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 together empowers us to do good works, or drives us towards anger and fear. Sila. It empowers our development of mindfulness and calm concentration, or it is a channel for distraction. Samadhi. It carries wisdom and deep inquiry or driveling trivia. Panna. All of these are enfolded in meditation in which the doorway to speech is opened.
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Dharma, Desire and Eros
Recorded :
May 9, 2021 Eros is life force, the energy that animates our being. Eros fills our spiritual life with vitality, our minds with creativity, our ideas with embodiment and our relating with rich intimacy. To live full lives we need access to eros; without it we become dry, rigid, flacid and withholding. Yet what place does it have…
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Surrendering to awareness.
Recorded :
April 10, 2016 Often in spiritual practice there is the encouragement to observe. From that place of observation we attempt to “be with” what arises. When does that intention get colonized by the ego? Who is it that is “being with”? What is it that is “being with”? What shifts in our practice when we surrender what is…
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The ‘Self’ is Insubstantial
Recorded :
February 5, 2023 Humans live in the spell of the self, as if it had substantial existence.
Dharma offers a reflection/meditation/inquiry into this phenomenon.
One who asks ‘Who Wakes Up?’ lives in the spell.
Teaching will offer ways to a non-intellectual realisation of emptiness of self.
Be devoted to this in daily life – until obvious as seeing colour for one with sound eyesight.
To wake up from the dream of self is liberating. -
Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of 01 June, 2026
This week’s theme is: Joy in Practice; gladdening the heart in service of awakening
Joy, gladness and delight are important factors on the path. They arise as fruits of the practice, but they are also skills that can be cultivated and developed. This week, we will reveal, align with and nourish these liberating qualities. Tasting for ourselves their impact on experience, in service to the wellbeing of all beings.
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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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Everyday Equanimity; Shifting from Reactivity to Responsiveness
Recorded :
May 29, 2022 The practice of equanimity supports us to find balance, stability and steadiness within the changing conditions of our lives. We can then respond with wisdom and compassion to whatever is unfolding. Equanimity is a fruit of the practice, as well as a way of relating that we can cultivate intentionally. We will explore ways to…
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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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The Inquiring Mind
Recorded :
June 21, 2026 The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand each other. In this talk, we’ll be discussing some foundational understandings that provide a framework of this inquiry. It will include such topics as training our habits of attention, suffering as…
Discussion