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.
Discover more from the Dharma Library
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Surrendering to awareness.
Recorded :
April 10, 2016 Often in spiritual practice there is the encouragement to observe. From that place of observation we attempt to “be with” what arises. When does that intention get colonized by the ego? Who is it that is “being with”? What is it that is “being with”? What shifts in our practice when we surrender what is…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of March 22, 2021
This week’s theme is: Resolve to Unbind the Heart
The word resolve can embody many meanings. This week we will see how much it offers on a Dharma path of awakening. It is made of re & solve: ‘re’ as in ‘really’, fully, with intensity; ’solve’ as in loosen, undo, or dissolve. Such a poetic and insightful combination: to intensely loosen.
The Buddha offered teachings and practices for a path of unbinding. A path of resolve to resolve, of dedication to undoing. For dukkha is a state of high activity and reactivity: a doing of distress. Meditations are practices of skilful and subtle activity that unbuild problematic senses of self and loosen missions of reactivity. An invitation to wake up to life, in life, for life, and there in the midst of it all to resolve: to fully unbind.
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In Relation to Everything
Recorded :
April 5, 2026 All of our dharma practice is done in relation to something. We’re essentially always in relation to whatever we’re paying attention to. And, we might say that, in order for our dharma practice to progress, we need to be in good relation to four things: the dharma, ourselves, our meditation object and, in general, to…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Caverly Morgan – Week of April 13
We’re very grateful to have Caverly Morgan hosting our Daily Meditation Series for North America. To find out more about Caverly, and to view her past recordings and contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, April 13 The refuge of presence Wednesday, April 15 Clear seeing: recognizing ourselves as that which doesn’t reject and doesn’t…
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How can I Sink when I am the Ocean?
Recorded :
June 10, 2018 In this session we explore more precisely the different individuals we think we are through the days. We will try to recognize them better, with their own feelings, sensations, emotions, thoughts and states of mind. We’ll also try to hear more clearly all the different judgemental voices that take place in us, about the way…
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The Wisdom of Equanimity
Recorded :
June 4, 2023 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?…
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Luminous Darkness: A Path for Seeing Clearly from the Heart
Recorded :
October 2, 2022 One of the gifts of global uncertainty is that it requires us to recognize and release unconscious biases that have been passed down for generations. These include the perception that splits into opposites and values light over dark, speed over slowing down, productivity over attunement, and conclusion over not knowing. Awakening requires that we soften…
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Genuine Happiness: An Alternative Perspective
Recorded :
March 10, 2024 So much of what we hear and learn about within Dharma practice places an arguably unnecessary emphasis on suffering (dukkha). While the acceptance of suffering (dukkha) is an important and essential aspect of the path, it is by no means the end of the story. In one of the Buddha’s oldest descriptions of what it…
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