Awakening to Life means harmonizing our values and our actions. Many of us merely go through the motions, sleepwalking through the hours, without actually feeling alive. Cultivating courage and joy entails slowing down, paying close attention, and practicing being fully engaged with what each moment has to offer. Koshin Sensei will share Zen teachings and down to earth contemplative practices designed to bring freshness, vitality, and curiosity to everyday life. Whether you are familiar with Zen Buddhism or simply open-minded, you can wake up to your life.
With Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison recorded on March 23, 2025.
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Discover more from the Dharma Library
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When Less is More
Recorded :
April 8, 2018 Gautam Buddha said he gained nothing from complete awakening. What are our everyday experiences of the magic of less? Trying less does not mean less energy, connection or insight. How little effort is needed to hear a sound or to feel the ground? Simply listening to a friend with ease and no answers can leave…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Leela Sarti – Week of April 18, 2022
This week’s theme is “Timeless Presence in Daily Life: Being Yourself, Being at Home”. This week we will be exploring the possibility of being grounded in the depth of timeless presence in the midst of daily life. How to live a full life from silence and emptiness? How can we feel at home in our own skin and in the very circumstances of our life? How can we awaken an awareness and a heart that embraces life, dukkha and beyond? The grace of presence reveals the possibility of settling in reality and living with ease.
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Endarkenment: Embracing the Medicine of Light and Dark
Recorded :
November 29, 2020 As we enter the darker months of the year, consider the profound restoration and healing that darkness offers us— both physically and symbolically. Darkness is often considered the absence of light, but it is actually a vital and regenerative essence of nature and consciousness. This session is an experiential exploration of the interplay of light…
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Protecting the Mind
Recorded :
April 20, 2025 The encounter with sensory experiences can lead to insight and calm, or reactivity and suffering. How do you guard your mind in the midst of a daily barrage of sensory input? How do you protect your mind so that tranquility and wisdom will be well established? The Buddha encouraged restraint of the senses, but this…
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Neuro-Somatic Mindfulness (NSM): An Accelerated Path for Healing & Awakening
Recorded :
February 4, 2024 Roshi Fleet Maull, PhD will offer a brief talk and guide a session of his deeply embodied, neuroscience and trauma-informed approach to classic mindfulness & awareness meditation followed by Q&A. NSM facilitates the transition from self-directed self-regulation to the body’s capacity for auto-regulation, flow, and effortless mindfulness, as well as the shift from witnessing mindfulness to nondual…
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Post-election trauma: embracing fear, extending love.
Recorded :
November 27, 2016 It has been a distressing and disorienting time for many of us, and to different degrees. Following recent political events in the US and Western Europe our practice is being challenged in new ways. Spurred by a Trump victory, violent attacks on individuals in marginalized groups are on the rise. The three poisons of Greed,…
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The Practice of Blamelessness
Recorded :
December 5, 2021 We are deeply conditioned to blame; it’s a survival strategy. Though it can feel necessary, maybe even fruitful to part of us, blaming arises out of suffering, and leads to more suffering. The process of blame is not required but we don’t always know how to put it down. How do we let it go?
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Leaning Into Collapse
Recorded :
September 5, 2021 The fires and floods of this summer, and the ongoing pandemic and its complexities, can weigh heavy on the heart, along with the shocking but unsurprising new IPCC report confirming the ‘inevitable and irreversible’ worsening effects of the climate disruption, ecological collapse and existential emergency we are already living through. This class, led by Sangha…
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