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

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of June 19, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Generosity at the Heart of One of Life’s Greatest Mysteries”. What meaning does generosity embody when we open our minds to accepting one of life’s greatest realities – that in fact we know and master very little. Let us explore the different ways in which facing our experiences with generosity allows us to let go of our preconceptions and taste all of life’s flavours and feel fully alive.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Nov 27 – 1 Dec, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Longing for Belonging; Becoming Intimate with Expansion and Contraction”. Although people are more connected than ever through technology, there seems to be a global trance of “not belonging”. In this week’s sessions we will explore how we separate from our own selves and from others, and above all how we can come home to all our parts and sink back into a sense of belonging.

    Read More

  • Pamela Weiss

    An Appropriate Response

    Recorded : July 9, 2017

    What does it take to respond rather than react to the increasing complexity and divisiveness of our world? This talk will explore Buddhist teachings that illuminate the sources of our fundamental reactivity, and reveal ways to help us see and see through it.

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Compassion, Emergence and Climate Change

    Recorded : September 19, 2021

    This year, humanity has witnessed the alarming acceleration of climate change… the loss of forests and rivers, animal and plant species… and the potential annihilation of our species. Alongside our profound grief for what is changing globally, however, we are also experiencing Emergence.  Emergence, the organizing principle of Gaia, can help us to stay present as…

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 01 September, 2025

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

    This week’s theme is: Equanimity – What Is Always At Rest

    Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Mediations this week, inviting us to re-attune to what is always at rest, what never struggles, what never pushes or pulls. Join us to explore the non dual nature of life together.

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

    Read More

  •

    The Practice of Blamelessness

    Recorded : December 5, 2021

    We are deeply conditioned to blame; it’s a survival strategy. Though it can feel necessary, maybe even fruitful to part of us, blaming arises out of suffering, and leads to more suffering. The process of blame is not required but we don’t always know how to put it down. How do we let it go?

    Read More

  •

    Awakening from fear.

    Recorded : December 6, 2015

    We need not avoid fear. Fear belongs to the illusion of a self that is separate from life. It is the byproduct of identifying with that illusion. Often, fear arises in the very moment that our awareness practices are bringing us closer to a direct experience of who we authentically are. For this reason, in…

    Read More