In order to live a more full and integrated life, we are welcome to acknowledge our strength and our fragility. Our silenced parts, the places that scare us and our shadows, with the right attitude and right view, can serve as a catalyst to our liberation. Holding dear our humanity as well as the liberating insights on emptiness and not self, the dance between them is one of joy and freedom.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Working with difficult emotions.
Recorded :
December 4, 2016 Feelings have the power to motivate one toward wise action when facing a challenge. They can also cause intense suffering, drive and distort behavior, and lead to regret. Being able to work with emotions, both intense and subtle, is a skill that can be developed through mindfulness meditation. We explore the Unified Mindfulness technique of…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of 23 September, 2024
This week’s topic is “Fluidly, fully, freely”. This week will explore facets of our ever-changing experience, and how the river of life can remind us to meet everything more fluidly, and thus to live more freely.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of September 5, 2022
This week’s topic is “Awakening into Experience Here and Now”. “You shouldn’t chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past
is left behind.
The future
is as yet unreached.
Whatever quality is present
you clearly see right there,
right there.
Not taken in,
unshaken,
that’s how you develop the heart.” (MN 131)The essence of the Buddha’s teachings lies in these words. Unshakability and freedom are at the heart of awakening, they are what we cultivate in our practice. This week we will practice turning to our experience in ways that wake us up, right here and now.
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The seven factors of awakening.
Recorded :
September 11, 2016 Jessica discusses the seven factors of awakening (mindfulness, tranquility/relaxation, piti/joy, concentration, investigation, viriya/courageous energy, equanimity) and how to work with them in meditation practice to balance the mind and support insight through specific meditative techniques.
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Sitting with Pointlessness – Living with Potentiality
Recorded :
October 16, 2022 During a recent retreat, the teachers’ instruction was to hold the question ‘What is this?’ in mind. While sitting on the cushion, the thought struck me that my life is futile! I am genetically programmed for survival and sex; everything else is just distracting window-dressing. This talk will explore the journey from the apparent ‘futility’…
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The Power of Connection
Recorded :
October 10, 2021 The pandemic has highlighted now, more than ever, how interconnected we are with life on this planet, and also the importance of human connection for us as social animals. The preciousness of relationship is at the heart of Buddhist teachings. How can our meditation practice help us to remain connected and integrated with ourselves, others,…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of September 19, 2022
This week’s topic is “Compose Yourself”. Dharma teachings appear to pull ‘us’ in two directions: on the one hand we pacify, renouncing and let go of everything, even of ourselves; on the other we energise, expanding our being into interconnection, to extend a limitless, inclusive welcome to all everywhere. But in actuality, we discover that there is no contradiction with this mismatch. For the well-composed practitioner, expanding goodwill and liberating release harmoniously and melodically intertwine.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of Jan 31, 2022
Embodied and Awake: Meditations for Body, Heart and Mind.
Mind, body and emotion form a constant feedback loop. As the traditional teachings on mindfulness make clear, all three equally deserve our interested, caring attention. When mindfulness is balanced in this way our whole being benefits. Our practice this week will include some gentle movements and mindful breathing practices as a prelude to each day’s meditation. These can be done seated or standing, or adapted for lying down, according to your ability and levels of energy.
Each morning this week we’ll dive into one of the images from the natural world and daily life that the Buddha used to explain his teachings. Let’s see how how these similes and metaphors from the Buddhist texts can support our understanding and enrich our practice. We may also discover how practising with them can enhance our appreciation of the world around us.
Discussion