Martin looks at current events with an eye on the suffering of refugees, the climate emergency and growing Islamophobia, exploring how we can both empathize with and respond to human suffering, while also cultivating joy, gratitude and ease of heart.
With Martin Aylward recorded on December 13, 2015.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of March 28, 2022
This week’s topic is Shelter from the Storm. Whether it is restlessness, worry, anxiety, panic, worry or rumination, all aspects of fear have one thing in common: they rob us of our peace of mind. If fear governs our perspective, we are focused on that which is potentially problematic. Unable to settle down and rest, we often feel exhausted by the relentless activity of our mind. The Buddha invited us to find in our practice ‘a Shelter, a Harbour, a Refuge’. In this week together, we’ll explore the underlying dynamics of fear, learn ways to soothe our minds and gain access to a sense of safety and peacefulness right here and right now.
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Wise Mindfulness will Protect You
Recorded :
April 13, 2025 Awareness isn’t something you make. It’s already here when you pause and notice. Mindfulness knows the good and helps it grow happily. It also knows the difficult and helps us hold it with care. Join us to explore how wise mindfulness protects us, bringing kindness and wisdom to each moment.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 22 September, 2025
We’re grateful to have Nirmala Werner guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and deepen your practice.
This week’s theme is: The Still Heart: Cultivating Equanimity in an Unsteady World
In a world marked by constant change, uncertainty, and emotional intensity, equanimity can seem like a distant ideal-or even a form of indifference. But in the Buddhist tradition, equanimity (upekkhā) is not cold or passive. It is the spacious, steady heart that knows how to stay open, grounded, and present with whatever life brings.
In this week we will explore equanimity as a deep source of inner freedom-neither detached nor reactive, but wise, loving, and awake.
Through daily reflection and embodied practice, we will ask:
What is true equanimity, and what is it not?
How can we meet change without losing our ground?
How do we love and let go-at the same time?
And how can we live with a still heart in a restless world?
Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
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Using the five aggregates as a strategy.
Recorded :
April 9, 2017 The aggregates are a reference to our sense of self. Working with form, feeling, perception, identification, and consciousness as we go through our daily lives will support equanimity. Most importantly, it will help us work with emotions with greater efficiency.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Catherine McGee – Week of April 25, 2022
This week’s theme is “Exploring and Developing the Power of a Light Touch”. A light touch can allow our practice to unfold more easefully, make the depths of our hearts more available and create a greater agility in our relationships with the world. With our body as the primary ground for our practice we will explore different ways to cultivate this kind of attention, enjoy the fruits of our efforts and attend to what might hinder this natural capacity
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The Dharma of Homecoming in Times of Fear
Recorded :
July 26, 2020 Maya Angelou once wrote: “The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” James Baldwin reflected: “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” In The Wiz, Stephanie Mills sang: “When I think of home I think of…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of 31 March, 2025
We’re delighted that Zohar Lavie will be leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope they bring depth and joy to your practice.
This week’s theme is: A Compassionate Response
As sensitive beings, we are impacted by the conditions of our lives. Having a body, heart and mind means meeting painful and challenging circumstances, whether in our immediate environment or in the world. During this week we will explore possibilities of responding with and through compassion to whatever is arising in our lives. Attuning as we do so to further wellbeing for all beings.
Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
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Staying In, Going Inwards: Inner Resources for Indoor Life
Recorded :
April 5, 2020 Martin, the founding and guiding teacher of Sangha Live, leads our regular Sunday session, looking at skilful ways to meet this time of confinement and ‘forced retreat’. He offers various reflections on caring for ourselves and others, and makes plenty of time to share and explore together as a Sangha, as we lean into this…
Discussion