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

Search Sangha Live

The Paradox of Being: Alive & Aware

With Eugene Cash recorded on February 17, 2019.

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

“The World is its Own Magic” – Suzuki Roshi

As we practice and our understanding deepens, we’re often surprised by paradox. We begin to discover what the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra pointed to: Things are not what they seem… Nor are they otherwise. We intuitively know that there is more to life/reality then the usual, the familiar and the ordinary. Part of what draws us to spirituality is an inherent understand that this ordinary reality is true and it is the ground of the extraordinary. We’ll look, examine, and see what we experience and what’s experiencing our experience as we practice together. It might be possible to see if when we’re present and aware, life is its own magic.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Not-other: knowing our solidarity with all beings.

    Recorded : April 30, 2017

    Dharma teachings point at the way our experience is not-self. This also means that everyone else is not-other. In this class we explore the ways we isolate and defend ourselves, and reach for and reject others, looking towards a greater inclusion of and intimacy with others as the ground for both better relationships and true…

    Read More

  • James Rafael

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with James Rafael – Week of January 8, 2024

    This week’s topic is “New Year Habits and Hindrances”. In this week’s sessions we’ll explore how engaging with the Buddha’s teachings on the ‘5 Hindrances’ can help establish or deepen the habit of a daily meditation practice.

    If you’re new to meditation, this framework offers ways to engage with common challenges we may face; “I can’t sit still’, “My mind is just too busy”, “I’m just not sure if this is working”.

    If you have a consistent, established practice, revisiting the hindrances can be a gateway to access deeper levels of concentration (samatha), and the subsequent, often profound, insight (vipassana) which follows.

    Read More

  •

    Right view – a path to liberation.

    Recorded : November 6, 2016

    The practice and realizaton of Right View is the first of the eightfold path. Holding to views and opinions is a sure way to suffering, says the Buddha. But can we live with no views at all? To realize Right View we have to look deeply into life, in order to free ourselves from wrong…

    Read More

  •

    Awakening to the New Year: creating conscious intentions

    Recorded : January 7, 2018

    When we move on behalf of the recognition of our true nature, a conscious intention becomes a way to align all aspects of our lives with our deepest understanding and recognition of truth. A conscious intention is seeped in possibility. While it may even look similar on some level, on the surface, to a conditioned…

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    I think I am…Understanding self and non-self, through the five aggregates

    Recorded : November 4, 2018

    One of the most puzzling and profound aspects of Dharma is the teaching of anatta; translated as non-self. For us living in the modern world, with the emergence of social media and the over emphasis and obsession with self, how can we use this teaching in a way that is constructive, authentic, relevant and realistic….

    Read More

  • Ven. Pannavati Bikkhuni

    Developing insight into power.

    Recorded : February 21, 2016

    The Buddha talked about eight qualities of one who has transformed insight into a power. We examine these eight and apply introspection to assess where we are on the path to awakening and what is needed for completion.

    Read More