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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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of 25 November, 2024
We’re delighted to have Martin Aylward leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.
This week’s theme is:
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Breathe! Delight in Meditation
Recorded :
April 14, 2019 How can we delight in our meditation? Learning to bring loving awareness to the breath, feeling the ebb and flow in real time as we sit quietly, is an art. The key is in our approach. Sometimes in practicing mindfulness of breathing, there can be an over-emphasis or insistence on focusing attention that drives delight…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of Sept 12, 2022
This week’s topic is (Be)Come As You Are. Our driven-ness, our ruminating thoughts, and our feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety never allow us to simply ‘be’. They evolve around a sense of identity , a process the Buddha called selfing (bhava), a form of suffering (dukkha). We are endlessly trapped in a narrative of who we think we ought to be, were in the past and should be in the future.
We will dedicate our shared time together to build an awareness of these processes and find alternative ways to relate to the many experiences of life.
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Sitting with Pointlessness – Living with Potentiality
Recorded :
October 16, 2022 During a recent retreat, the teachers’ instruction was to hold the question ‘What is this?’ in mind. While sitting on the cushion, the thought struck me that my life is futile! I am genetically programmed for survival and sex; everything else is just distracting window-dressing. This talk will explore the journey from the apparent ‘futility’…
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Equanimity: Crown Jewel of Buddhist Practice
Recorded :
March 31, 2024 What is equanimity, and how does it differ from indifference? What different forms and subtleties of equanimity are presented in various Buddhist teachings, often occupying the prestigious last spot on the lists? How does equanimity relate to love and compassion? For what reasons should one pursue the development of equanimity for one’s own benefit, the…
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Adapting meditation practice to activities in daily life.
Recorded :
September 18, 2016 Worldwide Insight talk from Christelle Bonneau: “Adapting Meditation Practice to Activities in Daily Life”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.
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An Open Heart in Hell
Recorded :
September 4, 2022 After a summer of extreme heat, drought and fire, we may well enter the autumn wondering how to manage the grief at our fragile and collapsing ecology. Taking the title An Open Heart in Hell from Nick Mulvey’s recent song “Prayer of my Own“, we’ll use this session to honour the pains of the heart without getting…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward / Kaira Jewel Lingo – Week of April 20
We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard and Kaira Jewel Lingo have generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK this week. Links mentioned during these sessions can be found at the bottom of this page. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click…
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