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

Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of January 15, 2024

Ulla Koenig

We’re fortunate that Ulla Koenig has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Ulla, 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 theme is Tending to Fire – An Exploration of the Third Noble Truth

 

The third of the four noble truths, which the Buddha offered as a framework, invites us to reflect on ways to tend to the inner fires or urges, which we all experience. ‘Nirodha’ is a concept which invites us to explore ways to handle that fire: to contain it, to create safe space around it and not to fuel it further, so that it eventually expires. This week, we explore concepts like ‘freedom of/from/to’ as well as letting go and letting be.

Aware of the Fire

January 15, 2024

Taking Refuge in Awareness

January 16, 2024

Needs, Wishes and Desires

January 17, 2024

Ulla’s translation of the 3rd noble truth: “There is a noble truth concerning the cessation of suffering. It is the complete fading away and cessation of this craving; its abandonment and relinquishment; getting free from and being independent of it.”

The above quote is taken from here: https://suttacentral.net/

Freedom to Respond

January 18, 2024

The Myth of Letting Go

January 19, 2024

Ulla talked about ways to limit clinging and craving and brought seven ways the Buddha mentioned in MN 2:

  • Pay attention to what you pay attention to – what might I pay attention to, which is more likely to create craving
  • Protecting the sense doors
  • Reflect what we really need
  • Practice resilience with unpleasant experience
  • Avoid experience which might unbalance the heart-mind
  • Willpower: Consciously decide what you do not want to engage with
  • Develop supportive qualities which nourish and stabilize the heart-mind

(From MN 2 – https://suttacentral.net/mn2/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin)

 

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of July 19, 2021

    This week’s theme is: Identifying the Many Masks of the Inner Critic

    Often we think of the inner critic as the constant nagging inner discourse which dismisses our good qualities, questions our lovability, and our potential for goodness. Being a master/mistress of disguise, the inner critic takes on many forms; it wraps our decision making process in veils of doubt, pushes us into compulsive activity, traps us in paralysis, and distorts our views on others.

    Luckily, the Dharma path offers us tools to meet this painful heart-mind dynamic. This week we will practice summoning qualities like wisdom, kindness, equanimity, concentration, appreciation, compassion and inquiry, in order to meet our inner critic in a skilful way.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Leaning Into Collapse

    The fires and floods of this summer, and the ongoing pandemic and its complexities, can weigh heavy on the heart, along with the shocking but unsurprising new IPCC report confirming the ‘inevitable and irreversible’ worsening effects of the climate disruption, ecological collapse and existential emergency we are already living through. This class, led by Sangha…

    Read More

  • Human Body – Earth Body – One Body

    The Earth speaks to us through our bodies. By contemplating the elements we come to understand that all life on Earth is simply interbeing. Through this sensed understanding we begin to transform human supremacy into human response-ability, a deepening of our inborn capacity for a healthy regenerative relationship with ourselves and our world. Quote: The…

    Read More

  • Ven. Pannavati Bikkhuni

    All Worldly Dharma is Buddha Dharma

    Nowadays, many Buddhist practitioners have mistaken views. Taking the false to be true, we can make some progress, but not much. Only in the light of wisdom can we awaken to the truth because it allows us to penetrate avidya — the karmic hindrance of non-understanding that is complicating our lives. Join us for a discussion…

    Read More

  • Tara Brach

    Self-compassion.

    Worldwide Insight talk from Tara Brach: “Self-Compassion”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.

    Read More

  • Abandoning the Future – Caring for All Days to Come

    To care for our lives, the lives of all beings and the earth is all at the heart of what it means to be a human being. Yet, speculating about the future, and tensing up in fearful anticipation of days to come, are not skillful expressions of care and wisdom. There is a better way….

    Read More