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

Love’s in Need of Love: The Practice of Love as Social Resistance

With Lama Rod Owens recorded on July 1, 2017.

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

The great Black American singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder once sang, “Love’s in need of love today.” His words couldn’t be more true as we face a global community struggling with war, poverty, illness, climate instability, and the rise of political authorities and governments who do not seem to be grounded in compassion or kindness. We speak about love and attempt to practice love but some of us are losing faith in the transformative power of the wish for ourselves and others to be happy. Our practice of love is in need of our renewed faith in love. In this talk, we explore the question of how practicing love can become a strategy that resists and undoes our experiences of fear, apathy, and numbness as we attempt to live and love in a challenging world.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Vast View, Fine Attention

    In this session, Martin explores the apparent paradox of a vast view combined with a fine attention, along with practices to bring both into focus. How do we hold both simultaneously? How can we be responsive, without feeling responsible? How might we bring both a vast view and a fine attention to both our inner…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 06 January, 2025

    We are grateful to have Christopher Titmuss guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Each Moment, New Moment

    A week of practice to begin the year, with reflections on beginnings, commitments and a free attitude to life.

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

    Read More

  • Christelle Bonneau

    Fluidity and spontaneity.

    Worldwide Insight talk from Christelle Bonneau: “Fluidity and Spontaneity”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.

    Read More

  • Stephen Fulder

    Is Samsara Fixable?

    We are going through difficult and uncertain times and we long for relief. There is much we can do to help ourselves and our community. Yet this can also include accessing a more transcendent perspective, in which we take the pains of samsara less personally. Nondual dharma invites us to see life as perfect just…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 09 December, 2024

    We’re delighted to have Christopher Titmuss guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Liberation Of The Heart

    Join Christopher Titmuss for a week exploring the Brahma Viharas – the Immeasurable Ways of Being.

    The Brahma Viharas, traditionally known as Divine Abidings, point to something boundless in our human experience. While Brahma literally means “God,” its deeper root meaning is “Immeasurable.” The Buddha taught four specific ways to dwell in this immeasurable space: through radical love, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.

    Over five morning sessions, Christopher will offer an overview of these teachings and explore each of these profound ways of abiding. By radical, we mean getting to the very root of what matters most.

    Whether you come with an open heart or a closed one, whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner – all are welcome to join these transformative sessions.

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

    Read More

  • Brian Dean Williams

    Running the Middle Way

    What do sitting on the meditation cushion and running have in common? How might this form of movement be included in our mindfulness practice? Brian Dean Williams, both an insight meditation teacher and an avid trail runner, explored this with us at our weekly Sunday session.

    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

  • How to Find Balance in Difficult Times

    Equanimity is balance that comes from wisdom; it’s our heart and mind’s capacity to roll with the inevitable challenges and changes of life without taking it personally, without falling into despair or hopeless. Rather than a bland state of neutrality, or a cold state of indifference, equanimity gives us a wide space to feel the…

    Read More