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

On Meeting Conflict and the Incompatible

With Akincano Weber recorded on December 11, 2023.

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

“When you can’t go forward, when you can’t go back, and when you can’t stand still – where do you go? This is your place of non-abiding. The things you love and the things you hate: these are your teachers.”

– Ajahn Chah

How do we perceive conflict? We often see it as disturbing, but this stems from a lack of understanding of the deeper connections between opposing elements. In this illuminating session, we’ll explore teachings and practices that reveal the underlying coherence in the seeming contradictions within conflict.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of Jan 31, 2022

    Embodied and Awake: Meditations for Body, Heart and Mind.

    Mind, body and emotion form a constant feedback loop. As the traditional teachings on mindfulness make clear, all three equally deserve our interested, caring attention. When mindfulness is balanced in this way our whole being benefits. Our practice this week will include some gentle movements and mindful breathing practices as a prelude to each day’s meditation. These can be done seated or standing, or adapted for lying down, according to your ability and levels of energy.

    Each morning this week we’ll dive into one of the images from the natural world and daily life that the Buddha used to explain his teachings. Let’s see how how these similes and metaphors from the Buddhist texts can support our understanding and enrich our practice. We may also discover how practising with them can enhance our appreciation of the world around us.

    Read More

  • The Radical Heart

    It’s hard to find the words that do justice to the enormity of the heartbreak we are in. As we wake up to our new reality, we feel grief, fear, outrage, and a daily kaleidoscope of reactions as we witness the dying of our beautiful planet. Our Dharma practice is for this, to meet reality….

    Read More

  • Chris Germer

    The Power of Self-Compassion

    Most people are more compassionate toward others than themselves when things go wrong. However, burgeoning research shows that self-compassion is good for everybody. Fortunately, it can be learned.  How can we seamlessly bring self-compassion into meditation practice and daily life?  What are two secrets about self-compassion practice that make all the difference?

    Read More

  • Leslie Booker

    Faith in the Three Jewels

    Booker writes: “Growing up in the Baptist faith, I was taught to believe what I was taught, and to not have my own experience or exploration; to not know for myself. This didn’t sit well with me as a child! During this teaching, I will share my spiritual journey from Bright Faith to Verified Faith….

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Shireen Jilla – Week of 10 March, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Shireen Jilla guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May her teachings support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: The Ease And Simplicity Of Letting Go

    The invitation this week is to explore Wise Intention. When we lean into letting go, we experience the simple clarity it brings. Every moment we drop fussing, fretting and freaking out over our experience deepens our practice in our daily lives. The intention of opening our hearts and harmlessness leads us beautifully towards the bliss of blamelessness.

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

    Read More

  • Chris Willard

    The Joy of Letting Go: Simplicity and Renunciation

    In our consumer culture, we fall for the illusion that more choice-in things, work, people, even spiritual paths-leads to more freedom, when often the opposite is true. As Jack Kornfield says, we live “in an era of unlimited desires but limited resources, when we think it’s the opposite.” More mindful awareness of our consumption isn’t…

    Read More

  • Christine Kupfer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christine Kupfer – Week of 30 June, 2025

    We’re grateful to have Christine Kupfer guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Meditating on the Five Elements : A Journey into Interconnectedness

    This week, we explore how the classical elements – earth, water, fire, air and space – invite a meeting between our inner landscape and the living world. Each session offers a meditative gesture of presence, revealing that we are never separate: we are the breath, the body, and earth becoming aware of itself.

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

    Read More

  • James Rafael

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with James Rafael – Week of January 8, 2024

    This week’s topic is “New Year Habits and Hindrances”. In this week’s sessions we’ll explore how engaging with the Buddha’s teachings on the ‘5 Hindrances’ can help establish or deepen the habit of a daily meditation practice.

    If you’re new to meditation, this framework offers ways to engage with common challenges we may face; “I can’t sit still’, “My mind is just too busy”, “I’m just not sure if this is working”.

    If you have a consistent, established practice, revisiting the hindrances can be a gateway to access deeper levels of concentration (samatha), and the subsequent, often profound, insight (vipassana) which follows.

    Read More