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

Search Sangha Live

Refuge: The Heart’s Own Knowing

With Thanissara recorded on September 29, 2019.

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

It’s important to recognize that we are living in extremely challenging times, and because of this, we are going to experience some very painful and disturbing bodily feelings, emotions, and mind states. As profound uncertainty deepens and intensifies within and all around, our Dharma practice becomes ever more vital. The ground and heart of this practice is alignment with Refuge.

We are in a time that is inviting us to be more real, more authentic and to let go of what is no longer essential, to forgive it all, and to trust the capacity of the heart’s ability to regenerate and hone to integrity and love. Join Thanissara as she explores this in more depth in today’s session.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of Jan 16, 2023

    This week’s theme is “Change, Loss and Dying: Meeting the Common Denominator”. When we come in touch with the fragility of our existence, it is only natural that fear or sadness might well up. The constant inward and outward change contrasts with our lack of control. To experience change, loss and death, is a substantial challenge for all of us. The Buddha did not shy away from these common human denominators, but offered perspectives and practices which allow us to meet them with compassion, while enabling the heart to rest in love and peacefulness.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Resting in Receptivity – Opening Up to What Liberates

    Recorded : September 18, 2022

    This session is an embodied, compassionate exploration through our body-mind-heart into life. The door is open. What we long for is already there. This practise invites you to undo and deeply rest into the wonder of an receptive presence. BY LAL DED, TRANSLATED BY JANE HIRSHFIELD:I was passionate,filled with longing,I searchedfar and wide. But the…

    Read More

  • Vimalasara Mason-John

    Pride Every Day of Our Lives

    Recorded : July 24, 2022

    Pride celebrations are dedicated to celebrating the freedoms we have as LGBTQIA2S+ people and for campaigning for the human rights of Queer and Trans people around the world. 50 years ago the Gay Liberation Front held their first march in London. I was a kid, when history was being made. History is still being made…

    Read More

  •

    The Spectrum of Sensuality – Where do I stand?

    Recorded : October 13, 2024

    The extremes of addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification are not the path to happiness. The spectrum of human sensuality spans from pleasure to pain, pleasant to unpleasant, from hedonic excesses to self-harm, encompassing a vast range that is likely different for everyone. What is considered the Middle Way for a monastic might…

    Read More

  • Willa Blythe Baker

    The Art of Savoring

    Recorded : November 23, 2025

    In the practice of meditation, we are often focused on the task of getting to the cushion and paying attention, but how much of this task are we actually enjoying? To really enjoy ourselves in meditation, we need a practice that goes beyond attention and mindfulness alone. We need to find joy in the micro…

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of 21 April, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Jaya Rudgard guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Still Here, Still Now: Waking Up to Life

    As we develop our ability to remain present to experience our insight into the nature of that experience deepens. We’ll continue to explore this week how mindfulness can lead not just to less stress here and now but to the kind of seeing that will eventually free the heart-mind from all its self-created suffering.

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

    Read More

  • Justine Dawson

    The Appropriate Response

    Recorded : May 8, 2022

    When a monk asked the 10th Century Zen master Yunmen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?” Yunmen replied, “An appropriate response.”  What is this appropriate response and how do we know we’ve got it right? Beyond linear formulas, Dharma teachings point to a natural intelligence that guides us in a spontaneous responsiveness to life….

    Read More

  • Justine Dawson

    Including All Parts of Ourself in Practice

    Recorded : December 3, 2023

    Are all parts of you welcome in your spiritual practice? What happens when desire, aggression, anxiety or obsession burst through your heart’s door? It is possible to cultivate an awareness that includes all, without fear or rejection. In today’s session, explore simple and potent practices for ending the internal war and welcoming ALL of you…

    Read More