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

Refugia: Finding Sanctuary in Times of Crisis

With Willa Blythe Baker recorded on September 1, 2024.

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

We live in challenging times. Biologists speak of micro-systems where species sequester during times of crisis. They are called refugia. In times of uncertainty and fear, we too need refugia, places of spiritual safety where we can put down roots, grow and thrive. In this Sunday teaching, Willa invites us to explore the concept of refugia, and how it can help expand our conventional understanding of what “refuge” means in the Buddhist context. Refuge, an ancient Buddhist practice of finding sanctuary in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, is not a ritual or initiation. It involves a deep exploration of the role of safety in spiritual life. Refuge is an ongoing inquiry into what refugia looks like for each of us, into our crisis-sanctuaries and how they become a catalyst for our spiritual evolution.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • A Global Crisis. The Wisdom of Action while Living with Uncertainty

    The Mind/Body Crisis provides an opportunity to wake up or live in fear and despair. Are our politicians, billionaires, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, and scientists fit for purpose?Change is required. Inner and Outer. Radical. Unprecedented.Are we fit for purpose?What do we have to offer?

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of October 18, 2021

    This week’s theme is: The Abundant Middle-Way.

    The Buddha in his last steps of awakening turned away from austerities and the practiced hardships he had endured. He did not turn back to the indulgences of his youth, but uncovered a kind and sensitive middle-way between a sense of self-importance and self-negation. The awakened one then invited others to a way of living between common extremes of views, states, and habitual actions.

    This week we will walk the path of peace supporting the deep well-being and boundless heart of the middle-way.

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of 27 January, 2025

    We’re grateful to have Nathan Glyde guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Time For Life

    Dharma teachings invite a profound reduction in stress. When stress is present, there is a sense of time pressure, urgency, and haste. Conversely, when there is freedom and ease, our perception of time expands in countless ways. Dharma practice can be viewed as methods to significantly alter our sense of time, welcoming us into a well-paced connection that makes time for life.

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

    Read More

  • Shinzen Young

    How to structure your practice in life

    Shinzen guides you through his “See, Hear, Feel” focus technique. This technique is designed to be applicable in any life situation — driving a car, having a conversation, working out, puttering around the house…. After that he gives a dharma talk describing a systematic procedure for “monasticizing” daily life. The goal of this program is…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    With a generous spirit: your money and your life.

    We often hear about Dana, or generosity, only when being asked for donations! Yet Buddha taught that “the practice of generosity is a foundation for happiness”. This session with Worldwide Insight guiding teacher Martin Aylward explores the depth and beauty of generosity, and how its practice can transform our own hearts and minds.

    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