The Shurangama Sutra, which points out the foundations of Zen practice, discusses the essential nature of mind as the “primal essence of consciousness that brings forth all conditions.” Implied is the heart-mind (citta) both profoundly intimate with all things while at the same time free and independent of all things. How is it to live this paradox as we move within an unbearable evolutionary crisis polarized between human driven destruction and human inspired renewal?
With Thanissara recorded on February 18, 2018.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of October 24, 2022
This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.
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What Feeds your Craving?
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May 19, 2024 The Buddha discovered that craving is the cause by which stress comes into play. Letting go of this constant pursuing of our desires is possible. Befriending this human and natural craving needs the power of kind awareness and an ongoing reflection: What feeds my craving? And: What feeds letting go?
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The nature of practice: from linear path to inclusive awareness.
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June 12, 2016 Today, Worldwide Insight founding and guiding teacher Martin Aylward explores the nature of practicing dharma, the way the path tends to unfold for us over time, and its developmental stages, from an initially linear sense of ‘self-improvement’ to an increasing capacity to be with ourselves however we are, and with whatever appears.
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The Spectrum of Sensuality – Where do I stand?
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October 13, 2024 The extremes of addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification are not the path to happiness. The spectrum of human sensuality spans from pleasure to pain, pleasant to unpleasant, from hedonic excesses to self-harm, encompassing a vast range that is likely different for everyone. What is considered the Middle Way for a monastic might…
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Getting Free: The Infinite Middle of the MiddleWay
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September 26, 2021 Dharma teachings are sublime, subtle, and onward leading: they are always going deeper and wider than we may first presume. Yet, they also meet us where we are, in the midst of our life. In this session we’ll explore two expressions of the middle-way we can cultivate and develop in our practice and in our…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of 04 November, 2024
This week’s theme is: Love’s Fullness
Mindfulness is a practice of remaining present, open and loving to the deepest truth of this moment as it arises and dissolves. It invites us into an intimate, warm and embodied relationship with life, where each moment is sensed, felt and known with love. The four foundations of mindfulness return us to love’s fullness.
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You are Not Alone: Healing the Myth of Separation
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March 17, 2019 The dharma invites us to face ourselves fully. But through fear, we sometimes distract ourselves, over-fill ourselves, and hold onto external attachments, in order to avoid.…what? The illusion that we are separate and isolated manifests in ways conscious and unconscious, but over time practice reveals to us that it is simply the ego that fears…
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Using the five aggregates as a strategy.
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April 9, 2017 The aggregates are a reference to our sense of self. Working with form, feeling, perception, identification, and consciousness as we go through our daily lives will support equanimity. Most importantly, it will help us work with emotions with greater efficiency.
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