These regularly scheduled mornings begin with a guided meditation, sometimes followed by standing or walking meditation. There is a Dharma talk and often a question and answer period where attendees can inquire about practice.
Developing compassion requires us to learn to face pain rather than run from it. Gratitude practice helps us to see that we are connected to every thing- Good and bad. In the end we're grateful even for our pain, which turns out to be the gateway to a deeper love.
Our conditioning is to pull away from our physical experience when it is difficult. When we regularly dissociate, we are removed from the source of our power, intuition and capacity to love in a full way. This talk looks at the ways we leave our body and the path of homecoming to living loving presence.
Integrating the qualities of kindness and mindfulness provides the capacity to be with a range of experience in ourselves and others with wisdom and ease.
In this final talk of the series, Martin looks at the social implications of widening our sense of identification, including not only the world but also other human beings within the field of our experience. The talk explores the suffering born of the us and them mentality and points to how the need to awaken together and take all beings into our heart.
Suffering is pervasive-there's no escape. But we all suffer together in exactly the same way, so we are close to one another. Bodhisattvas know this means love and compassion are the most real emotions in our lives.
In this talk Martin looks at the tendency to conceive in terms of objects rather than process, unpicking the way we maintain and reinforce the ego structure, and offering a vision of a more expansive and inclusive participation in life.
Here we look at fourth satipatthana and its specific instructions on what to see and how to see it—the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of awakening, and the four noble truths—with an eye to realizing how this practice helps us overcome self-view.
Continuing from the previous talk, Martin looks at the ways we imagine, maintain and reinforce our psychological sense of self. The talk explores how we live in images and descriptions of who we think we are, layered by our constant critical self evaluation, and points us beyond our psychology to a fuller and freer embodying of our life.
We are bound by our biology, and our health, longevity and death are largely out of our control. This talk explores the way our biology impacts us, including the influences of the sex drive, the survival drive and the social drive. Martin looks at how we can explore and understand our biology in such a way as to inhabit it freely.
