In this talk Vidyamala discusses how most of us hold the breath whenever we are in pain or other difficult states. She leads a ‘whole body’ breathing meditation followed by input on how to rest in the flow of the breath as a way to learn to rest in the flow of life and let go of the resistance that causes so much extra suffering.
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Gladness of the Wholesome: The Buddha’s Teaching on Awakening Joy
Recorded :
January 15, 2023 The Buddha was known as The Happy One. Though Joy is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening, with so much emphasis on working with suffering, joy can sometimes seem frivolous or unspiritual. His teaching on attending to the ‘Gladness Connected with the Wholesome’ is a key aspect of Wise Effort and developing a loving heart. We will practice and explore together this foundation for awakening joy.
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The Skilful Process of Transformation
Recorded :
May 2, 2021 In this session, we’ll use the skilful means of mindfulness, mindful breathing and leading the nervous system into a parasympathetic state, to guide our mind towards organic spacious awareness. Within this relaxed spaciousness we’ll imagine the ways in which we wish to incline, head towards and become one with.
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Dharma, Desire and Eros
Recorded :
May 9, 2021 Eros is life force, the energy that animates our being. Eros fills our spiritual life with vitality, our minds with creativity, our ideas with embodiment and our relating with rich intimacy. To live full lives we need access to eros; without it we become dry, rigid, flacid and withholding. Yet what place does it have…
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of May 31, 2021
This week’s topic is “Rediscovering Simplicity: Renunciation and the Art of Letting Go”. Renunciation is one of the ten paramis or ‘spiritual perfections’ considered most conducive to happiness and wellbeing, and yet we tend to understand it in ways that are not helpful. How in the age of peak stuff and peak busyness can we recover the wisdom of “less is more” in a way that re-energises us, lightens our burdens and helps us rediscover creativity and flow? This week we’ll look at this question from different angles with some suggestions for taking the exploration from our morning practice into the activities of our day.
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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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I think I am…Understanding self and non-self, through the five aggregates
Recorded :
November 4, 2018 One of the most puzzling and profound aspects of Dharma is the teaching of anatta; translated as non-self. For us living in the modern world, with the emergence of social media and the over emphasis and obsession with self, how can we use this teaching in a way that is constructive, authentic, relevant and realistic….
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Waking up to Love!
Recorded :
October 13, 2019 What do you love? What’s your relationship to love? Do you love yourself? Do you love someone else? Do you love your job or your hobbies or your house or your friends or your community? Do you love the dharma or the truth or reality? What is Love? Beyond learning about what we love, what…
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Uncertainty, Stability & Love: Everything Comes With Everything
Recorded :
May 12, 2024 Life is never only good or only bad, pleasant or unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable, just or unjust. Cultivating a wide spacious perspective within the reality of uncertainty gives rise to a bigger capacity to meet our lives more gently, kindly, and clearly, with more stability and more love. Join us as we explore perspectives and practices to…
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