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

Mindful Intentions: From Pressure to Growth

With Ulla Koenig recorded on July 18, 2021.

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

What effect does it have if we practice mindfulness and meditation motivated by the fundamental assumption that there is something wrong with us? Perspectives such as ‘not being good enough’ or being ‘damaged goods’ can turn our practice into a painstaking attempt to improve ourselves. During this session we will inquire into our motivations for practice and suggest some alternative perspectives which can offer a sense of freedom, peace of mind and acceptance.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Ralph Steele

    What Am I Doing In Here

    The practice of Mindfulness from breath to breath is essential.  If you have knowledge of the Four Noble Truths then you have the foundation; only practice is needed to gain insight into the Dharma.  As we go through our daily activities, working with the masculine and feminine elements within us, it takes the Right View…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Not-other: knowing our solidarity with all beings.

    Dharma teachings point at the way our experience is not-self. This also means that everyone else is not-other. In this class we explore the ways we isolate and defend ourselves, and reach for and reject others, looking towards a greater inclusion of and intimacy with others as the ground for both better relationships and true…

    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

  • Wise Resolve: Finding Inner Strength

    In an effort to counter tendencies towards striving and over-achieving, many Western approaches to meditation and spirituality emphasize relaxation. While relaxation and ease are essential ingredients on the meditative path, they must be integrated with whole-hearted effort. How do we find inner strength and make a clear resolve that is informed by wisdom and balanced…

    Read More

  • The reality and experience of inner spaciousness

    A sense of spaciousness is needed for inner change but the person of history obstructs the space that is always there. As our practice deepens space starts to replace self images. The more we are embodied and present, timelessness and space become more experientially available to us. The now starts to stretch and become wide…

    Read More

  • Moving Beyond the Myth of Loneliness

    What changes as we consciously turn toward our suffering, rather than away? We are conditioned to experience ourselves as separate from life, but in that outward gaze, we often overlook an experience of belonging that is inherent. How does our habit of seeking shift when we recognize that what we long for can never actually…

    Read More

  • Nothing is reliable outside liberation.

    Practice places emphasis on seeing impermanence. Such a practice easily becomes habitual to the degree we miss the point. There is nothing reliable owing to impermanence. There is nothing we can depend upon in this world of mentality and materiality, inner and outer. If we abide deeply clear about this, the stress and fears fade…

    Read More