Dharma Sunday

The Dharma Sunday session begins with guided meditation practices followed by a teaching on eco-Dharma and the concept of becoming a disciple of Gaia. Lama Willa explores how environmental issues have become a critical focus in the present moment and proposed expanding the traditional Buddhist concept of taking refuge to include Gaia as a teacher. The session concludes with discussions on deep lis...

This Dharma Sunday teaching combines body-oriented meditation practice with a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lesson, the brilliant sensory-motor approach to gently and wisely re-educating the neuro-muscular system. Alternating meditation, a Feldenkrais movement lesson and discussion will allow the techniques to complement and empower each other and to enhance mind-body connections and gen...

This session features a deep dive into the meaning of Refuge—understanding our own awakened heart as the ultimate source of peace. Lama Liz then guides a powerful meditation practice, moving from grounding the body to cultivating open awareness and interconnectedness. Following the meditation, she introduces her "Forest Teachings" series, exploring the universal truth of Dharma and answering the p...

This creative and inspirational Dharma Sunday will begin with an introduction to Buddhist art that locates Buddhist images within a contemplative practice. The teachings will seek to move artists and practitioners towards basic visual literacy. This will be followed by a guided tour – both online and onsite – of an exhibition of earth-based Buddhist art created by Latin American Buddhists. We will...

In this Dharma Sunday teaching, the Third of Four teachings on "Mycelial Wisdom", Lama Willa Blythe Baker, founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship, and visiting teacher, Zoe Logan Morris, discuss The Myth of Transcendence. Using the metaphor of a mycelial network—the "wood wide web"—the teaching suggests that spiritual awakening isn't a "vertical exit" from suffering but a process of grounded engagem...

This Dharma Sunday teaching combines body-oriented meditation practice with a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lesson, the brilliant sensory-motor approach to gently and wisely re-educating the neuro-muscular system. Alternating meditation, a Feldenkrais movement lesson and discussion will allow the techniques to complement and empower each other and to enhance mind-body connections and gen...

In this Dharma Sunday teaching we will be exploring the ways that our personalities and styles of interaction By recognizing our own patterns of behavior and styles of manifesting in the world, we can use that awareness to go beyond judgment which keep us bound to cycles and limited perspective in our lives; and thus touch the insight of loving pervasive awareness.

In this Dharma Sunday teaching, the Second of Four teachings on "Mycelial Wisdom", Lama Willa Blythe Baker, founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship, explores the profound concept of "Anatman" (no-self). The central teaching expands on "mycelial wisdom," drawing parallels between extensive, hidden mycelial networks (described as "the neurological network of nature") and the Buddhist principle of inter...

Natural Dharma Fellowship’s Dharma Sundays are donation-based gatherings open to all, offering a wide range of topics. Led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, these live, interactive sessions include guided meditation, teachings, and time for questions and discussion. Please join us to settle into the support of sangha and the joy of practicing together.

In this two-part class, participants will be invited to study and reflect on a short teaching by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu entitled “The Prison of Life” (free download). Just as prisons are rationalized as necessary containment for those whose criminal convictions make them untrustworthy or undeserving of freedom, we rationalize our self-created imprisonment as a necessary means of avoiding unforgivable...

n this two-part class, participants will be invited to study and reflect on a short teaching by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu entitled “The Prison of Life” (free download). Just as prisons are rationalized as necessary containment for those whose criminal convictions make them untrustworthy or undeserving of freedom, we rationalize our self-created imprisonment as a necessary means of avoiding unforgivable m...

We will explore how remembering who we really are expands us beyond the experiences of fragmentation, distress, overwhelm, and fear that may threaten to overwhelm us. What would it mean to realize that this “self” can hold the fullness of our human experience, from the most challenging encounters to the most beautiful? When we remember our innate connection to source at the same time as we stand s...

In this Dharma Sunday teaching, the First of Four teachings on "Mycelial Wisdom", Lama Willa Blythe Baker, founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship, explores the profound concept of interdependence (Pratitya Samudpada). Lama Willa discusses her multi-year exploration of the plant world as a source of wisdom, highlighting how mycelial networks serve as a powerful metaphor for interconnectedness. The te...

Instead of chasing the future, or dwelling in the past; on the Buddhist path, we are given the opportunity, through meditation, to work with what’s here right now. There is no path apart from our very own footsteps, no rhythm to strive for apart from our natural breath and heartbeat. While things might not always be going our way, the path of meditation offers us respite amidst the eye of the stor...

Drawing inspiration from the great yogi Shabkar and the “holy book of nature” this session will expand our heart-mind into the vastness of interbeing through the dynamic interfusion of Refuge, Bodhichitta, & Tonglen. The profound practices of Refuge, Bodhichitta, and Tonglen open our hearts and expand our view to glimpse and access boundless resourcefulness, fearlessness, and selfless wisdom a...

There is no doubt that we are  living in turbulent times and that we’ll continue to see rapid change and heightened uncertainty in the world. We may be experiencing moments of anxiety, dread, or fear – all part of our humanness — but the question is how to respond to these unsettling influences that threaten our equanimity. The emphasis of our time today will be on finding inspiration for our prac...

Dharma Sundays with Natural Dharma Fellowship take place most Sundays. These sessions, led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, include guided meditation, teachings, and time for discussions. A wide range of topics are offered at the discretion of the teacher.

Amid waves of personal and collective suffering and heartbreak, peace can feel far away for so many of us.  Yogis, saints, ancestors, sages through millennia have given voice to their understanding of peace.  But how can we find genuine peace?  How can we find it for real in our own life?  After all, if we merely repeat the words of others, how can we ever realize genuine peace for the benefit of...

Each of the 21,600 breaths you breathe each day can be an affirmation of our interbeing, a source of spiritual inspiration and engagement as we receive and radiate boundless blessings for ourselves and all beings. This session will explore the profound interfusion of refuge and mentor practice with the radical transformational practice of Tonglen. We’ll experience how each breath can become a vehi...

Dharma Sundays with Natural Dharma Fellowship take place most Sundays. These sessions, led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, include guided meditation, teachings, and time for discussions. A wide range of topics are offered at the discretion of the teacher.

Dharma Sundays with Natural Dharma Fellowship take place most Sundays. These sessions, led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, include guided meditation, teachings, and time for discussions. A wide range of topics are offered at the discretion of the teacher.

Dharma Sundays with Natural Dharma Fellowship take place most Sundays. These sessions, led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, include guided meditation, teachings, and time for discussions. A wide range of topics are offered at the discretion of the teacher.

Tonglen, or the practice of Taking and Sending, is one of the seven points of mind training that was developed by the Tibetan Kadampa master Chekhawa Yeshe Dorje in the 12th century. The purpose of this practice is two-fold. It gives us practical means to take on our experiences on the path so our suffering can become a source of compassion, wisdom, patience, and understanding for ourselves and ot...

What can we do when it feels as if not only our personal sense of opening on the path but also the circumstances unfolding in the seemingly outer world have brought us to a place of anxiety, depression, rage, or another challenging emotional experience? How do we find a way forward into clarity, openness, trust, and liberation? On this Dharma Sunday, we will explore the notion of an “open question...

Initially a guided meditation that turns formless, loosening the bonds of the “ghost cave” of discursive thought. And then exploring an ancient Zen skit: stopping, looking, tasting the cake of what some call “just this.” No longer running about looking for what is our “birthright.” Free to act as we are. “I sleep when I’m tired and I eat when I am hungry.” “Our struggle becomes our pleasure.”