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

Search Sangha Live

Daily Meditation Recordings, with James Rafael – Week of January 8, 2024

James Rafael

James Rafael

We’re fortunate that James Rafael has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about James, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Recordings will be posted by the end of the day of the live session.

 

This week’s topic is “New Year Habits and Hindrances”

 

In this week’s sessions we’ll explore how engaging with the Buddha’s teachings on the ‘5 Hindrances’ can help establish or deepen the habit of a daily meditation practice.

 

If you’re new to meditation, this framework offers ways to engage with common challenges we may face; “I can’t sit still’, “My mind is just too busy”, “I’m just not sure if this is working”.

 

If you have a consistent, established practice, revisiting the hindrances can be a gateway to access deeper levels of concentration (samatha), and the subsequent, often profound, insight (vipassana) which follows.

 

The 5 hindrances (obstacles) and the Buddha’s Pond

January 8, 2024

Hindrances in the suttas (ancient texts); tips for breaking / forming habits

January 9, 2024

Challenges and compassion; tips for working with sleepiness or restlessness

January 10, 2024

Doubt, shame, and the story of Mara

January 11, 2024

Deepening our practice, the forest pool, and habits

January 12, 2024

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of June 13, 2022

    This week’s topic is Healing Shame and Guilt. Psychologists describe shame as soul-eating emotion. Shame and guilt prevent us from developing trusting connections with others and a healthy sense of appreciation for ourselves. The Buddha taught that systems of self-reference such as shame and guilt can cause pain and stress. To find liberation is to find freedom from these deeply harmful emotions. We will look at practical ways to find such freedom in our own lives.

    Read More

  • Ralph Steele

    Discovering Diamonds in Darkness: Racism & Cultural Diversity

    Recorded : March 19, 2023

    Racism and cultural identity have indiscriminately been seeded into human consciousness since the beginning of humanity. The health of any community begins with the Sense of Self. This Dharma assembly will focus on our sense of self as we investigate consciousness using the Noble Truths for Awakening. Millions have followed this path of practice for millennia.

    Read More

  • Tara Brach

    Self-compassion.

    Recorded : June 7, 2015

    Worldwide Insight talk from Tara Brach: “Self-Compassion”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.

    Read More

  •

    The ‘Self’ is Insubstantial

    Recorded : February 5, 2023

    Humans live in the spell of the self, as if it had substantial existence.
    Dharma offers a reflection/meditation/inquiry into this phenomenon.
    One who asks ‘Who Wakes Up?’ lives in the spell.
    Teaching will offer ways to a non-intellectual realisation of emptiness of self.
    Be devoted to this in daily life – until obvious as seeing colour for one with sound eyesight.
    To wake up from the dream of self is liberating.

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 18 November, 2024

    We’re delighted to have Sophie Boyer guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring peace and depth to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: The Fruits of Attention

    What difference does a simple reorientation of attention do to this moment? How will it condition what comes next? Every day this week there will be an opportunity for the fruits of attention to be revealed such as care, generosity, and morality. Let’s explore this together.

    Read More