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

Don’t be realistic. Be real

With Martin Aylward recorded on March 18, 2018.

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

Through the cultures within family, education and work, we are constantly orientated towards ‘realistic’ expectations and visions for our lives. Dharma practice asks us to abandon the realistic in favour of the real; listening deeply to life and to how things actually are, so as to respond wisely and lovingly, fully and freely. In this class Worldwide Insight founding teacher Martin Aylward contrasts the realistic and the real, inviting reflection and discussion to point us towards freedom, awakening and wise engagement with the world.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Caverly Morgan – Week of May 25

    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. Monday, May 25 Releasing conditioned processes of suffering (part 3) Wednesday, May 27 Knowing awareness, experiencing being Friday, May 29 Embracing…

    Read More

  • Five tenets of a whole life path

    Many long for a way to “integrate” their Buddhist practice with what is often called “the rest of my life.” This often fails. Doesn’t integration refer to separate things that must be brought together? In this talk, Gregory offers what he calls the Five Tenets of a Whole Life Path, a practical, yet demanding, way…

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of Mar 11, 2024

    This week’s topic is “To Be on the Road Without Leaving Home”. Zen Master Hakuin reveals an apparent tension between movement and stillness in this statement. What may the road refer to? What is called home? Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Meditations this week, inviting us to engage with this paradoxical dynamic. We’ll discover that stability and ground can become more spacious in every situation, every experience, and every condition. How it is possible to discover, or re-discover, home … endlessly.

    Read More

  • Is there compassion for the self? Go deep. Is compassion the end of self?

    The Dharma flies with two wings – compassion and wisdom. Compassion emerges from a liberated wisdom. That happens when constructs in the mind lose their significance. The emptiness of self and the emptiness of dependency on feeling tones take priority. This talk also explores the contraction of compassion into self interest. The liberation of compassion…

    Read More

  • The practice of love in times of hate

    The Buddha taught hate cannot be conquered by hate, but only by love; that this is the eternal law. What does this mean in our lives, and in the contentious and divisive times we live in?

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 02 February, 2026

    This week’s theme is: Release First. If Not, Then Explore Renewal.

    Release means liberation, such as person released from prison. Confinement to problemetic history has finally come to an end. Our being knows a full engagement with life. With release, renewal comes naturally, such as entering deep sleep and waking up with renewed energy. Practice includes exploration of renewal while a transcendent view gives primary interest to release.

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

    Read More