Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Nov 1, 2021

Nirmala Werner

Nirmala Werner

We’re fortunate that Nirmala Werner has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Nirmala, and to view her other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Recordings are posted 24 – 36 hours after the live session runs.

 

This week’s topic is Embodied Metta – The Body as a Pathway to Freedom.

 

The Buddha’s teachings invite us to be with things as they are. This week, we’ll learn embodiment practices to help us cultivate true love, compassion and care for ourselves and for others. We’ll practice staying intimate with our body, mind and heart in daily life, in sexuality, and with (often unwanted) thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Coming home to our body

November 1, 2021

Links to poems:

Mary Oliver – Wild Geese

Hafiz – If God Invited You to a Party 

Appreciation of the body

November 2, 2021

Links and quotes:

Quote from Rumi: “I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you into my heart. I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.”

Hafiz: Why Abstain from Love? Available in this collection of poems

Meeting difficult emotions with body, breath and voice

November 3, 2021

Links

A gentle embrace of sexuality

November 4, 2021

Links and quotes:

Galway Kinnell: Saint Francis and the Sow

Quote from Sri Ramakrishna: Oh longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature, do not seek your home elsewhere…your naked awareness alone, o mind, is the inexhaustible abundance for which you long so desperately. 

Heart connection and reaching out

November 5, 2021

Links:

Antonio Machado: Last Night As I Was Sleeping

 

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Willa Blythe Baker

    The Wisdom of the Body

    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.

    Read More

  • Vimalasara Mason-John

    Compassion is a Political Act

    This session is invitation for white practitioners and others to join Vimalasara in a discussion on the theme of liberation, the central tenet of Buddhist teachings. No one is liberated until we are all liberated. What if we made explicit that Black Lives Matter was part of the Bodhisattva vow? How would that impact our…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    An Open Heart in Hell

    After a summer of extreme heat, drought and fire, we may well enter the autumn wondering how to manage the grief at our fragile and collapsing ecology. Taking the title An Open Heart in Hell from Nick Mulvey’s recent song “Prayer of my Own“, we’ll use this session to honour the pains of the heart without getting…

    Read More

  • David Cabrera

    A Return To Naturalness

    From pure emptiness the wondrous appears… In the session we will explore different somatic approaches to cultivate a sense of calm and ease. An invitation into insight meditation and letting go into a natural state of flow.

    Read More

  • Nothing to Protect, Nothing to Prove, Nothing to Possess

    We are biologically wired to protect, promote, and satisfy a self that is always changing – a reflex that can keep us gripping the hot coal of resentment while waiting for the world to apologise. We’ll explore how equanimity, resilience, and relinquishment…

    Read More

  • James Baraz

    Changing the Channel: Opening to Goodness

    The barrage of frightening headlines often leaves us with feelings of despair, hopelessness, and negativity. While it’s important to feel connected to the suffering all around us, it is equally important to nourish ourselves by opening to the goodness in life–both inside and around us. Our caring can then be held with more spaciousness and…

    Read More

  • Dismantling Racism in Our Minds and Hearts

    If one lives as a human on this earth one is affected by racism. Power and privilege have been unfairly awarded throughout history to certain groups of people based on race while disempowering others. These systems function on a systemic and cultural level, but also within each of us individually when we unconsciously internalize messages…

    Read More

  • Wisdom and Heart Together

    The connection between wisdom (paññā) and the heart qualities, such as goodwill (mettā) and compassion (karunā), can be a delightful discovery in Buddhist practice. The clear, nonjudgmental awareness of wisdom can feel like warmth, inclusion, and safety when fully received. In turn, the truly open heart is free of the distortions of ill will and…

    Read More