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

The Appropriate Response

With Justine Dawson recorded on May 8, 2022.

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

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. No matter our doubt or perfectionism, we can engage our practice towards its revelation.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Brian Dean Williams

    Post-election trauma: embracing fear, extending love.

    It has been a distressing and disorienting time for many of us, and to different degrees. Following recent political events in the US and Western Europe our practice is being challenged in new ways. Spurred by a Trump victory, violent attacks on individuals in marginalized groups are on the rise. The three poisons of Greed,…

    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

  • Brian Dean Williams

    Running the Middle Way

    What do sitting on the meditation cushion and running have in common? How might this form of movement be included in our mindfulness practice? Brian Dean Williams, both an insight meditation teacher and an avid trail runner, explored this with us at our weekly Sunday session.

    Read More

  • Faith, Hope and Love on the Dharma Path

    “Join me and the sangha for meditation, reflections and conversation to resource, encourage and uplift the heart as we engage with the challenges of our lives. Everyone is welcome.” – Jaya

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of April 22, 2024

    This week’s theme is “Breath, Body, Connection and Reflection”. Breath, body and connection are areas of practice that come up again and again in Buddhist teaching. We’ll explore them in different combinations, and reflect on how they can support your meditation practice and your wider life, with all their opportunities for relationship, engagement and embodied presence.

    Read More

  • Eugene Cash

    Waking up to Love!

    What do you love? What’s your relationship to love? Do you love yourself? Do you love someone else? Do you love your job or your hobbies or your house or your friends or your community? Do you love the dharma or the truth or reality? What is Love? Beyond learning about what we love, what…

    Read More

  • The Path of the Bodhisattva: Choosing a Life of Kindness

    The path of the Bodhisattva asks us to dedicate ourselves to the well-being of all sentient beings – to show up as best as we can for ourselves, each other, and the natural world with a quality of no-matter-whatness. It’s an impossible though necessary task. Yet the teachings and practices of everyday dharma offer accessible,…

    Read More