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

Search Sangha Live

The Individual-Relational Dharma Paradox and Why it Matters to Your Life

With Gregory Kramer recorded on February 16, 2025.

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

Biologically, psychologically, and in common sense there is no doubt that the human experience is both intrinsically individual and intrinsically relational. Our bodies are separate. You will never directly know my inner universe. Also, our bodies evolved to relate. The brain is a relational organ. Our sense of safety and joy, suffering and inquiry, has relational roots.

And since the Dharma is about the nature of the human experience, the Path must be both intrinsically individual and intrinsically relational. Morality, wisdom practices, and even meditation will be most fitting when they reflect this conjoined individual and relational nature.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Moving Beyond the Myth of Loneliness

    Recorded : June 23, 2019

    What changes as we consciously turn toward our suffering, rather than away? We are conditioned to experience ourselves as separate from life, but in that outward gaze, we often overlook an experience of belonging that is inherent. How does our habit of seeking shift when we recognize that what we long for can never actually…

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Endarkenment: Embracing the Medicine of Light and Dark

    Recorded : November 29, 2020

    As we enter the darker months of the year, consider the profound restoration and healing that darkness offers us— both physically and symbolically. Darkness is often considered the absence of light, but it is actually a vital and regenerative essence of nature and consciousness. This session is an experiential exploration of the interplay of light…

    Read More

  •

    Vesak 2568: The Radical Message of Siddhattha Gotama

    Recorded : May 18, 2025

    On the Theravāda holiday of Vesak, 2568 years after the Buddha’s death, we honor the ancient ascetic named Siddhattha Gotama, whose insights into the nature of suffering and freedom have inspired fierce disciplines, soaring poetry, subtle psychological and philosophical investigations, and social movements for nonviolence, and social justice. We’ll meditate, learn traditional verses celebrating the…

    Read More

  • Christine Kupfer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christine Kupfer – Week of April 10, 2022

    This week’s topic is “Body like a temple”. We often refer to the body as if it were a functional tool. We talk about my body, as if it were supposed to be at our service. Sometimes all it takes is one breath for everything to change, and in a dazzle, we experience body as a temple, a sanctuary for life. What is a temple? It is a sacred place, a place whose spiritual reality goes beyond the physical plane. In our daily meditations this week, we will bow to the miracle of the body that we are, honoring the presence of life unfolding in all its realities.

    Read More

  •

    Embodied Intentionality

    Recorded : July 15, 2018

    This session is an exploration of the ‘truths’ that might lead to conviction, to directed karma, to mindfulness as remembering-to-remember, and to the path to joy & beyond.

    Read More

  •

    Return to Oneness – Resting in Luminous Being

    Recorded : February 9, 2025

    Who is it that suffers? And why is asking that question valuable in our spiritual practice? In this Sunday session, we’ll explore these questions, and more. Following a guided meditation and teaching from Caverly’s book, The Heart of Who We Are, there will be plenty of time for discussion. All welcome.

    Read More

  • Ayala Gill

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of 03 February, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Ayala Gill leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring depth and joy to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: From Suffering To Love

    Suffering is a messenger inviting us to include more of this moment with love. Rather than fussing, numbing and fixing, we pause in the midst of reactivity to breathe, come into the body, unhook from stories and feel emotions with love. This allows us to respond to life from love. Suffering returns us to love by showing us what we leave out of its limitless embrace.

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

    Read More