The dominant culture treats unpleasant feelings as problems, and pleasant feelings as if we should experience them all the time. This is neither possible nor wise. How can we fully feel the beautiful and painful aspects of our lives so that we are strengthened and enriched by the depth and breadth of this human experience? Equanimity is a wise connection with all that is unfolding. Let’s explore this together.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Awakening to the New Year: creating conscious intentions
Recorded :
January 7, 2018 When we move on behalf of the recognition of our true nature, a conscious intention becomes a way to align all aspects of our lives with our deepest understanding and recognition of truth. A conscious intention is seeped in possibility. While it may even look similar on some level, on the surface, to a conditioned…
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Love for the world
Recorded :
December 17, 2017 In our last class of 2017, our guiding teacher Martin offers reflections on life, love and liberation, looking particularly at some of the challenging events and elements of worldly life, and pointing towards a skilful, loving and courageous engagement with the world and everyone in it.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of October 2, 2023
This week’s topic is “Wholehearted Presence”. Meeting experience as it unfolds with presence and interest, we uncover the wellbeing and freedom available to us on the Dharma path. Through this week’s exploration we will open to what supports a wholehearted approach to practice, and understand what is nourished and cultivated when we relate to experience in this way.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of 19 October, 2026
This week’s theme is: Verses for the Day: Practising with the Dhammapāda . The Dhammapāda is one of the most ancient and best loved texts in the Buddhist tradition: a collection of verses that have been memorised and recited since the time of the earliest practitioners. Daily sessions this week will each centre on a particular stanza or group of stanzas from this timeless teaching. These will be our inspiration for reflection and meditation and a companion, if we wish, for the remainder of the day. Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.
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The practice of pleasure and delight (or the spiritual art of having fun).
Recorded :
April 22, 2018 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…
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Monastic Practice, The Inner Way, and Contemporary Culture
Recorded :
July 12, 2026 Monasticism and the practice of the Inner Way are being transformed by contemporary culture. What is the ‘Way’ today? Is there such a thing as a ‘Natural-Way-of-Being’? And what is ‘Enlightenment’? In this talk, we will explore these questions, and how to…
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The art of enquiry: how to explore experience for wisdom and liberation.
Recorded :
May 15, 2016 Dharma teachings and practices invite us to open up to our experience in order to see and understand its true nature. This class with Worldwide Insight guiding teacher Martin Aylward explores how we can inquire fruitfully, staying present and curious, without on the one hand getting lost in the story of our inner drama, and…
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Simplicity: The Heart of the Dharma
Recorded :
July 21, 2024 Simplicity underlies Dharma practice. It’s common that when people begin to meditate, even if they have a full life with a job and family, they begin to realize that simplicity is a deep value. Pursuing conventional goals feels less meaningful or satisfying than finding ease and straightforwardness in our approach to life. Simplicity cuts across…
Discussion