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

Search Sangha Live

Sitting with Pointlessness – Living with Potentiality

With Vince Cullen recorded on October 16, 2022.

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

During a recent retreat, the teachers’ instruction was to hold the question ‘What is this?’ in mind. While sitting on the cushion, the thought struck me that my life is futile! I am genetically programmed for survival and sex; everything else is just distracting window-dressing. This talk will explore the journey from the apparent ‘futility’ of human existence to the ‘fertility’ of human experience; the crossing from pointlessness to potentiality.

Click here to access a PDF with quotes and references that may be of further interest.

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

Tags: liberation

Discussion

5 thoughts on “Sitting with Pointlessness – Living with Potentiality”

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison

    Wake up to your Life: Cultivating Courage & Compassion in the Everyday

    Recorded : March 23, 2025

    Awakening to Life means harmonizing our values and our actions. Many of us merely go through the motions, sleepwalking through the hours, without actually feeling alive. Cultivating courage and joy entails slowing down, paying close attention, and practicing being fully engaged with what each moment has to offer. Koshin Sensei will share Zen teachings and…

    Read More

  •

    The Conscientious Heart: An exploration of Appamada and the Elephant’s Footprint

    Recorded : March 3, 2024

    We will explore through practice and teachings the importance of “appamada” or heedfulness, conscientiousness, or what Stephen Batchelor has translated as care. Appamada has been called the path to the deathless. ” Just as the footprints of all living beings with legs can be encompassed by the footprint of the elephant, and the elephant’s footprint is…

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of May 9, 2022

    This week’s topic is Disentangle the Net of Needs. We all have needs. Existential needs, needs for safety, connection, spirituality and much more. Our attitude towards needs, what strategies we choose to meet them and what boundaries we set in place determines to a large extent our happiness and peace of mind. In this week we want to explore skilful ways to handle our needs, feelings and boundaries. We will draw from Buddhist teachings, mindful practices and elements of non-violent communication to support us in our daily lives.

    Read More

  • Jill Satterfield

    Of Two Minds: The Mind of the Body, the Mind of the Mind

    Recorded : May 3, 2026

    Awareness opens doors to discovery – the Buddha emphasized it, and science is proving it. We have two minds that work together, yet the body knows before the mind cognizes. The Buddha’s teaching of Nāmarūpa – mind and body as two forms of consciousness – honors the body’s deep wisdom. How the mind elaborates on…

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Apr 29 – 3 May, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Mindfulness of the nervous system: transforming fear, struggle and separation into love and connection”. We humans are social animals and need each other to feel safe and secure, to grow and to nourish ourselves. How can we live with a sense of connection, loving-kindness, and inner family? Our meditation practice allows us to take a break between stimulus and response. When we come into contact with our loved ones, we all too easily lose the inner freedom we think we have achieved and avoid our difficulties, also called spiritual bypassing. This week we explore what supports us to react flexibly to the internal and external world, to relax and to allow closeness and real intimacy. We will look into the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, including harmonizing the body formations and nervous system to meet our difficulties with gentleness.

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of 31 March, 2025

    We’re delighted that Zohar Lavie will be leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope they bring depth and joy to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: A Compassionate Response

    As sensitive beings, we are impacted by the conditions of our lives. Having a body, heart and mind means meeting painful and challenging circumstances, whether in our immediate environment or in the world. During this week we will explore possibilities of responding with and through compassion to whatever is arising in our lives. Attuning as we do so to further wellbeing for all beings.

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

    Read More