This session offers a brief reflection and guided meditation on expanding awareness to include sensations throughout the body. With special attention to working wisely with pain, the instructions emphasize mindful presence, compassion, and skillful relationship to experience.

This talk explores metta as both refuge and path. Through classical teachings, lived stories, and reflection, we see how metta steadies the heart, softens resistance, steadies concentration, and becomes the ground for compassion, joy, and equanimity.

In this session we explore the 4 components of Self-Compassion: mindfulness, kindness, shared humanity, and recognition of our inner goodness. Then we practice Self-Directed Loving Kindness.

As the old myths of our civilization crumble, in their place, fear, division, and the architecture of fascism are rapidly rising. As the Jungian analyst Edward Edinger warned, when a central myth breaks down, meaning drains away, and primal, unprocessed forces rush in. How then do we understand this immense historic moment? We can take courage from the Buddha, who also lived in a world burning with greed, hatred, and delusion. He didn’t always succeed. Yet he still stood before armies, spoke truth, and acted with compassion. Even when outcomes are uncertain, we too are called, at this time, to step forward with clarity, compassion, and steadfastness.

As the old myths of our civilization crumble, in their place, fear, division, and the architecture of fascism are rapidly rising. As the Jungian analyst Edward Edinger warned, when a central myth breaks down, meaning drains away, and primal, unprocessed forces rush in. How then do we understand this immense historic moment? We can take courage from the Buddha, who also lived in a world burning with greed, hatred, and delusion. He didn’t always succeed. Yet he still stood before armies, spoke truth, and acted with compassion. Even when outcomes are uncertain, we too are called, at this time, to step forward with clarity, compassion, and steadfastness.

As the old myths of our civilization crumble, in their place, fear, division, and the architecture of fascism are rapidly rising. As the Jungian analyst Edward Edinger warned, when a central myth breaks down, meaning drains away, and primal, unprocessed forces rush in. How then do we understand this immense historic moment? We can take courage from the Buddha, who responded to a world burning from greed, hatred, and delusion with profound wisdom. Even when outcomes are uncertain, we too are called, at this time, to step forward with clarity, compassion, and steadfastness.

We are living through a profound pivot point. The old myths of our civilization–endless growth, rugged individualism, and “us first” hierarchies are crumbling. In their place, fear, division, and the architecture of fascism are rapidly rising. As the Jungian analyst Edward Edinger warned, when a central myth breaks down, meaning drains away, and primitive forces rush in. The Buddha also lived in a world burning with greed, hatred, and delusion. He challenged the systems of his time, endured attempts on his life, negotiated peace between warring factions, and even stood before armies bent on destruction. In the Sakka-pañha Sutta, when asked why beings who wish for peace end up in rivalry and violence, he pointed to the root: the mind entangled in papañca, the web of proliferating stories that harden separation. How then do we understand this immense historic moment? We can take courage from the Buddha. He didn’t always succeed. Even with his wisdom and compassion, he could not prevent the destruction of his own people. Yet he still stood before armies, still spoke truth, and still acted with courage. Even when outcomes are uncertain, we too are called, at this time, to step forward with clarity, compassion, and steadfastness. Together we will explore how to bring the medicine of the Dharma into this moment of profound challenge, not as escape, but as a path of right action, refuge, and renewal.

We begin with about 7-8 minutes of developing concentration, becoming more settled and less distracted. We then explore the impermanence in several ways, noticing the arising, staying and changing, and passing away with (1) sounds, (2) body sensations, and (3) the open flow of experience (about 2 minutes). Then there is a period of mindfulness practice with the additional instruction of looking out for a moderate or strong sense of self. We close with a short period of a heart practice such as lovingkindness or compassion; brief instructions are given for self-compassion practice (as developed by Kristen Neff).

Your practice affects everyone around you. When you see your practice in this wider context, it evokes a whole dimension of inspiration and “joyful responsibility“ to cultivate wisdom and compassion within us. In this world with so much suffering—including the climate crisis and injustice in the world—more than ever we need to keep this in mind and see ourselves as “bodhisattvas in training“.

Practices to hold our suffering and to see our innate goodness