There is a substance we need for every meaningful part of our life. We only have a small amount of it, it’s being spent constantly, we can’t get more, and we’re surrounded by predators hungry for it. Attention: every moment we give it to something, and if we don’t choose wisely, a salesperson or an old trauma will. As we learn to protect and train our attention, every part of our life and path improves.
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Dharma Practice as Play, or, There is no Path until you Walk It!
Recorded :
September 13, 2020 In our troubled world dharma practitioners sometimes become earnest. But beings learn and develop through play, and to play we have to be fluid in mind, heart and body. Play fertilizes the human spirit and makes us feel a sense of belonging. Welcome to a session exploring dharma practice as original play and creativity.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of 07 April, 2025
We are delighted to have Jaya Rudgard leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring nourishment to your practice.
This week’s theme is: Dharma Here and Now: The Art of Being Present
As meditators we aspire to being awake to life. We know that this life with its gifts, challenges and opportunities, only ever happens NOW, yet this NOW often eludes us. This week we’ll investigate what helps and hinders our fully inhabiting the moments of our day, and what possibilities might emerge when we do so.
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The First Teaching: Radical Medicine for a Painful World
Recorded :
July 19, 2026 The July full moon marks Dhamma Day (Āsāḷha Pūjā), the anniversary of the Buddha’s very first teaching, given to five friends in a deer park 2,614 years ago. This one ancient talk is said to contain the entire path. And it still asks something…
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Not two, not one: experiencing non-duality in the ordinary.
Recorded :
September 13, 2015 Worldwide Insight talk from Jaya Julienne Ashmore: “Not Two, Not One: Experiencing Non-Duality in the Ordinary”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.
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Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of May 27 – 31, 2024
This week’s topic is “Mindfulness of the nervous system: transforming fear, struggle and separation into love and connection”. We humans are social animals and need each other to feel safe and secure, to grow and to nourish ourselves. How can we live with a sense of connection, loving-kindness, and inner family? Our meditation practice allows us to take a break between stimulus and response. When we come into contact with our loved ones, we all too easily lose the inner freedom we think we have achieved and avoid our difficulties, also called spiritual bypassing. This week we explore what supports us to react flexibly to the internal and external world, to relax and to allow closeness and real intimacy. We will look into the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, including harmonizing the body formations and nervous system to meet our difficulties with gentleness.
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From One, To Two, To Many: The Dharma-Power of Specific Relationships
Recorded :
April 12, 2026 Specific relationships are each a nexus of power in the larger human system. The naturally intense energies and tendencies of the mind are not only amplified and their potency for action accelerated, but specific relationships also function as a vector for proliferation from the individual mind out to other nodes of the system. Relationships are…
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How Does Meditation Support the Path of Awakening?
Recorded :
December 15, 2019 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…
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Nature as Dharma, Nature as Refuge
Recorded :
March 9, 2025 In this session we will explore how the natural world is not only a place to develop resilience in stressful times but also a profound source of wisdom, joy and equanimity, which are essential qualities that can nourish us when the world around us is in upheaval. We will draw on qualities of the earth…
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