Short Reflection & Guided Meditation on Aspirations for the New Year | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene II | Online Wednesday-Mornings.

This dhamma talk and Q&A was offered on January 4, 2025 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!” 00:00 - DHAMMA TALK 15:23 - INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE BUDDHA AND Q&A

Guided by the Dhamma, our life path is courageous. See how the world burns from cruel and chaotic forces. So we cultivate a heart of compassionate awareness and peace, knowing that freedom from suffering is within reach. Our spiritual footprints emulate those of the Buddha himself.  We persevere and endure, powered by the noble fire of the Dhamma to illuminate our way and to bless us and all generations to come. Small as the flame appears, its light is as vast as this universe.

Do we know the truth of what we are? If not, how can we love unconditionally? When the heart abides in loving-kindness, the misery of fear, anger and despair is vanquished. If we look for unconditional love outside of us, we will never find it. Nor can we know it by thinking. The mind must grow in silence and stillness, in unsullied conscious awareness. Then we can see what we truly are – intuitively, beyond thought, in the quality of this very breath, this moment. We pierce through the dust of lifetimes to know the core of our being, to wake up – here and now. Just to live in that kindness is the truest life of all.

True refuge is a call to stop, even for a moment, to see and know the breath that brings the world into and out of consciousness. We witness the liberating silence of that present moment awareness. In the still space between thoughts from which all that appears in the mind arises and disappears without end, we let go. Trust this. See the instability and insecurity of all else. Be an island, be a refuge unto yourself in the pure awareness of truth beyond concepts – the truth in this moment of freedom. Disentangled from the world, we can let go. Our refuge is the awakened heart.

To begin the three months' monastic retreat the community is encouraged to cultivate restraint so that energy can be drawn away from sense- contact and into the heart.

The Image that is referred to in this talk is included below.