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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of Nov 22, 2021

Jaya Rudgard

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.

 

Recordings are posted 24 – 36 hours after the live session runs.

 

This week’s theme is “Similes and Images from the Ancient Texts“.

 

Each morning this week we’ll dive into one of the images from the natural world and daily life that the Buddha used to explain his teachings. Let’s see how how these similes and metaphors from the Buddhist texts can support our understanding and enrich our practice. We may also discover how practising with them can enhance our appreciation of the world around us.

The tree and conviction: becoming a refuge for oneself and for others

November 22, 2021

The cloth and persistence: cleaning up our world from the inside out is the way to happiness

November 23, 2021

The cowherd and the doctor: mindfulness means tending with care

November 24, 2021

Water images and the cultivation of samadhi

November 25, 2021

The light of wisdom: seeing clearly what was previously hidden

November 26, 2021

Discover more from the Dharma Library

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    Gladness of the Wholesome: The Buddha’s Teaching on Awakening Joy

    The Buddha was known as The Happy One. Though Joy is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening, with so much emphasis on working with suffering, joy can sometimes seem frivolous or unspiritual. His teaching on attending to the ‘Gladness Connected with the Wholesome’ is a key aspect of Wise Effort and developing a loving heart. We will practice and explore together this foundation for awakening joy.

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  • Joy is Always Available

    On autopilot, our mind often resists opening to joy with: “But right now in my life, there is …” So we explore what stands in our way of the unexpected ordinariness of joy. We’ll discover how the awakening factor of meditative joy (piti) illuminates our capacity to open to delight and rapture, allowing our hearts…

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  • Beyond the Self-Improvement Project

    It’s common to come to the spiritual path seeking relief from psychological suffering or emotional pain. The modern wellness industry presents mindfulness and meditation as the ultimate antidote to stress and personal foibles. Yet the Buddhist path is about something far deeper than stress reduction or having an agreeable personality. In this session, we’ll explore…

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  • Waking down

    Rather than waking up it seems that most of us need to wake down. How can our insights and the awakening process move from being primarily experiential to becoming functional, relational, and lived? In this session Leela explores spiritual practice as a fundamentally earthly practice. How do we awake a presence that does not contract…

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  • Being Real Together

    Let’s pause. How are you doing in this time as all is showing up for reckoning at the same moment? Take some kind breaths, and have a moment of compassion for your self, others, and for it all. In today’s session let’s pause quietly, recalibrate, and check in. 

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    The colouring of awareness.

    Meditation practice trains our capacity to be aware, in real time, of what is happening. But what is colouring your awareness? We can pay very clear and steady attention in a way that is also demanding, defensive or deluded. Or we can give attention in a way that conduces to wisdom, spaciousness, equanimity and kindness.

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  • Forgiveness: The Practice of Returning to Love

    A heart rooted in compassion longs to uplift and free all beings. Yet holding such a heart is not always easy. We stumble, we protect, we carry wounds. In our time together, we’ll explore forgiveness as an act of self-compassion-a way to meet our own suffering with kindness, and to restore the dignity that pain…

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