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

Love and Dust: Opening your Heart Wide to a Dying World

With Martin Aylward recorded on May 12, 2019.

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

With the fragile condition of our eco-system finally breaking through into the mainstream news cycle, we can easily be overwhelmed by the loss of biodiversity and permafrost, the pollution of earth, air and oceans, and the attendant insecurity and danger to life on earth. We might struggle both with the information itself – the amount, the content and the ramifications – and with our emotional response, or what is increasingly being referred to as ‘climate-grief.’

Our lives unfold in constant exposure to loss and grief. Everything is already turning into dust, ourselves included. Whether looking at our own mortality or at the larger picture of our planetary life, conventional culture constantly loses sight of this truth, either in denial or overwhelm. Dharma practice on the other hand, turns our attention towards the heart of our fragile, precious existence. Contemplating endings is a way to honour the mystery and beauty of tis fleeting life, and a way to find the courage, the will and the love to do whatever we can.

Because we naturally protect what we love, and in the end, love is the only relationship to life that truly makes sense; it is love that resolves our sense of unease, helplessness, and separation; love for all the beauty and blessings, and love in the face of inevitable loss and grief. Love that can tolerate discomfort and disagreement; love that cares, and responds; love that allows us to keep our heart open, even when it’s heavy.

In this session we look at this together and bring together our hearts, our intentions, our wisdom and our love.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • What is the Ultimate Truth?

    The world of mind-body, mindfulness, meditation and well-being maximises priority on conventional or relative truth. This requires wise attention and change relative to our experience. We are familiar with taking up views, remaining neutral with views or holding onto views. We might call these views relative or absolute. Can we discover (ultimate) truth not bound…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    The full range of the heart.

    We call this ‘the season of goodwill’. A reminder to care for one another, and to wish each other well. This year, we find ourselves in more need of understanding and expressing our common humanness than ever. We use this week’s session to honour the human heart; to reflect together on both how we respond…

    Read More

  • Jessica Morey

    Sustaining Ourselves with Joy

    The Buddha taught about many forms of joy as both the path of practice and its fruit. In this session, we’ll explore the practice and discipline of cultivating and savoring joy in our life and our practice. Joy is an important balancing factor as we honestly face the suffering of the world and commit to…

    Read More

  • Simplicity: The Heart of the Dharma

    Simplicity underlies Dharma practice. It’s common that when people begin to meditate, even if they have a full life with a job and family, they begin to realize that simplicity is a deep value. Pursuing conventional goals feels less meaningful or satisfying than finding ease and straightforwardness in our approach to life. Simplicity cuts across…

    Read More

  • Refuge: The Heart’s Own Knowing

    It’s important to recognize that we are living in extremely challenging times, and because of this, we are going to experience some very painful and disturbing bodily feelings, emotions, and mind states. As profound uncertainty deepens and intensifies within and all around, our Dharma practice becomes ever more vital. The ground and heart of 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 May 23, 2022

    This week’s topic is An Enigma Inside A Mystery. We typically freeze in amazement or feverishly search for causes when we suffer dukkha (life’s tension). We’ve probably all experienced how these reactions exacerbate the problem. The Buddha taught that dukkha is a puzzle that can be solved: it doesn’t have to be a mystery. We can learn the resolution that brings us from bewilderment to marvellous release by paying quiet attention to the pattern of the difficulty.

    Read More