Understanding the mental states that we cycle through moment to moment.
Links referred to during the session:
Five Basic Needs of the Heart meditation
With Vimalasara Mason-John recorded on April 11, 2021.
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Understanding the mental states that we cycle through moment to moment.
Links referred to during the session:
Five Basic Needs of the Heart meditation
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.
This week’s topic is “Entering Fall”. The autumn season can be a challenging (transitional) time of the year with darkness, rain, wind, mist, and a sense that the cycle of life is coming slowly to an end. Paradoxically, nature also offers intense scents and colors before heading into the coldness and barrenness of winter. This week is an invitation to experience autumn within us. A time to bring the mind momentarily to a stop and explore what can nurture and provide a refuge for the heart. Let’s explore the sparkling colors of autumn’s heart and mind together.
This week’s topic is “Embracing challenging emotions”. There are no negative emotions, only ones that we find challenging to embrace, like anxiety, anger, grief and fear. When we relate to them in distorted ways, their expression is indeed negative. Over this week (at a time of year where they may be particularly triggered!) we will explore how to come into a sacred relationship with each of these challenging emotions.
This week’s theme is Making Sense of Self.
Although the Buddha encourages us to not indulgently ponder whether the self is real or not, he did offer us a way to explore how the sense of self appears. This methodology, called the khandhas (aggregates: the heap of heaps), exposes all aspects we gather together to create and hold to our sense of self: form (body); vedanā (subtle preference); perception; saṅkhāra (mental formations – like intention, attention…); and consciousness (knowing).
Recorded :
Life seems an inevitable movement in the field of time until death interrupts. Amidst the myriad number of events, welcome and unwelcome, we hastily conclude the way we perceive reveals the way things are.
Recorded :
It is an extraordinary relief to encounter the perfection of ordinary self in a world that is screaming loudly, “There is something better out there! There is something you might be missing! There are standards you need to meet! There is something more you need to prove!” As we remember our inherent goodness, we cease…
We’re fortunate that Martin Aylward has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK this week. To find out more about Martin, and view his other recordings on the platform, click here.
This week’s theme is: Resources for the Path of Engaged Practice.
Engaged practice combines dharma wisdom with justice and liberation movement wisdom, allowing us to fly with the wings of compassion and wisdom towards the better world we know is possible.
This week we’ll dive into ideas, practices and poems from those on the engaged practice path, strengthening our ability to participate in building justice, liberation and joy both within and beyond our individual lives.
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