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

Search Sangha Live

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

  • Paul Burrows

    Death and the dance of self.

    Recorded : November 8, 2015

    The Buddhadharma is bursting with ways to find helpful perspectives on our troubles. With awareness and investigation we can unpack the nub of clinging which keeps us bound to old and unhelpful ways of seeing ourselves and the world. As we learn to work with self-centred clinging, we make ourselves available to a liberated perspective…

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 28 April, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Sophie Boyer guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring peace and depth to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Groundedness to Groundlessness

    Grounding oneself in this very moment to realise that what we are looking for has never left us. It has always been here and is not bound to anything. It is an invitation to let life inform every moment without a “me” being in charge – a groundless home.
    Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Meditations this week, inviting us to engage with this paradoxical dynamic.

    Grounding ourselves in this very moment to discover that what we’re searching for has always been here. It has always been here and is not bound to anything. Sophie Boyer leads our Daily Meditations this week, inviting us to explore this beautiful paradox: finding a groundless home where life informs every moment without a separate “me” being in charge. Join us as we practice together in this space of gentle revelation and discovery.

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

    Read More

  • Kate Johnson

    From Freeze to Flow: Transforming Your Fear in the Midst of Pandemic

    Recorded : March 29, 2020

    Rarely has our inherent interdependence been more exposed than it is right now. As a society, we are depending on one another not only to wash our hands and keep our distance. We are depending on each other to take care of our minds and hearts, to transmit clarity and compassion rather than powerlessness and…

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of July 19, 2021

    This week’s theme is: Identifying the Many Masks of the Inner Critic

    Often we think of the inner critic as the constant nagging inner discourse which dismisses our good qualities, questions our lovability, and our potential for goodness. Being a master/mistress of disguise, the inner critic takes on many forms; it wraps our decision making process in veils of doubt, pushes us into compulsive activity, traps us in paralysis, and distorts our views on others.

    Luckily, the Dharma path offers us tools to meet this painful heart-mind dynamic. This week we will practice summoning qualities like wisdom, kindness, equanimity, concentration, appreciation, compassion and inquiry, in order to meet our inner critic in a skilful way.

    Read More

  •

    The Happiness of a Liberated Heart

    Recorded : June 16, 2019

    What is pleasure and what is happiness? Why is my pursuit of happiness not working? Is there any lasting happiness? Together we inquire into the nature of happiness. We reflect on different attempts in our lives to find happiness and what stops us from being contented. Inspired by the Buddha’s own quest for a genuine…

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 17 March, 2025

    We are delighted to have Nirmala Werner guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. This week’s theme is: Sacred Body, Sacred Path: Feminine Principles on the Spiritual Journey. This week, we explore the profound role of the feminine principle on the spiritual journey in Buddhism. We will engage in embodied practices, examining the qualities of the elements and nature, while opening ourselves to what truly serves us on our path to awakening. Where does our practice lead us when we open to an embrace of life, seeing all experience as sacred?

    Read More