To live by vow is a radical reorientation – from reactivity to response-ability, and from fear to love.
This session will examine what it means to walk the spiritual path, and consider the importance of inspiration, aspiration and aligned, appropriate action.
Together we will explore the tenderness and power of meeting the world from what the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki called “the heart’s inmost request”.
Please note that the recording of this session starts some way into the meditation.
This week’s topic is: Harmonising Our Life. The Buddha’s wisdom highlights how we often live entangled in stress and distress. The earliest mentions of this disharmonious state called it being in an argument with life. Dharma teachings invite us away from habitual rigidity and reactivity into a responsive and harmonising release. This week we will uncover deeper and more creative ways of attuning to life that support inner and outer freedom and well-being.
Recorded :
It has been a distressing and disorienting time for many of us, and to different degrees. Following recent political events in the US and Western Europe our practice is being challenged in new ways. Spurred by a Trump victory, violent attacks on individuals in marginalized groups are on the rise. The three poisons of Greed,…
Recorded :
The communicative loop of listening and speaking forms a powerful karmic workshop. Language taps into our karmic archive, sankhara. It reaches other people and, if they are listening, there is mind-to-mind contact. Relational contact is intrinsically powerful because humans are intrinsically relational: when we engage together, our mutual responsiveness amplifies our efforts. Speaking and listening…
Recorded :
We exist within a web of relatedness. Much of our stress and suffering arises in relationships. The troubles of this world too, can often be traced to a breakdown in relationship; with ourselves, with one another and with the more-than-human world. More than ever, it feels vital to bring the benefits of meditation practice off…
Recorded :
During this session we discuss the teaching on ‘wisely directing one’s attention to the roots’ (yoniso manasikāra). It is a remarkably pragmatic approach to contemplative practice and one of Early Buddhism’s unique contributions to the human emancipatory effort from suffering.
Recorded :
On a Full Moon in the early years after the Buddha’s awakening, 1250 enlightened disciples spontaneously gathered to be in the presence of the Blessed One. His succinct teachings on that occasion, known as the Ovada Patimokkha, distill the essence of the Path leading to Nibbana.
Recorded :
One of our best teachers is very close at hand. The body offers continual opportunities for healing and insight, both simple and profound. But what is the body? As we look more carefully, we find a rich universe of sensation that is intimately connected to the mind. In this session, we explore the body as…
Recorded :
Racism remains one of the most rooted and painful impasses of our time. Why is this so? And what does this have to do with you? In her talk, drawing from her recent publication, Ruth explores an understanding of our individual and collective racial conditioning and its social proliferation, and how mindfulness provides a foundation…