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 :
A deep application of attention includes the sustained application to any important experience. This includes a vast range of happy or painful, spiritual or conventional experiences. There is the view of the experience and the experience. What is a fresh way to see an important experience? Does the view of the experience matter more than…
Recorded :
“Things are not as they seem, and nor are they otherwise” – Lankavatara Sutra. We easily get seduced by certainty – thinking we really know what we want, what we believe, and who we think we are. Yet Dharma teachings invite us to hold experience lightly, without reducing our knowing to narrow certainty; retaining a…
Recorded :
The 5 precepts often given to lay practitioners are (with positive instructions in parenthesis): I vow not to kill (Love and support all beings)I vow not to steal (generosity)I vow not to misuse sexuality (contentment)I vow not to lie (compassionate truthfulness)I vow not to intoxicate self or other (staying mindful) We can think of precepts…
We are delighted to have Nirmala Werner guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and enrich your practice. This week’s theme is: Embodying the Four (or Five) Elements: Meditation for Everyday Presence. Rooted in Buddhist wisdom, this practice invites us to connect with earth, water, fire, air, and space as living forces within and around us. By attuning to their ever-shifting qualities, we find grounding amidst change-an anchor of presence, steadiness, and clarity to meet the movements of daily life. Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
We’re delighted to have Shireen Jilla guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May her teachings enrich your practice.
This week’s theme is: Equanimity: Balancing at the Centre of the Seesaw of Life
Every morning we will explore a different aspect of equanimity, this inner steadiness, and how we nurture it in our practice. What is this felt sense of spacious ease and how is it a wise check to overwhelming compassion? Actively engaging with our experience, how do we deeply let go? And finally, potently, we will explore equanimity as the gift of grace.
Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
Recorded :
Sympathetic Joy (mudita) is one of the four noble qualities recommended by the Buddha on the path of awakening. Such joy arises from appreciating the good fortune of self and others.
This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.
Recorded :
Mindful presence is the necessary ground of compassion and care. With presence, we courageously enter an intimacy that connects us with ourselves, each other and the world, body, heart and spirit. The beautiful truth is that presence and love can grow and blossom through the practices of meditation and mindful loving awareness. Let’s join together…