Sympathetic Joy sometimes reveals its opposite, such as envy or jealousy. This can be a gift that grows into wisdom.

Inviting faith and wise effort to inspire our practice.

Instructions and guided meditation.

This talk takes a dive into Gratitude as a way to hold suffering. The Jewish holiday of Passover began on Saturday. Passover is a holiday of liberation. One of the most joyous parts of the holiday is singing the song Dayenu, which translates as "It would have been enough." The song's lyrics list one blessing after another, 15 in all. After each verse the refrain is "if that was all, it would have been enough. But then there was this (next blessing)." When we look at our lives through this lens it gives us inspiration to see and appreciate all the good in our lives as we process all that is challenging.

Inviting this warmth in meeting all that we are and cultivating kindness

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

When we relax the thinking mind, a natural joy is revealed, independent of the conditions of our lives.

Compassion meditation with the body and breath.

Compassion can be freed of patterns of codependency. We learn to trust suffering as a teacher.

Finding a home base to steady our heart.

This dhamma talk, guided meditation, and Q&A was offered on April 12, 2024 for “How do I apply the Dhamma to THIS!?!

Learning to live life graceful poise.

Meditation & Dharma Talk

Looking at the second of Thich Nhat Hanh's Five Mindfulness Trainings, which he expands to include "I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and stop contributing to climate change"

This talk traces the insight sequence of knowledge and vision of how things are - disenchantment - dispassion - release in retreat and daily life experience, with the intention of exploring the release of clinging as an accessible and understandable process that we can work with intentionally.

Begining with the body, offering compassion to all aspects, including mind and emotions.

The movement of compassion between the personal and universal helps us when our hearts are closed and when overwhelmed.

Short Reflection & Guided Meditation including an Earth prayer by Stephanie Kaza | Earthworm Practice for the Anthropocene II | Online Wednesday-Mornings.

This talks focuses on one of the three areas of practice discussed a week before, on developing samadhi (or concentration), the theme of Donald's four weeks of practice in March. We begin by more generally discussing the nature of samadhi, including short account of the etymology in Pali, and the Tibetan sense of samadhi as "staying," as developing in the nine stages of the "Elephant Path." We look at the place and importance of developing samadhi in our practice and its relationship to insight practice; developing samadhi is one of the eight factors of the Noble Eightfold Path and appears in many of the Buddha's core teachings. We discuss some ways to practice developing samadhi, and then focus especially on several challenges of such practice and how to work with such challenges. The talk is followed by discussion, including further exploration of the relationship of cultivating samadhi and insight practice, the nature of skillful effort, and the joy that can arise in the development of samadhi.

This guided meditation gives more detail on developing samadhi than the guided meditation from a week ago. First, after a brief overview of the nature of samadhi (usually translated as "concentration"), instructions are given for a practice session developing samadhi, including on posture, gaze, possible objects of focus, and skillful effort. Midway through the session, some further guidance is given on "intensifying," which helps both to deepen samadhi and to cut through background thinking as well as foreground thinking.