We’re fortunate that Kaira Jewel Lingo has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK this week. Links mentioned during these sessions can be found at the bottom of this page. To find out more about Kaira Jewel, and view her other recordings on the platform, click here.
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Kuan Yin’s Prayer for the Abuser (author unknown)
To those who withhold refuge,
I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being.
To those who cause a child to cry out,
I grant you the freedom to express your own choked agony.
To those who inflict terror,
I remind you that you shine with the purity of a thousand suns.
To those who would confine, suppress, or deny,
I offer the limitless expanse of the sky.
To those who need to cut, slash, or burn,
I remind you of the invincibility of Spring.
To those who cling and grasp,
I promise more abundance than you could ever hold onto.
To those who vent their rage on small children,
I return to you your deepest innocence.
To those who must frighten into submission,
I hold you in the bosom of your original mother.
To those who cause agony to others,
I give the gift of free flowing tears.
To those who deny another’s right to be,
I remind you that the angels sang in celebration of you on the day of your birth.
To those who see only division and separateness,
I remind you that a part is born only by bisecting a whole.
For those who have forgotten the tender mercy of a mother’s embrace,
I send a gentle breeze to caress your brow.
To those who still feel somehow incomplete,
I offer the perfect sanctity of this very moment.
–gratitude to Celia Landman for sharing this in an email
Quote from the Jack Kornfield meditation: “The Sufi say, “Overcome any bitterness because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, we are each endowed with a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in compassion instead of self-pity.”
Audio of Jack Kornfield’s meditation, Compassion in the Time of Coronavirus
Recorded :
Dharma practice is sometimes seen too reductively through a uniquely meditative lens. This class looks not only at what you practice (methodology) but also at why you practice (ideology) and at your understanding of the nature of reality; the way you make sense of the universe, of time and space, self and world, life and…
Recorded :
In this ever-changing landscape of living, the buddha dharma and psychological inquiry offer us skillful ways to pause and soften into the things that bring pain and suffering, while also reminding us to fully embrace the many contentments and connections life also beautifully and innocently offers. In our time together, Sarah will invite us to…
This week’s theme is “Change, Loss and Dying: Meeting the Common Denominator”. When we come in touch with the fragility of our existence, it is only natural that fear or sadness might well up. The constant inward and outward change contrasts with our lack of control. To experience change, loss and death, is a substantial challenge for all of us. The Buddha did not shy away from these common human denominators, but offered perspectives and practices which allow us to meet them with compassion, while enabling the heart to rest in love and peacefulness.
Recorded :
We will explore through practice and teachings the importance of “appamada” or heedfulness, conscientiousness, or what Stephen Batchelor has translated as care. Appamada has been called the path to the deathless. ” Just as the footprints of all living beings with legs can be encompassed by the footprint of the elephant, and the elephant’s footprint is…
We’re fortunate that Kaira Jewel Lingo has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK this week. Links mentioned during these sessions can be found at the bottom of this page. To find out more about Kaira Jewel, and view her other recordings on the platform, click here. Monday, April…
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.
Recorded :
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….
This week’s theme is Making Sense of Self.
Although the Buddha encourages us to not indulgently ponder whether the self is real or not, he did offer us a way to explore how the sense of self appears. This methodology, called the khandhas (aggregates: the heap of heaps), exposes all aspects we gather together to create and hold to our sense of self: form (body); vedanā (subtle preference); perception; saṅkhāra (mental formations – like intention, attention…); and consciousness (knowing).