Our lives include facing things we didn’t choose, and often cannot change; such as getting ill or injured, or loosing something or someone that we love. Dharma teachings invite us to turn towards these, instead of turning away from them.
What is the wisdom that is available to us when we meet our experience with interest and compassion? What can we learn from opening to the “in-escapable” aspects of the human condition?
We’re honored to have Martin Aylward offering our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope they are nourishing for your practice. This week’s theme is: Slow Down, Open Up: Ways Into Being Where You Already Are
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.
We’re delighted that Christopher Titmuss is guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope you find them enriching for your practice.
This week’s theme is: Going Beyond the World
Dharma practitioners tend to spend much time giving attention to practise. This is a worthwhile endeavour but it seems to go on and on until death. We can conclude that practice means improving the quality of our life, reducing suffering in our lives and showing kindness and compassion to others. Yes, this is significant. It is a credit to dedicated practitioners committed to exploration of such experiences as a way of life. This is not the core purpose of the Dharma but an important preparation for Going Beyond the World.
We have to understand what we mean by the world and going beyond the world.
In these five sessions, we will explore the core purpose in diverse ways. Talks, guided meditations and Q&A form the backbone of the inquiry. Every session will offer everyday examples of the theme of the session to enable seeing the world and confirming going beyond the world.
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This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.
Recorded :
Coming to terms with the teaching and implications of the first noble truth can be challenging, confusing and ongoing. When we are unable to do the hard work of completing the task of the first truth, to embrace Dukkha, we become vulnerable to destructive emotions.
Recorded :
We call this ‘the season of goodwill’. A reminder to care for one another, and to wish each other well. This year, we find ourselves in more need of understanding and expressing our common humanness than ever. We use this week’s session to honour the human heart; to reflect together on both how we respond…
Recorded :
Today’s session is the first in a special run of three consecutive sessions with Martin, where he looks deeply at the nature of experience through Buddha’s profound descriptions of reality – Impermanence, Emptiness, Non self-existence. The classes point directly to how these themes can come alive in our practice and understanding, looking at the personal,…
Recorded :
Martin, the founding and guiding teacher of Sangha Live, leads our regular Sunday session, looking at skilful ways to meet this time of confinement and ‘forced retreat’. He offers various reflections on caring for ourselves and others, and makes plenty of time to share and explore together as a Sangha, as we lean into this…