic arising and passing of…
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Discovering the Joy of Sensory Awareness: Mindfulness in Nature
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February 12, 2023 When we turn our attention to the sensory, natural world around us, mindfulness practice can become easeful and expansive. Nature allures awareness through her beauty, and range of dynamic, enchanting experience. In this session we will practice cultivating attention to our sense experience, and discovering joy, peace and wonder in this very moment. Tune in from any peaceful environment outdoors with an internet connection, or indoors, ideally with a view of the outdoors.
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The Relative is the Absolute: Touching Race, Injustice, and Love
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October 7, 2018 When we engage in the distortion that the relative plane is separate from the absolute – that it is something to transcend or ‘just an illusion’ – we ignore the reality of the illusion. When we know ourselves as a whole which subsumes everything, we cease to diminish or dismiss the mystery of being human….
