Unfortunately Martin is unwell this week, and is unable to lead the daily meditations. In the live sessions, we are replaying recordings from a year ago. They can be found here: https://sangha.live/dharma-library/daily-meditation-recordings-with-martin-aylward-week-of-april-12-2021/
We’re grateful to have Nirmala Werner guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and deepen your practice.
This week’s theme is: The Still Heart: Cultivating Equanimity in an Unsteady World
In a world marked by constant change, uncertainty, and emotional intensity, equanimity can seem like a distant ideal-or even a form of indifference. But in the Buddhist tradition, equanimity (upekkhā) is not cold or passive. It is the spacious, steady heart that knows how to stay open, grounded, and present with whatever life brings.
In this week we will explore equanimity as a deep source of inner freedom-neither detached nor reactive, but wise, loving, and awake.
Through daily reflection and embodied practice, we will ask:
What is true equanimity, and what is it not?
How can we meet change without losing our ground?
How do we love and let go-at the same time?
And how can we live with a still heart in a restless world?
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Recorded :
Patience can be one of those qualities which we think of as being theoretically helpful but feel little motivation to actually cultivate and strengthen. So much emphasis in our busy world of achieving goals and getting tasks done is about doing, taking action and fixing problems. We will spend this session exploring the benefits of…
This week’s topic is: Deeply Rooted, Fully Alive. This week we will explore the profound, yet accessible teachings of equipoise and equanimity. One of the best images for this sensitive balancing relationship with all things is a deeply rooted and flexible tree in a windy storm. The tree, equipoised, does not resist the wind, bending and yielding to its force. Yet, well nourished from the root, it returns to noble uprightness as soon as the pressure passes.
With Martin Aylward and Nathan Glyde
We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, March 23 The immediacy of experience Wednesday, March 25 Receptivity and responsiveness Friday, March 27 Real time Tuesday,…
This week’s topic is Kindle the Flame. Metta practice, which nourishes the heart’s capacity for friendliness, brings many benefits. It softens our relationship to ourselves, nourishes us with a sense of connection, puts challenges into perspective and offers a safe ground from which we can meet life with a sense of care. We dedicate this week to (re)ignite the flame of metta, using as an inspiration the Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, a famous discourses of the Buddha.
This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.
Recorded :
Coming to terms with the teaching and implications of the first noble truth can be challenging, confusing and ongoing. When we are unable to do the hard work of completing the task of the first truth, to embrace Dukkha, we become vulnerable to destructive emotions.