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

Discovering Diamonds in Darkness: Racism & Cultural Diversity

With Ralph Steele recorded on March 19, 2023.

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

Racism and cultural identity have indiscriminately been seeded into human consciousness since the beginning of humanity. The health of any community begins with the Sense of Self. This Dharma assembly will focus on our sense of self as we investigate consciousness using the Noble Truths for Awakening. Millions have followed this path of practice for millennia.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of Oct 25, 2021

    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).

    Read More

  • Trudy Goodman

    Breathe! Delight in Meditation

    How can we delight in our meditation? Learning to bring loving awareness to the breath, feeling the ebb and flow in real time as we sit quietly, is an art. The key is in our approach. Sometimes in practicing mindfulness of breathing, there can be an over-emphasis or insistence on focusing attention that drives delight…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of October 18, 2021

    This week’s theme is: The Abundant Middle-Way.

    The Buddha in his last steps of awakening turned away from austerities and the practiced hardships he had endured. He did not turn back to the indulgences of his youth, but uncovered a kind and sensitive middle-way between a sense of self-importance and self-negation. The awakened one then invited others to a way of living between common extremes of views, states, and habitual actions.

    This week we will walk the path of peace supporting the deep well-being and boundless heart of the middle-way.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Leela Sarti – Week of 24 March, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Leela Sarti guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Entering the Timeless

    We often live caught in a charged and time bound perspective: I need to use my time! I don’t have enough time! time is running out! But as human beings we can also re-discover that time is malleable and through practice, the act of sacred awareness, relax into a sense of no time, deep time and all time.

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

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of April 6

    We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. View the text for the daily chants Martin offers this week Monday, April 6 Wednesday, April 8 Demands, defences…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of 16 December, 2024

    We’re delighted to have Martin Aylward guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring peace and depth to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Peace and Love!

    Our last week of daily meditation for 2024, led by Martin and exploring nuances of the spiritual heart, in our own lives and as we navigate the complexities of the world.

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

    Read More

  • Akincano M. Weber

    On Meeting Conflict and the Incompatible

    “When you can’t go forward, when you can’t go back, and when you can’t stand still – where do you go? This is your place of non-abiding. The things you love and the things you hate: these are your teachers.” – Ajahn Chah How do we perceive conflict? We often see it as disturbing, but…

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Luminous Darkness: A Path for Seeing Clearly from the Heart

    One of the gifts of global uncertainty is that it requires us to recognize and release unconscious biases that have been passed down for generations. These include the perception that splits into opposites and values light over dark, speed over slowing down, productivity over attunement, and conclusion over not knowing. Awakening requires that we soften…

    Read More