One of the Buddha’s primary realisations was ‘Life is painful and then you die.’ If this is true, then how do we respond to the difficulties of life? This session will explore how we are conditioned to protect, promote and satisfy a ‘self’ which can never be satisfied because ‘we are the slaves of craving.’ There will be a guided meditation cultivating an appropriate attitude to the vicissitudes of life.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Why Meditate?
Recorded :
February 18, 2024 Many people have encountered the Buddha’s teachings when learning to meditate. Many more people in the world, however, have learned about the Buddha through stories imparting lessons about how to live wisely. Why is there so much emphasis on meditation? What else is there in the teachings to support wise and ethical living?
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The Out Breath: Unlocking Concentration
Recorded :
June 16, 2024 Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of July 17, 2023
This week’s topic is “Deepening and Developing Unconditional Friendliness”. Metta, translated as unconditional friendliness, is a powerful and transformative attitude. When we relate to ourselves, others and experience with metta, reactivity and ill being dissolve and wisdom and wellbeing grow. During this week of practice we will deepen the practice and application of metta, as well as the understanding of how it impacts experience.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of Jan 24, 2022
Daily meditations with Martin Aylward.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of June 28, 2021
This week’s theme is: The Unbound Heart
Teachings of liberation expand our range of possibilities. They encourage us to discover a broader capacity of what we can contact, sense, and do. The teachings of the pāramīs are a key part of this journey. They act like a map and compass for the heart’s wish to be free of habitual limitations, to be a heart unbound. This week we’ll take a deeper dive into the illimitable qualities of the heart.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of Sept 20, 2021
We’re fortunate that Martin Aylward has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK this week. To find out more about Martin, and view his other recordings on the platform, click here.
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When in doubt breathe out: the power of the breath to ease pain and other contracted states.
Recorded :
April 16, 2017 In this talk Vidyamala discusses how most of us hold the breath whenever we are in pain or other difficult states. She leads a ‘whole body’ breathing meditation followed by input on how to rest in the flow of the breath as a way to learn to rest in the flow of life and let…
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The Dharma of Sex and Intimacy
Recorded :
February 23, 2025 Do your dharma insights seem to fall apart in the face of romantic connection? Are you wondering what mindfulness means when it comes to sex and intimacy? As a monastic, the Buddha had little to teach on this topic, but as modern practitioners we can engage our practice to deepen our relationships and experience a…
