In the story of the Buddha, he awakened in the forest, taught in the forest, died in the forest. Nature played an important role in the Buddha’s awakening. Many Buddhist practice communities have been in close connection with nature. What role might it play in our practice here in the modern world?
In this session Brian discusses our relationship with the natural world, and what this might mean for our practice.
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In this session Vidyamala introduces key areas of body awareness where mindful breathing can help to bring about regulation and calm in the body/heart/mind. She calls these the 5 B’s of the breath: Buttocks, Belly, Back, Back of the throat and Brain. She introduces the physiology of these areas and then leads a guided meditation….
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Our founding and guiding teacher Martin Aylward reflects on the importance of being nourished and uplifted by our practice. He looks at the nature of happiness and our sometimes difficult relationship with pleasure; explore opening up to joy, and point to ways in which dharma practice is fulfilling and freeing.
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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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Our Sangha has been predominately white since it branched off from the Asian countries. This Dharma talk offers a path for deeper inquiry and greater insight into how we can embody cultural diversity. The Eight Noble Truths will guide us toward a healthier way of conducting ourselves in the arena of cultural diversity, taking a…
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One of the Buddha’s primary realisations was ‘Life is painful and then you die.’ If this is true, then how do we respond to the difficulties of life? This session will explore how we are conditioned to protect, promote and satisfy a ‘self’ which can never be satisfied because ‘we are the slaves of craving.’ There will…
This week’s theme is: From Mindfulness to Clear Seeing. Clear seeing includes the past, present and future. Clear seeing includes dependent arising conditions for all three fields, so we do not become dependent on the present moment to realise the timeless. A timeless, limitless liberation embraces all three fields of time. Teachings this week will include the immense value and the limits of the here and now.
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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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Similar to the phases of the moon, our spiritual practice is full of natural rhythms and seasons. In this session we will learn a simple chart, called the phases of insight, that supports recognizing what can unfold at various points in meditation. By learning these patterns we can open our hearts with more confidence, and attune to…
Discussion