The encounter with sensory experiences can lead to insight and calm, or reactivity and suffering. How do you guard your mind in the midst of a daily barrage of sensory input? How do you protect your mind so that tranquility and wisdom will be well established? The Buddha encouraged restraint of the senses, but this restraint does not require avoidance of sensory contacts or control of the external environment. In this talk, Shaila Catherine will describe how mindfulness allows us to meet the experiences of sensory contact – of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking with a mind free of reactivity. Mindfulness protects the mind so that it does not come under the sway of defilements. Mindfulness is a special quality of attention that is balanced in the moment of observing experience. Before looking, before reaching, before speaking, before any activity, we can establish the intention of mindfully meeting the experience without giving rise to anger, irritation, lust, fear, or any defilement. The practice of sensory restraint leads to a life of happiness and joy, and lays the foundation for experiences of deep concentration and awakening.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Not Clinging to Anything in the World
Recorded :
May 17, 2020 These words, spoken by the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta, point us to the potential for awakening inherent in mindfulness practice. Even now, in the midst of the pandemic of Covid-19, we can explore what it means to live a life of love, commitment and authenticity as we discover the freedom of not clinging to…
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Intuitive Wisdom and Embodied Love
Recorded :
September 28, 2025 “From my own experience, there is no difference between mindfulness and loving kindness. When you are fully loving, aren’t you also mindful? When you are mindful, is this not also the essence of love?” – Dipa Ma This session will invite us to reconnect with our inner compass by cultivating intuitive mindfulness-the blend of present-moment…
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What does Liberation Mean?
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June 22, 2025 Buddha-Dharma teachings offer unparalleled insight into Truth, both ultimate and relative. Yet many practitioners fall into the belief that regular meditation alone will lead to breakthrough experiences and liberation-reinforced by the image of Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree.True liberation requires more than mindfulness practice. It transforms our entire conditioning: our ethics, how we view…
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Wise Mindfulness will Protect You
Recorded :
April 13, 2025 Awareness isn’t something you make. It’s already here when you pause and notice. Mindfulness knows the good and helps it grow happily. It also knows the difficult and helps us hold it with care. Join us to explore how wise mindfulness protects us, bringing kindness and wisdom to each moment.
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The Dharma of Sex and Intimacy
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February 23, 2025 Do your dharma insights seem to fall apart in the face of romantic connection? Are you wondering what mindfulness means when it comes to sex and intimacy? As a monastic, the Buddha had little to teach on this topic, but as modern practitioners we can engage our practice to deepen our relationships and experience a…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of 21 July, 2025
We’re grateful to have Miles Kessler guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and enrich your practice. This week’s theme is: Dharma Practice in a Polarized World: Moving from Dissonance to Resonance and Coherence. In this week of Daily Meditations, you are invited to join Miles in an exploration into how our inner conflicts mirror our relational conflicts, and how our relational conflicts mirror the conflicts we see in the world. You will learn how your practice evolving on the cushion is the same process for healing conflicts in the world.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of March 13 – 17, 2023
Daily meditations with Martin Aylward.
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Reverence is the Nature of My Love
Recorded :
October 9, 2022 The Diamond Sutra, possibly the oldest text on deep ecology, teaches that there are four notions that separate us from life that we must throw away: the concepts of self, lifespan, humans, and living beings. In this session we will learn practices that enable us to go beyond this limited perception of reality to touch how interconnected with all life we are.
Discussion