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

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

With Roshi Joan Halifax recorded on March 3, 2024.

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

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 declared to be supreme among them in terms of its great size; in the same way, heedfulness is the one quality that keeps both kinds of benefits secure—benefits in this life & benefits in lives to come.” We actualize this blessed path.

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 Christopher Titmuss – Week of June 6, 2022

    This week’s theme is: From Mindfulness to Clear Seeing. Clear seeing includes the past, present and future. Clear seeing includes dependent arising conditions for all three fields, so we do not become dependent on the present moment to realise the timeless. A timeless, limitless liberation embraces all three fields of time. Teachings this week will include the immense value and the limits of the here and now.

    Read More

  • Illness, death, urgency and love.

    Yes, the Buddha repeatedly recommended that each of us contemplate our own aging, illness and death. But what gap do you feel between an abstract contemplation and the actuality of this fragile and limited life? With death rolling in like a mountain, quickly and from all sides, do you feel any samvega, or sense of…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 09 December, 2024

    We’re delighted to have Christopher Titmuss guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Liberation Of The Heart

    Join Christopher Titmuss for a week exploring the Brahma Viharas – the Immeasurable Ways of Being.

    The Brahma Viharas, traditionally known as Divine Abidings, point to something boundless in our human experience. While Brahma literally means “God,” its deeper root meaning is “Immeasurable.” The Buddha taught four specific ways to dwell in this immeasurable space: through radical love, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.

    Over five morning sessions, Christopher will offer an overview of these teachings and explore each of these profound ways of abiding. By radical, we mean getting to the very root of what matters most.

    Whether you come with an open heart or a closed one, whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner – all are welcome to join these transformative sessions.

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

    Read More

  • Blunt Suffering

    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….

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of 26 May, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Milla Gregor leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Being Grounded: Five+ Ways

    What is it, to feel grounded, for you? Contact with the earth, with fundamental interrelatedness, your body, values or lineage; with the histories of the land? What’s the opposite of being grounded? We’ll explore such ideas, grounding our reflections in embodied meditation practice.

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

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Nov 1, 2021

    This week’s theme is “Embodied Metta – The Body as a Pathway to Freedom”.

    The Buddha’s teachings invite us to be with things as they are. This week, we’ll learn embodiment practices to help us cultivate true love, compassion and care for ourselves and for others. We’ll practice staying intimate with our body, mind and heart in daily life, in sexuality, and with (often unwanted) thoughts, feelings and emotions.

    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