Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

You are Not Alone: Healing the Myth of Separation

With Deborah Eden Tull recorded on March 17, 2019.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

The dharma invites us to face ourselves fully. But through fear, we sometimes distract ourselves, over-fill ourselves, and hold onto external attachments, in order to avoid.…what? The illusion that we are separate and isolated manifests in ways conscious and unconscious, but over time practice reveals to us that it is simply the ego that fears surrendering to presence. Ego fears its own annihilation, which is liberation for the human heart.

Ironically, the root of the word “alone” is “all one.” It is by surrendering to the emptiness within that we remember wholeness. We remember relational intelligence, interconnection, and attunement with life by turning within, and learning to engage through wakefulness rather than habit.

In today’s world, there is a lot of conditioning that reinforces the myth of separation, and we see this through an epidemic of loneliness, competition, self-consciousness, othering (within and out), and superficial connection.

Some of the questions we will explore in this session include…

How do we enable the myth of separation without being fully aware of it? And how do we dismantle this myth?
How do we bring healing to the human experience of feeling alone or isolated?
How does being with aloneness tenderize and open us more deeply to the inherent field of interconnection?
How do the teachings of relational mindfulness ultimately teach us to live in greater reciprocity, cooperation, attunement, and love?
And how is engaged interconnection and a relational immersion in life fundamental for our awakening?

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 22 June, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Happiness in Enoughness . Stepping out of the pressure to keep up, we turn toward the simple joys of presence, gratitude, and generosity. Together we explore how contentment and letting go can open the heart to a more quiet and sustainable happiness. Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Pamela Weiss

    An Appropriate Response

    What does it take to respond rather than react to the increasing complexity and divisiveness of our world? This talk will explore Buddhist teachings that illuminate the sources of our fundamental reactivity, and reveal ways to help us see and see through it.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of May 9, 2022

    This week’s topic is Disentangle the Net of Needs. We all have needs. Existential needs, needs for safety, connection, spirituality and much more. Our attitude towards needs, what strategies we choose to meet them and what boundaries we set in place determines to a large extent our happiness and peace of mind. In this week we want to explore skilful ways to handle our needs, feelings and boundaries. We will draw from Buddhist teachings, mindful practices and elements of non-violent communication to support us in our daily lives.

    Read More

  • Christine Kupfer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christine Kupfer – Week of February 26, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Fear and Fearlessness in the Midst of Uncertainty”. We try to secure our lives by any means necessary. We do our best, we tend to our business, and boom!, a crisis occurs. Whether it’s an ecological, political, pandemic, professional, relational or spiritual crisis…  life does not leave us settled, bringing up a whole procession of fears and worries. So how can we find peace? How can we become fearless? This is the theme we will explore this week on Sangha Live.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Don’t be realistic. Be real

    Through the cultures within family, education and work, we are constantly orientated towards ‘realistic’ expectations and visions for our lives. Dharma practice asks us to abandon the realistic in favour of the real; listening deeply to life and to how things actually are, so as to respond wisely and lovingly, fully and freely. In this…

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    How Does Meditation Support the Path of Awakening?

    Scientists have documented some significant and measurable changes that occur as a result of meditation. But Buddhist practice is not limited to calm, pleasant, relaxing states of meditation. The liberating path includes a broad range of practices that produce a wide variety of benefits. We learn how we encounter the world of the senses; we…

    Read More