Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of September 7, 2020
Martin Aylward
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.
Attuning to what's here using reference points in meditation
September 7, 2020
Using these sessions to support your commitment to your practice
What do sitting on the meditation cushion and running have in common? How might this form of movement be included in our mindfulness practice? Brian Dean Williams, both an insight meditation teacher and an avid trail runner, explored this with us at our weekly Sunday session.
This session explores different ways in which attention works and associated meditation practices: from focused awareness, to flexible awareness, to natural awareness. We do a number of fun experiential practices in hopes of understanding a variety of ways to meditate and how we can refine our own practice.
The Diamond Sutra, possibly the oldest text on deep ecology, teaches that there are four notions that separate us from life that we must throw away: the concepts of self, lifespan, humans, and living beings. In this session we will learn practices that enable us to go beyond this limited perception of reality to touch how interconnected with all life we are.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has shared that compassion is not a luxury but a necessity for human beings to survive. There is no more important time to understand and strengthen compassion than right now.
Consider that your presence on the cushion doesn’t guarantee balance. It’s what you bring to the cushion that matters. The same could be true of the fullness of our lives. It’s what we bring to it. What shifts when we focus on creating a life of certainty? A life of certainty that whether you are…
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….
So often we struggle because we’re resisting, fixing, changing, or even “transcending” our experiences. What shifts when instead of pushing our emotions away, we invite them closer in? What changes when we learn to relate to our emotions like a welcoming friend? And, what changes when we are able to access the place in which…