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

Dharma Practice as Play, or, There is no Path until you Walk It!

With Leela Sarti recorded on September 13, 2020.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

In our troubled world dharma practitioners sometimes become earnest. But beings learn and develop through play, and to play we have to be fluid in mind, heart and body. Play fertilizes the human spirit and makes us feel a sense of belonging. Welcome to a session exploring dharma practice as original play and creativity.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of March 14, 2022

    This week’s theme is: Gathering in the Goodness. ‘Drop by drop the pot of goodness is filled.’ -Buddha. Gathering in community we become more than the sum of our parts. We are each supported by, and supporting others — meditating alone is far less easy. Just so, in each moment of mindfulness we gather body-heart-mind from distraction into presence and open possibilities for greater and greater well-being; not just for ourselves, but for all beings.

    Read More

  • Beyond the Self-Improvement Project

    It’s common to come to the spiritual path seeking relief from psychological suffering or emotional pain. The modern wellness industry presents mindfulness and meditation as the ultimate antidote to stress and personal foibles. Yet the Buddhist path is about something far deeper than stress reduction or having an agreeable personality. In this session, we’ll explore…

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Dec 5 – 9, 2022

    This week’s theme is “Embodied Meditation Practise & the Transformative Power of the 5 Precepts”.

    Many people find themselves from time to time in a spiritual vacuum, trying to fill this emptiness with indulgence through eating, drinking, surfing the internet, shopping, pornography, doing drugs, etc. 

    This week we will look into the 5 precepts, which the Buddha recommended for anyone who wishes to live a peaceful life. The precepts can act as a training guideline, and can support us to stop, pause and look deeply into ourselves to understand, “What is really going on here?” as a fundamental part on our way to universal love, compassion and liberation.

    Read More

  • Mark Coleman Profile Photo

    Nature Awareness Practice in the Anthropocene

    For many people, the natural world is a perennial place of refuge, resource and replenishment. It can be a profound support for bringing awareness into the outdoors. Yet, nature is under increasingly under siege. During this session we’ll explore how we can still take refuge in the natural world as a support for our well-being,…

    Read More

  • James Baraz

    Groundlessness: Letting Go Into the Unknown

    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…

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of 07 July, 2025

    We are delighted to have Nathan Glyde leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring depth and ease to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Caring Resolve

    Relieving suffering is the essential task of Buddha-Dharma, applicable to our inner and outer world. This calls for a spacious intimacy that is neither distant and indifferent, nor enmeshed and overwhelmed. Meeting pain with caring resolve loosens distress into ease, transforms reactivity into response, and liberates the limited heart into boundless connection.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Nina la Rosa

    Freedom through focusing in.

    Before this live session, Nina wrote: “I want to share a mindfulness technique this Sunday that’s particularly alive in my life right now. As a new mother I’ve experienced an increase in planning, anticipating, worrying, and fear. Before the birth of my daughter a few months ago I read a book by Karen Maezen Miller,…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Not-other: knowing our solidarity with all beings.

    Dharma teachings point at the way our experience is not-self. This also means that everyone else is not-other. In this class we explore the ways we isolate and defend ourselves, and reach for and reject others, looking towards a greater inclusion of and intimacy with others as the ground for both better relationships and true…

    Read More