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 Jaya Rudgard – Week of May 31, 2021

    This week’s topic is “Rediscovering Simplicity: Renunciation and the Art of Letting Go”. Renunciation is one of the ten paramis or ‘spiritual perfections’ considered most conducive to happiness and wellbeing, and yet we tend to understand it in ways that are not helpful. How in the age of peak stuff and peak busyness can we recover the wisdom of “less is more” in a way that re-energises us, lightens our burdens and helps us rediscover creativity and flow? This week we’ll look at this question from different angles with some suggestions for taking the exploration from our morning practice into the activities of our day.

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    Protecting the Mind

    The encounter with sensory experiences can lead to insight and calm, or reactivity and suffering. How do you guard your mind in the midst of a daily barrage of sensory input? How do you protect your mind so that tranquility and wisdom will be well established? The Buddha encouraged restraint of the senses, but this…

    Read More

  • I Call on My Inherent Wellbeing

    In the territory of inherent health we are all equal. To really know this with the heartmind impacts our practice at all levels. One of the more important shifts in our practice is recognising the depth and sacredness of our shared humanity, goodness and nobility. 

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of 03 March, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Nathan Glyde guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: It’s Like This, Right Now

    Acceptance must be applied wisely to lead to liberating awakening. We accept “it’s like this, right now”, but we don’t stop there. We also acknowledge that “this” is subject to changeable conditions, and we accept the opportunity to contribute to freedom.

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

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Aditthana: The art of commitment

    New year’s resolutions are often unrealistically ambitious and doomed to failure. In this first Sangha Live class of the year, our founding teacher Martin Aylward explores the art of wise commitment; how to refine what one is committing to in a way that is useful, precise, realistic and time-boundaried; elements that allow us to align…

    Read More

  • Eugene Cash

    Self and Not-Self: Who (What) are You?

    This talk explores classic Buddhist teachings about anatta: self and not-self as well highlighting how other traditions and modalities recognized self and what it means to be free from self. We investigate self and not-self through spiritual, poetic cultural and personal perspectives.

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    A Practical Approach to Understanding Right Effort

    All schools of Buddhism acknowledge that if we are to “awaken” in this lifetime, our aim is to cultivate and develop the eight-fold path. This path consists of behavioral (sila), meditative (samadhi) and philosophical (panna) dimensions. When skillfully interwoven, this system of training directs us towards a liberation-based lifestyle by embracing the limitations and the…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of December 11, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Embracing challenging emotions”. There are no negative emotions, only ones that we find challenging to embrace, like anxiety, anger, grief and fear. When we relate to them in distorted ways, their expression is indeed negative. Over this week (at a time of year where they may be particularly triggered!) we will explore how to come into a sacred relationship with each of these challenging emotions.

    Read More