Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of October 30, 2023
Miles Kessler
We’re fortunate that Miles Kessler has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Miles, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Recordings will be posted by the end of the day of the live session.
This week’s topic is “Meditation In A Time Of Crisis“.
As the world spirals into yet another all too frequent crisis, we are once again confronted with our basic human fragility. At times like these, it is not uncommon to be overcome by insecurity, anxiety, and fear with the recognition of your own human vulnerability.
Now more than ever, it’s helpful to rely on your Dharma practice as a refuge. Not as a practice of liberation that gives you refuge FROM the world, but rather as one that gives you refuge IN the world. Join Miles in this week of Meditation In A Time Of Crisis and cultivate your greatest spiritual resource.
This week’s theme is “Samadhi – Doors of Harmony”. The Buddha encouraged us to nourish, calm, gladden and liberate our heart-mind (citta). To know ways to inner harmony, stillness and contentment independently of outer circumstances is a precious resource. It contributes to resilience, allows steadiness in challenging situations with others and brings confidence into our lives. Yet the path towards samadhi can be easily misunderstood and contribute to more pressure and self-doubt. We dedicate this week to exploring kind and nourishing ways to practice.
The extremes of addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification are not the path to happiness. The spectrum of human sensuality spans from pleasure to pain, pleasant to unpleasant, from hedonic excesses to self-harm, encompassing a vast range that is likely different for everyone. What is considered the Middle Way for a monastic might…
This week’s topic is Skills for Inner and Outer Transformation. Dharma practice gives us great tools for inner and interpersonal change. It’s empowering to explore how these can also be useful for social and environmental transformation. We will tour such qualities, including equanimity (upekkha), non-self (anatta), and sukha (yes, pleasure!). Together, we will draw on both traditional and more contemporary voices to show how your skills as a practitioner could be vital to the work of changing the world.
Awakening, freedom, liberation … these are the premise and promise of the Buddhist Path. This session will explore the theme of awakening and liberation, and reflect on how practice can support us to find freedom right where we are.
We live in challenging times. Biologists speak of micro-systems where species sequester during times of crisis. They are called refugia. In times of uncertainty and fear, we too need refugia, places of spiritual safety where we can put down roots, grow and thrive. In this Sunday teaching, Willa invites us to explore the concept of…
Gautam Buddha said he gained nothing from complete awakening. What are our everyday experiences of the magic of less? Trying less does not mean less energy, connection or insight. How little effort is needed to hear a sound or to feel the ground? Simply listening to a friend with ease and no answers can leave…
In this session we’ll explore opening to the practices of vastness of awareness. Through listening and sensing we will open up to a sense of spaciousness and explore letting go within it.
Without a doubt, Buddhism is recognized as one of the world’s great religions. For almost three millennia these ancient teachings have spread rapidly around the globe influencing humanity in a variety of ways. Needless to say, the historic Buddha, (Siddharta Gotama) did not teach Buddhism, he taught the Dharma as a means to overcome suffering…