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

  • Vesak 2568: The Radical Message of Siddhattha Gotama

    On the Theravāda holiday of Vesak, 2568 years after the Buddha’s death, we honor the ancient ascetic named Siddhattha Gotama, whose insights into the nature of suffering and freedom have inspired fierce disciplines, soaring poetry, subtle psychological and philosophical investigations, and social movements for nonviolence, and social justice. We’ll meditate, learn traditional verses celebrating the…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Transforming the poisons.

    Buddha points out the three main ways we get pulled into activity and self-contraction – Greed, Hatred and Delusion – which Martin often translates as Desire, Defense and Distraction. This class explores creative ways of meeting these forces in everyday life, and explores powerful reflections for each of the three.

    Read More

  • Joseph Goldstein

    The Inquiring Mind

    The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand each other. In this talk, we’ll be discussing some foundational understandings that provide a framework of this inquiry. It will include such topics as training our habits of attention, suffering as…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of February 7, 2022

    This week’s theme is: Finding Happiness and Wellbeing on the Path

    The understanding of how dukkha is conditioned and constructed lies at the heart of Dharma teachings. Dukkha and wellbeing are in relationship with each other; the abandonment of the causes of dukkha leads to wellbeing. The nourishment of the causes for wellbeing decreases dukkha. During this week we will explore our capacity to uncover and develop wellbeing through our practice, in ways that enrich our lives.

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of May 23, 2022

    This week’s topic is An Enigma Inside A Mystery. We typically freeze in amazement or feverishly search for causes when we suffer dukkha (life’s tension). We’ve probably all experienced how these reactions exacerbate the problem. The Buddha taught that dukkha is a puzzle that can be solved: it doesn’t have to be a mystery. We can learn the resolution that brings us from bewilderment to marvellous release by paying quiet attention to the pattern of the difficulty.

    Read More

  • David Cabrera

    A Return To Naturalness

    From pure emptiness the wondrous appears… In the session we will explore different somatic approaches to cultivate a sense of calm and ease. An invitation into insight meditation and letting go into a natural state of flow.

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Getting Free: The Infinite Middle of the MiddleWay

    Dharma teachings are sublime, subtle, and onward leading: they are always going deeper and wider than we may first presume. Yet, they also meet us where we are, in the midst of our life. In this session we’ll explore two expressions of the middle-way we can cultivate and develop in our practice and in our…

    Read More