Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of November 23, 2020
Martin Aylward
We’re fortunate that Martin Aylward 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.
Patience and perseverance
November 23, 2020
Spacious, luminous awareness (or, Awareness isn't bothered by your "stuff")
November 24, 2020
Deepening practice over time
November 25, 2020
The fundamental ground of awareness
November 26, 2020
The three bodies of the primordial ground, and deepening your practice
Even if you’ve been meditating for years, you probably encounter old patterns that seem impervious to your mindful awareness. Maybe at times these patterns are dormant, but during challenging moments they reappear and perhaps feel intractable. In this session we’ll explore inquiry practices that can help interrupt and disentangle the mind from its habitual “stuck”…
Right now, holding certainty about many aspects of life is impossible. Together we explore how our practice can support us when not knowing feels groundless and how we can find freedom even when the rug is pulled out from under our feet.
The great Black American singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder once sang, “Love’s in need of love today.” His words couldn’t be more true as we face a global community struggling with war, poverty, illness, climate instability, and the rise of political authorities and governments who do not seem to be grounded in compassion or kindness….
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.
If there is one practice that defines the quality of the Buddha’s teachings, it is right view. This is a wisdom path. Right view is the beginning and ending of the path. Right view comes first among the eight path factors because it is needed for the entire path. Right view can be described as…
The aggregates are a reference to our sense of self. Working with form, feeling, perception, identification, and consciousness as we go through our daily lives will support equanimity. Most importantly, it will help us work with emotions with greater efficiency.
Our practice cultivates qualities of boundless love, whether through loving kindness practice, or opening to the love inherent in deep states of awareness. But can we really love everyone boundlessly? What about political leaders who may be causing tremendous suffering? Or when our boundaries get crossed in any way—personally, at work, in our families, or…
In our consumer culture, we fall for the illusion that more choice-in things, work, people, even spiritual paths-leads to more freedom, when often the opposite is true. As Jack Kornfield says, we live “in an era of unlimited desires but limited resources, when we think it’s the opposite.” More mindful awareness of our consumption isn’t…