Daily Meditation Recordings, with Caverly Morgan – Week of April 27
Caverly Morgan
We’re very grateful to have Caverly Morgan hosting our Daily Meditation Series for North America. To find out more about Caverly, and to view her past recordings and contributions to Sangha Live, click here.
Dharma teachings importantly emphasise suffering, compassion, renunciation, desire, non-reactivity, peacefulness. All these are potent themes, yet ones which can make our practice feel overly heavy, unnecessarily serious, maybe even uptight! Dharma practice equally points us towards a playful nature, light-heartedness and ease, delight and the capacity to really enjoy life. Especially when we can get…
Finding a comfortable body posture when meditating is a crucial element in our practice. We can use our bodies as a way of experiencing change and impermanence. In this session, we will be looking at ways to make our bodies comfortable for meditation – both standing (if appropriate for your body) and sitting. We will…
This week’s topic is Healing Shame and Guilt. Psychologists describe shame as soul-eating emotion. Shame and guilt prevent us from developing trusting connections with others and a healthy sense of appreciation for ourselves. The Buddha taught that systems of self-reference such as shame and guilt can cause pain and stress. To find liberation is to find freedom from these deeply harmful emotions. We will look at practical ways to find such freedom in our own lives.
The Diamond Sutra, possibly the oldest text on deep ecology, teaches that there are four notions that separate us from life that we must throw away: the concepts of self, lifespan, humans, and living beings. In this session we will learn practices that enable us to go beyond this limited perception of reality to touch how interconnected with all life we are.
Making an effort isn’t always easy; yet, how we show up really matters. Dharma teachings can help to enliven our sense of enthusiasm and energy on the path of practice. This week we’ll dive into different ways of engaging with our life, on the meditation seat and off. From soft delight to sustained dedication, let’s wake up fully with life — in life, and for life.
Practice places emphasis on seeing impermanence. Such a practice easily becomes habitual to the degree we miss the point. There is nothing reliable owing to impermanence. There is nothing we can depend upon in this world of mentality and materiality, inner and outer. If we abide deeply clear about this, the stress and fears fade…
When we turn our attention to the sensory, natural world around us, mindfulness practice can become easeful and expansive. Nature allures awareness through her beauty, and range of dynamic, enchanting experience. In this session we will practice cultivating attention to our sense experience, and discovering joy, peace and wonder in this very moment. Tune in from any peaceful environment outdoors with an internet connection, or indoors, ideally with a view of the outdoors.
Pema Chödrön writes, “It’s not impermanence per se, or knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation.” The truth of impermanence means that ultimately there is nothing we can rely on for lasting happiness. We will investigate the underlying feeling…