Starts with one of John's poems describing the currents that push and pull us as we begin this journey -- coupled with one of his India stories from 40 years ago..
This talk is about addressing the first day of a week of intensive meditation practice. Exploration and instructions on working with challenges around gathering inspiration to deepen practice.
Review of the 3 characteristics and 5 precepts. Exploration of faith and refuge as we leave retreat. Explanation of 'karooke' as appreciation practice.
In this telling of the Buddha's story, we find archetypes that reveal a universal path of awakening and freedom. We explore how each of us has the potential to realize the loving and radiant awareness that is our source.
After a review of our first two sessions, we explore, both through an overview and through experiential exercises, bodily-based practices to help cultivate equanimity.
Judgment is seeing the world in quantifiable terms. There a holistic way of seeing that is not partial and comparative but becomes inaccessible when we believe in judgment. Let the presence of judgment remind you that your thinking and emoting is arising from an incomplete perception. Quiet yourself to the inward narrative and allow the whole mind, undivided by judgment, to arise.
All about walking meditation as seen through the lens of the Eightfold Path to Freedom.
NOTE: There are some audio quality issues for the first 18:36 minutes...clean thereafter.
An exploration of the ten most frequently raised questions, concerns and issues of Dharma practitioners, in sustaining and deepening practice in their everyday life.
This talk uses the Buddha's model of the Middle Way to explore our tendencies to get caught either in obsessing about self, others and world, or in trying to reject and deny the same. Martin points to a creative, dynamic engagement with experience which reflects the title of the talk.
Listen deeply to the resonance within where virtue sows fields of goodness, wisdom and compassion, and Death teaches us to let go. At first, we tremble with fear. But out of that fear, we draw strength. Out of anger – a stillness and forgiveness. Out of greed, we draw generosity and gratitude. And from true vulnerability, we awaken to the Deathless.
This talk links the concerns of our life, the tendencies of our minds, and the practice of meditation. Martin explores the way our conditioning and mental attitudes colour all our perceptions, and explores how dharma practice invites us to see through our acquired mental shaping, beyond our ideas, to meet life as directly, as deeply, as freely as possible.
