During this session we discuss the teaching on ‘wisely directing one’s attention to the roots’ (yoniso manasikāra). It is a remarkably pragmatic approach to contemplative practice and one of Early Buddhism’s unique contributions to the human emancipatory effort from suffering.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Yahel Avigur – Week of 12 May, 2025
In this week of practice, we will follow the Buddha’s advice to tune into the oneness of our existence and the five elements: earth, air, water, fire, and space. Practising in this way can nourish a sense of groundedness, freedom, and belonging-while opening pathways to collectedness, joy, and insight.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of May 27 – 31, 2024
This week’s topic is “Mindfulness of the nervous system: transforming fear, struggle and separation into love and connection”. We humans are social animals and need each other to feel safe and secure, to grow and to nourish ourselves. How can we live with a sense of connection, loving-kindness, and inner family? Our meditation practice allows us to take a break between stimulus and response. When we come into contact with our loved ones, we all too easily lose the inner freedom we think we have achieved and avoid our difficulties, also called spiritual bypassing. This week we explore what supports us to react flexibly to the internal and external world, to relax and to allow closeness and real intimacy. We will look into the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, including harmonizing the body formations and nervous system to meet our difficulties with gentleness.
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Acting on Behalf of Consciousness
Recorded :
January 10, 2021 As we move into this new year, most of us are ready to leave 2020 behind. So much hardship, for so many, has arisen in the last year. Many of us felt more isolated, more separate, than ever before. As we transition into 2021, rather than live and act on behalf of that felt sense…
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Buddha’s toolbox: a spectrum of skilful means.
Recorded :
June 28, 2015 In this class we explore the various ways to diffuse difficult emotions, see through mental patterns, re-direct our attention, and understand the nature of experience.
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The Power of a New Year’s Resolution
Recorded :
January 5, 2020 We start a new year. It is 2020. Perhaps the intensity of environmental dramas in 2019 finally made clear to many people the vulnerabilities to life on Earth. It might be useful to make a New Year’s resolution that lasts longer than a week. Here are four considerations. 1. Dedicate an hour a day or…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of 16 February, 2026
This week’s theme is: Going Gently Through the Dark
A week of practice together, navigating both the darkness of winter and the inner states that can also feel dark, barren, wintry. A week of meditation and of community, of teachings and practice, or reminding ourselves of the preciousness and the possibilities of a flourishing human life.
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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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Peace in this very everyday life.
Recorded :
January 31, 2016 In the best of circumstances the path of life is a bumpy road. The practice of embodied presence opens the possibility to understand and transform our habits of dissatisfaction and distraction, and invites spaciousness and openness in our day-to-day lives. Becoming intimate, moment by moment, with living reality may expand our life-perspective and attune us…
