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

Search Sangha Live

Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of Sept 12, 2022

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 topic is (Be)Come As You Are.

 

Our driven-ness, our ruminating thoughts, and our feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety never allow us to simply ‘be’. They evolve around a sense of identity , a process the Buddha called selfing (bhava), a form of suffering (dukkha). We are endlessly trapped in a narrative of who we think we ought to be, were in the past and should be in the future.

We will dedicate our shared time together to build an awareness of these processes and find alternative ways to relate to the many experiences of life.

Who are you? – Exploring self-reference

September 12, 2022

Being me hurts - Suffering and selfing

September 13, 2022

Need a hug? - Embracing the sense of self

September 14, 2022

To become or to be? - From selfing to being

September 15, 2022

To become or to be? - From selfing to being beyond roles; the bliss of being nobody

September 16, 2022

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • The ‘Self’ is Insubstantial

    Recorded : February 5, 2023

    Humans live in the spell of the self, as if it had substantial existence.
    Dharma offers a reflection/meditation/inquiry into this phenomenon.
    One who asks ‘Who Wakes Up?’ lives in the spell.
    Teaching will offer ways to a non-intellectual realisation of emptiness of self.
    Be devoted to this in daily life – until obvious as seeing colour for one with sound eyesight.
    To wake up from the dream of self is liberating.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    The nature of experience. Part 1: Impermanence.

    Recorded : January 15, 2017

    Today’s session is the first in a special run of three consecutive sessions with Martin, where he looks deeply at the nature of experience through Buddha’s profound descriptions of reality – Impermanence, Emptiness, Non self-existence. The classes point directly to how these themes can come alive in our practice and understanding, looking at the personal,…

    Read More

  •

    Clear Presence, Sweet Absence

    Recorded : March 1, 2020

    Dharma practice encourages us to see the present moment clearly – to meet and respond to it well. What is here in this moment? Another dimension of practice is to learn to appreciate absence: What is this moment free from? Having skill in both these dimensions brings us closer to the joy and peace that…

    Read More

  •

    Resting in Love, as Love

    Recorded : July 9, 2023

    Consciousness itself is not disturbed by a busy mind. In practice, the ego takes this truth and says, “I will transcend mind.” But the “I” that experiences itself as separate from life cannot and will not ever know liberation. There is no such thing as an enlightened ego. What else is possible? Resting in Love,…

    Read More

  •

    From Dukkha to Freedom: Dharma in Times of War and Crisis

    Recorded : January 28, 2024

    Intense times of war and crisis can and does often lead to intense Dukkha. But a crisis can also serve as a bedrock to spiritual breakthrough, deepening of liberating insights and openness of the heart. The Upanisa Sutta talks about the possibility of stepping out of Samsara: that Dukkha can lead to Sadha, i.e faith and trust,…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Love and Dust: Opening your Heart Wide to a Dying World

    Recorded : May 12, 2019

    With the fragile condition of our eco-system finally breaking through into the mainstream news cycle, we can easily be overwhelmed by the loss of biodiversity and permafrost, the pollution of earth, air and oceans, and the attendant insecurity and danger to life on earth. We might struggle both with the information itself – the amount,…

    Read More

  •

    Wide Dharma, wide path.

    Recorded : November 13, 2016

    Many of us long to experience the Buddhist path in all of our lives, but really only feel its aliveness when we meditate. There’s an incompleteness, a gap, when it comes to our everyday activities and our relationships, where we catch only a whiff of the truths of suffering and the Path. But when we…

    Read More

  •

    Refuge, resilience and response in uncertain times

    Recorded : October 15, 2017

    By now, we can consciously acknowledge that our planetary state of emergency and ineffectual political response is impacting and fast changing our Dharma curriculum. We are being mercilessly shaken awake while at the same time facing overwhelming uncertainties. In this session, Thanissara explores how the Dharma, its practices and guidelines, can come to our aid…

    Read More