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

The practice of pleasure and delight (or the spiritual art of having fun).

With Martin Aylward recorded on April 22, 2018.

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

Dharma teachings importantly emphasise suffering, compassion, renunciation, desire, non-reactivity, peacefulness. All these are potent themes, yet ones which can make our practice feel overly heavy, unnecessarily serious, maybe even uptight!

Dharma practice equally points us towards a playful nature, light-heartedness and ease, delight and the capacity to really enjoy life. Especially when we can get bogged down in the circumstantial reality of both our personal struggles and of world affairs, we need uplift for the heart. Joy as resilience. A buoyant heart, that though it may get pushed under, cannot be sunk.

In this class, our founding teacher Martin reflects on ways to cultivate that buoyancy, to explore our capacity for pleasure, to enjoy the gift of life.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Lisa Ernst

    Exploring Karma, Choice and the Mind

    Karma is action in Buddhism, driven by intention. With practice we cultivate the ability to choose our response and our actions, internally and externally. We might think if our intentions are good our actions will follow, but our intentions are often under the influence of strong conditioning that prevents us from living our choices. But…

    Read More

  • Lisa Ernst

    Working with Stress and Fear

    Not all stress is bad. Yet without mindful awareness, anticipatory stress may spiral into reactivity, paralyzing fear and suffering. How do we meet this stress mindfully, use it skilfully, then let go?

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of April 13

    We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, April 13 Thought patterns Wednesday, April 15 Self-reinforcing thought loops Friday, April 17 Welcoming inner experience and also…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    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.

    Read More

  • Justine Dawson

    The Appropriate Response

    When a monk asked the 10th Century Zen master Yunmen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?” Yunmen replied, “An appropriate response.”  What is this appropriate response and how do we know we’ve got it right? Beyond linear formulas, Dharma teachings point to a natural intelligence that guides us in a spontaneous responsiveness to life….

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings with Nathan Glyde – Week of September 16, 2024

    This week’s topic is “That Changes Everything”. The Buddha instructed us to “notice how all conditioned things change”. How we understand this instruction changes depending on which words we emphasise. If we emphasise ‘change’ it sounds like “that’s simply how it is”. If we emphasise ‘how’ and ‘conditioned’, it invites us to question and play a part.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of Nov 15, 2022

    This week’s topic is Kindle the Flame. Metta practice, which nourishes the heart’s capacity for friendliness, brings many benefits. It softens our relationship to ourselves, nourishes us with a sense of connection, puts challenges into perspective and offers a safe ground from which we can meet life with a sense of care. We dedicate this week to (re)ignite the flame of metta, using as an inspiration the Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, a famous discourses of the Buddha.

    Read More