We’re fortunate that Jaya Rudgard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Jaya, and to view her other contributions to Sangha Live, click here.
This week’s topic is “Living Slowly“.
Recordings are posted 24 – 36 hours after they are first streamed.
Recorded :
So much of what we hear and learn about within Dharma practice places an arguably unnecessary emphasis on suffering (dukkha). While the acceptance of suffering (dukkha) is an important and essential aspect of the path, it is by no means the end of the story. In one of the Buddha’s oldest descriptions of what it…
Recorded :
Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.
This week’s theme is: Mudita – Celebrating Aliveness. Our hearts possess infinite capacities: they can express friendship in the most surprising circumstances and turn with tenderness and care to those who suffer. But aside from kindness and compassion, there is also the potential for deep appreciation, ease, delight and joy within us. While such perspectives are always available, the access might be blocked by voices of doubt, shame or negativity. In the upcoming weekly sessions, we strengthen our capacity to find nourishing perspectives and to rejoice in the beauty within and around us with the help of guided meditations and practices for everyday life.
Recorded :
What if the concept of time is part of our suffering? In this talk, we’ll look at the impact of our attachment to schedules and productivity and explore the ways that Buddhist teachings challenge these conventional understandings. By investigating our relationship to time, we learn ways to practice and to cultivate liberation from suffering for…
Recorded :
Who is not anxious these days? Whether faced with the daily stresses of finances, jobs, responsibilities, parenting, family, or the ongoing anxiety of political events and ecological crisis, most of us are anxious. In the US, anxiety rates have risen to 18% of the population, and 25% in Europe for those struggling with depression and…
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.
Recorded :
What is pleasure and what is happiness? Why is my pursuit of happiness not working? Is there any lasting happiness? Together we inquire into the nature of happiness. We reflect on different attempts in our lives to find happiness and what stops us from being contented. Inspired by the Buddha’s own quest for a genuine…
This week’s topic is “May I be kind to myself”. May I be kind to myself – coming home to kindness and giving ourselves the love and care we need and deserve. What helps us to nurture this love – especially in the most challenging moments? We will explore how we can move towards more tenderness and open heartedness for ourselves and others.