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

Search Sangha Live

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

    Recorded : March 8, 2020

    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

  • Leigh Brasington

    The Fruits of the Spiritual Life

    Recorded : April 17, 2022

    2 Kings. Palace Intrigue. A Murder. 500 Elephants. A nighttime visit to see the Buddha. And that’s just the backstory to one of the Buddha’s deepest teachings: his curriculum for spiritual advancement. Join us as we explore the lessons from the 2nd of the Long Discourses and gain a deeper understanding of how morality, concentration,…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of January 22, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Wholehearted Presence”. Meeting experience as it unfolds with presence and interest, we uncover the wellbeing and freedom available to us on the Dharma path. Through this week’s exploration we will open to what supports a wholehearted approach to practice, and understand what is nourished and cultivated when we relate to experience in this way. 

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    The Jewel of Sangha: We all need Community, Support and Love

    Recorded : September 15, 2019

    Martin writes: “Sangha is about community, support and love; it is one of the 3 jewels (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) of our practice. But in the individualistic cultures and atomised structures in which many of us live, sangha too often gets inadequate attention. This is especially true in the Vipassana / Insight meditation tradition, because while silent meditation…

    Read More

  • Kittisaro

    Exploring dukkha.

    Recorded : April 5, 2015

    Worldwide Insight talk from Kittisaro: “Exploring Dukkha”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of Mar 11, 2024

    This week’s topic is “To Be on the Road Without Leaving Home”. Zen Master Hakuin reveals an apparent tension between movement and stillness in this statement. What may the road refer to? What is called home? Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Meditations this week, inviting us to engage with this paradoxical dynamic. We’ll discover that stability and ground can become more spacious in every situation, every experience, and every condition. How it is possible to discover, or re-discover, home … endlessly.

    Read More

  • Wiebke Pausch

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Wiebke Pausch – Week of December 4, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Exploring the Art of Radical Rest”. Conditioned and surrounded by a restless culture, we are constantly driven towards self-optimisation and self-improvement. Our practice is often affected by the striving and the effort to become a perfect meditator. We will explore together how to rest in the midst of all that is unfinished and imperfect. When we allow ourselves to rest deeply, experience can unfold naturally and we come into contact with the very essence of being alive. 

    Read More