Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Apr 29 – 3 May, 2024
Nirmala Werner
We’re fortunate that Nirmala Werner has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions. To find out more about Nirmala, and to view her 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 “Mindfulness of the nervous system: transforming fear, struggle and separation into love and connection“.
We humans are social animals and need each other to feel safe and secure, to grow and to nourish ourselves. How can we live with a sense of connection, loving-kindness, and inner family?
Our meditation practice allows us to take a break between stimulus and response. When we come into contact with our loved ones, we all too easily lose the inner freedom we think we have achieved and avoid our difficulties, also called spiritual bypassing.
This week we explore what supports us to react flexibly to the internal and external world, to relax and to allow closeness and real intimacy. We will look into the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, including harmonizing the body formations and nervous system to meet our difficulties with gentleness.
We live in a time when so many beings – human and more-than-human – are being physically displaced – by climate events, wars, aggressive deportations, and more. This mirrors an internal collective experience of disorientation and displacement. To find ground in the midst of accelerated change is our practice. In this Sunday insight gathering we…
The ancient and radical teachings of the Buddha point to the possibility to be a free, loving and happy human being in the midst of our everyday lives. Oftentimes our stress, dissatisfaction or suffering come not necessarily from the actual things or events themselves, but from our relationship to them. A different way of looking…
This week’s topic is “Awaken Self-Compassion”. For many of us it is easier to be friendly and compassionate with others than with ourselves. Old conditioning, limiting beliefs of not being worthy of love and are confining our hearts. Compassion is an essential part of our true nature. We all know how to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves – this is how we survived situations of suffering and loss in our lives. This week we will be exploring how to awaken Self-Compassion, allowing our hearts to soften and open with care. With a tender heart we begin naturally to respond to the world around us with clarity and compassion.
If you seek to deepen in your meditation practice, there is no better friend than the body. Like a venerable teacher, the body has the power to draw you into the present moment, show you how to find stillness and even—if you listen closely—wake you up.
How can we develop trust, steadiness and inner freedom, qualities which contribute to our well-being and resilience, and help us to help others? Trust (saddha in Pali) is the first of the Five Spiritual Powers, which are Trust, Energy, Mindfulness, Calm, and Wisdom. Trust is the primary means to dissolve and transform our anxieties, fears,…
There is a power in simply being here now. In times of trouble, the ability to be radically present might have more to offer than we think. Join Lama Willa as she explores this topic in this session.
The Buddha discovered that craving is the cause by which stress comes into play. Letting go of this constant pursuing of our desires is possible. Befriending this human and natural craving needs the power of kind awareness and an ongoing reflection: What feeds my craving? And: What feeds letting go?
Martin, the founding and guiding teacher of Sangha Live, leads our regular Sunday session, looking at skilful ways to meet this time of confinement and ‘forced retreat’. He offers various reflections on caring for ourselves and others, and makes plenty of time to share and explore together as a Sangha, as we lean into this…