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

  • George Haas

    Meditation and Attachment Theory

    Recorded : April 14, 2024

    We will discuss Attachment Theory in the context of Buddhist Theravada Practice, exploring the traditional Buddhist path to liberation using descriptions of Attachment conditioning as a way to understand obstacles to practice. We will learn skillful ways of assembling an inner circle of close people to support your path to enlightenment.

    Read More

  •

    Meditating and speaking: simultaneously practicing Sila, Samadhi and Panna

    Recorded : February 11, 2018

    The communicative loop of listening and speaking forms a powerful karmic workshop. Language taps into our karmic archive, sankhara. It reaches other people and, if they are listening, there is mind-to-mind contact. Relational contact is intrinsically powerful because humans are intrinsically relational: when we engage together, our mutual responsiveness amplifies our efforts. Speaking and listening…

    Read More

  • Martine Batchelor

    Mindfulness of feeling tone (vedana).

    Recorded : April 12, 2015

    During this session Martine practices and explores mindfulness of the feeling tones, which is the second foundation of the practice of mindfulness. First, she guides a meditation on mindfulness of the feeling tones. Afterwards she tries to define feeling tones and how to be mindful of them in our daily life. The Pali term Vedana…

    Read More

  • Ronya Banks

    Inner Peace – Even in a Chaotic World

    Recorded : July 21, 2019

    “Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that is not our real home. Our real home is inner peace.” – Ajahn Chah How can you possibly experience inner peace at a time when human-kind and our planet appears to be tumbling deeper into “chaos”? Can inner peace even…

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    Appreciation and joy

    Recorded : September 11, 2017

    We can cultivate the attitude of appreciation and allow it to enhance and strengthen our mindfulness practice. Shaila Catherine speaks about the powerful impact that joy and appreciation can have on the quality of our minds, and the development of our spiritual path.

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 18 November, 2024

    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: The Fruits of Attention

    What difference does a simple reorientation of attention do to this moment? How will it condition what comes next? Every day this week there will be an opportunity for the fruits of attention to be revealed such as care, generosity, and morality. Let’s explore this together.

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Catherine McGee – Week of April 25, 2022

    This week’s theme is “Exploring and Developing the Power of a Light Touch”. A light touch can allow our practice to unfold more easefully, make the depths of our hearts more available and create a greater agility in our relationships with the world. With our body as the primary ground for our practice we will explore different ways to cultivate this kind of attention, enjoy the fruits of our efforts and attend to what might hinder this natural capacity

    Read More