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

Embracing Ambiguity: In What we Believe, How we Love and Who we Think we Are

With Martin Aylward recorded on July 7, 2019.

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

“Things are not as they seem, and nor are they otherwise” – Lankavatara Sutra.

We easily get seduced by certainty – thinking we really know what we want, what we believe, and who we think we are.

Yet Dharma teachings invite us to hold experience lightly, without reducing our knowing to narrow certainty; retaining a genuinely open mind. Today’s session with Worldwide Insight Founding teacher Martin Aylward will explore how dharma practice can help us stay with this sacred ’not-knowing’. Martin will discuss how we can be both looser and freer in relating to self, other and world, and how a nuanced and flexible mind helps navigate a world where the seeming certainties of ‘right and wrong’ easily divide us from each other.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • James Rafael

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with James Rafael – Week of January 8, 2024

    This week’s topic is “New Year Habits and Hindrances”. In this week’s sessions we’ll explore how engaging with the Buddha’s teachings on the ‘5 Hindrances’ can help establish or deepen the habit of a daily meditation practice.

    If you’re new to meditation, this framework offers ways to engage with common challenges we may face; “I can’t sit still’, “My mind is just too busy”, “I’m just not sure if this is working”.

    If you have a consistent, established practice, revisiting the hindrances can be a gateway to access deeper levels of concentration (samatha), and the subsequent, often profound, insight (vipassana) which follows.

    Read More

  • Ven. Pannavati Bikkhuni

    Developing insight into power.

    The Buddha talked about eight qualities of one who has transformed insight into a power. We examine these eight and apply introspection to assess where we are on the path to awakening and what is needed for completion.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 23 February, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Fire of Desire and the Path of Release

    Strong desire moves us-towards love, security, meaning, awakening. Our longings promise fulfillment and yet generate restlessness. This week we’ll explore how craving solidifies identity and how clinging feeds suffering. By understanding the dynamics of attachment, we cultivate the courage to release. Where grasping softens, life renews itself from within.

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

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    The Sacred No: Setting Conscious Boundaries Alongside Boundlessness

    To truly embody our Yes to life, we must equally honor our No. Liberating our minds and hearts and taking responsibility for our contribution to collective consciousness requires setting loving boundaries around authentic being. Sometimes, through spiritual bypass; concepts/ideas about mindfulness; or lack of distinction between being nice and being kind, we devalue the sacred…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Shireen Jilla – Week of 10 March, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Shireen Jilla guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May her teachings support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: The Ease And Simplicity Of Letting Go

    The invitation this week is to explore Wise Intention. When we lean into letting go, we experience the simple clarity it brings. Every moment we drop fussing, fretting and freaking out over our experience deepens our practice in our daily lives. The intention of opening our hearts and harmlessness leads us beautifully towards the bliss of blamelessness.

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

    Read More

  • Death is Before Me Today

    During this Sunday Sangha we will explore the peace of emptiness, the malleability of time and the loving care of oneself and all life.

    Read More

  • Miles Kessler

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of 20 October, 2025

    This week, we’re delighted to have Miles Kessler guiding our Daily Meditation sessions. May they enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul

    The “Dark Night Of The Soul” is nothing less than an ego death, and rebirth process that everyone goes through from time to time in life. As it happens, the “Dark Night Of The Soul” is also beautifully “coded” into insight meditation practices through a series of advanced stages know as the “Dukkha Nanas”. The “Dark Night” stages are awaiting everyone who is walking the path of meditative insight.
    In this week of Daily Meditations with Sangha Live, you are invited to join in a teaching of “Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul.” Throughout this week, you will explore how the “Dark Night Of The Soul” process unfolds in the stages of insight meditation. And more importantly, how the insights of these stages inform us in our lives.

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

    Read More