Simplicity underlies Dharma practice. It’s common that when people begin to meditate, even if they have a full life with a job and family, they begin to realize that simplicity is a deep value. Pursuing conventional goals feels less meaningful or satisfying than finding ease and straightforwardness in our approach to life. Simplicity cuts across the physical, verbal, and mental realms, and enables the deep seeing that can free the mind. In our session, we’ll explore simplicity as an act of kindness and wisdom, and also an expression of liberation, so needed in today’s world.
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The Skilful Process of Transformation
Recorded :
May 2, 2021 In this session, we’ll use the skilful means of mindfulness, mindful breathing and leading the nervous system into a parasympathetic state, to guide our mind towards organic spacious awareness. Within this relaxed spaciousness we’ll imagine the ways in which we wish to incline, head towards and become one with.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Nov 27 – 1 Dec, 2023
This week’s topic is “Longing for Belonging; Becoming Intimate with Expansion and Contraction”. Although people are more connected than ever through technology, there seems to be a global trance of “not belonging”. In this week’s sessions we will explore how we separate from our own selves and from others, and above all how we can come home to all our parts and sink back into a sense of belonging.
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The Out Breath: Unlocking Concentration
Recorded :
June 16, 2024 Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.
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Sangha: You Are Not Alone!
Recorded :
March 16, 2025 The Buddha’s insight that all things arise dependent on something else points to a universe in ongoing relational flow. When experienced directly, we know this flow to be love. Together we will open to receive the many ways we are touched by life through our connections to each other and the Earth, our ancestors and…
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Deep Ground Living
Recorded :
November 10, 2024 How can we live from the ground of presence, being ourselves in peace with others, while doing what needs to be done? This Sunday we’ll explore what is essential for living in the midst of life with both peace of mind and peace of heart.
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Blunt Suffering
Recorded :
April 29, 2018 Let’s not flinch when we look at the lived experiences of illness, confusion, and relational pain. Let’s allow the texture of hurt to be known. Awareness remains brilliant, for sure. Any of us can experience this. Maybe the more we allow the blunt pain of the body-mind, the more we can sit squarely in awareness….
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The Dharma of Sex and Intimacy
Recorded :
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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S.A.L.S.A.: Using Buddhist practice to Respond to “Spicy” Emotions
Recorded :
June 9, 2019 Life presents plenty of opportunities to react unconsciously, often creating harm for ourselves and others. How might we apply our Buddhist practice to “Spicy” situations and emotions, in order to respond wisely? In this session, Brian will draw on Stephen Batchelor’s work and propose a working acronym of “S.A.L.S.A.” to navigate life’s spiciness and act…
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