Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of 04 November, 2024

Ayala Gill

We’re delighted to have Ayala Gill guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and enrich your practice.

This week’s theme is: Love’s Fullness

 

Mindfulness is a practice of remaining present, open and loving to the deepest truth of this moment as it arises and dissolves. It invites us into an intimate, warm and embodied relationship with life, where each moment is sensed, felt and known with love. The four foundations of mindfulness return us to love’s fullness.

"Lovefulness" of the Body

November 4, 2024

Feeding the Worms ~ Danusha Lemeris

Ever since I found out that earthworms have taste buds all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies, I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley, avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots.

I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden, almost vulgar—though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can, forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.

"Lovefulness" of Feeling Tone

November 5, 2024

“Yes, We Can Talk” by Mark Nepo.
Or here:
Yes We Can Talk
Having loved enough and lost enough,
I am no longer searching,
just opening.

No longer trying to make sense of pain,
but trying to be a soft and sturdy home
in which real things can land.

These are the irritations that rub into a pearl

So we can talk awhile
but then we must listen,
the way rocks listen to the sea

And we can churn at all that goes wrong
but then we must lay all distractions down,
and water every living seed.

And yes, on nights like tonight
I too feel alone. but seldom do I
face it squarely enough
to see that it is a door
into the endless breath
that has no breather
into the surf that human shells
call god.

~ Mark Nepo

"Lovefulness" of Emotions and Mindstates

November 6, 2024

"Lovefulness" in Relationship

November 7, 2024

Love's Power

November 8, 2024

A few lines from Lord of the Rings:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time”, said Frodo.
“So do I”, said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
And a few lines from the song “We Shall be Known” by MaMuse:

It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of 13 January, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Milla Gregor guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: How to respond to an unjust burning world (without losing your mind)

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Kate Johnson

    Radical Friendship – Practicing Freedom in Unfree Places

    In these times of isolation and uprising, how can wise relationships be a refuge? Join us for an exploration of the Buddha’s teachings on spiritual friendship, and how they can help us embody freedom in all our relationships as we navigate the path to collective liberation.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Nov 1, 2021

    This week’s theme is “Embodied Metta – The Body as a Pathway to Freedom”.

    The Buddha’s teachings invite us to be with things as they are. This week, we’ll learn embodiment practices to help us cultivate true love, compassion and care for ourselves and for others. We’ll practice staying intimate with our body, mind and heart in daily life, in sexuality, and with (often unwanted) thoughts, feelings and emotions.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    On Teachings and Teachers

    People often ask about the importance (or not) of working closely with a teacher. One can benefit greatly from general meditation instruction, but personalised guidance from someone who knows you and your practice well can be deeply helpful. In this session, Martin speaks about approaching teachers for guidance and about the dynamics of the teacher-student…

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    Liberation through the Heart (Citta Vimmuti)

    Most people associate Dharma practice with the concept of Wisdom. Here, the idea is that we need to “know” something that we don’t already know. For English thinking minds this can become very problematic and can turn our practice into a cognitive or intellectual endeavor. With the earliest teachings of the Dharma we see that…

    Read More

  • What does Liberation Mean?

    Buddha-Dharma teachings offer unparalleled insight into Truth, both ultimate and relative. Yet many practitioners fall into the belief that regular meditation alone will lead to breakthrough experiences and liberation-reinforced by the image of Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree.True liberation requires more than mindfulness practice. It transforms our entire conditioning: our ethics, how we view…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of June 26, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Living in Sacredness”. Meditation is more than a practice of being present. The way in which we are present determines whether we reinforce habits of separation, or re-weave the fabric of sacredness. During this week we will explore the sacredness of body, breath, consciousness, emotions and beliefs. Returned to the embrace of sacredness, we plant seeds of Love in a world of separation.

    Read More