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.
A sense of spaciousness is needed for inner change but the person of history obstructs the space that is always there. As our practice deepens space starts to replace self images. The more we are embodied and present, timelessness and space become more experientially available to us. The now starts to stretch and become wide…
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.
When a monk asked the 10th Century Zen master Yunmen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?” Yunmen replied, “An appropriate response.” What is this appropriate response and how do we know we’ve got it right? Beyond linear formulas, Dharma teachings point to a natural intelligence that guides us in a spontaneous responsiveness to life….
During this session we will use mindfulness meditation to explore our nature as nature, helping us to become more at ease and accepting of our lives and our place in the scheme of things.
During this session Martine practices and explores mindfulness of the feeling tones, which is the second foundation of the practice of mindfulness. First, she guides a meditation on mindfulness of the feeling tones. Afterwards she tries to define feeling tones and how to be mindful of them in our daily life. The Pali term Vedana…
Peace sometimes feels impossible to find. It is there for a while then something happens and conflict or friction returns. It may be conflict with ourselves, in relationships to people close to us, at our work place, or between social groups. Often we can feel despaired that despite much dharma practice and meditation, conflict keeps…
When we turn our attention to the sensory, natural world around us, mindfulness practice can become easeful and expansive. Nature allures awareness through her beauty, and range of dynamic, enchanting experience. In this session we will practice cultivating attention to our sense experience, and discovering joy, peace and wonder in this very moment. Tune in from any peaceful environment outdoors with an internet connection, or indoors, ideally with a view of the outdoors.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. – Dalai Lama
During this week we will explore how compassion informs and supports meditation practice and the deepening of understanding and wisdom. We will practice and inquire into different aspects of this powerful attitude and intention and taste for ourselves the impact it has on ourselves and the world.