Natural Meditation podcast

The wisdom taught in Mahayana traditions opens us to others in compassionate intimacy not only through insight into their condition but also through recognition of the ultimately undivided nature of all that exists. The non-dual wisdom of emptiness recognizes all beings as undivided from oneself in the empty, inter-dependent ground of all things (Sanskrit dharmadhatu), which supports an all-embrac...

Compassion and wisdom are interrelated in varying ways within three leading Buddhist traditions. In early and Theravada Buddhism, compassion is a power for deep mental purification, protection, and healing that can support inner freedom. In Mahayana Buddhism, compassion becomes the primary means to empower and communicate a non-conceptual wisdom in which self and others are experienced as undivide...

Look again and again at what cannot be seen. At some point you see nothing - you really see nothing. You know, through your own experience, that there is no you in you, no fixed point, nothing. That experience makes all the difference. - Ken Mcleod

What is that stillness, that space, in which reactions arise and disappear? When you look at it, you see nothing at all. It is a bit frightening. It is like looking into the void of outer space. Something in you shrinks back. This is the other level of patience, letting your reactions to infinite nothingness come and go. - Ken Mcloed

Transcendental generosity is generally misunderstood in the study of the Buddhist scriptures as meaning being kind to someone who is lower than you. Someone has this pain and suffering and you are in a superior position and can save them—which is a very simple-minded way of looking down on someone. But in the case of the bodhisattva, generosity is not so callous. It is something very strong and po...

What you experience is your mind. Your mind is not a thing. It is not located anywhere. Your mind is what you experience. What you experience is your mind. It is a bit like a dream. - Ken Mcleod

The panic that you are experiencing is not going to hurt you. Although it may feel like you are in danger because of this anxiety, and it is completely normal to feel that way.... you are not in danger. Anxiety will not harm you.

Working with Shenpa. In English, shenpa is generally translated as "attachment." But, some words, such as "shenpa" convey many dimensions which cannot be covered by a single term. Rather, shenpa is a pervasive discomfort; it is the underlying sense of “I, me and mine” and all the wants, needs, aversions, hopes, and fears that come out of that. So, shenpa will be found in our attachments and aversi...

We suffer because we want life to be different from what it is. We suffer because we try to make pleasurable what is painful, to make solid what is fluid, to make permanent what is always changing. We try to make ourselves into something real and unchanging when our fundamental state of being is unconditionally open and ungraspable.

The whole point of meditation or prayer or whatever we are trying to do is to discover the fundamental principle of human nature, to go into this deep nature, to touch our mind, the fundamental principle of totality, nonduality. The moment we reach this experience there is no room for heavy concepts, heavy emotions or sentimentality. Just be! At the moment of this experience, there are no concepts...

The tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering — ours and that which is all around us — everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us.

In this guided meditation you are invited to connect with the goodness and care you have received in the previous year. Gratefulness is a very healing mental attitude.

All Buddhist traditions consider it important to understand the selflessness of the individual in order to gain liberation from suffering. The reason for this is that all suffering comes from believing the self is truly existent. This results in taking the self and everything that affects it very seriously, and we become fixated on pursuing happiness and avoiding suffering. But in fact, the self d...

If we check within ourselves we will discover that all our misery comes from either attachment or hatred. These, in turn, come from an incorrect view of the self. Even at this moment we hold the “I” to be true. In the Madhyamakavatara, Chandrakirti stated that all emotional afflictions arise from ignorance—misapprehension of the nature of the self. This is the root. In order to get rid of all the...

Guided meditation through the dissolution of the death process into the unknown. The dawn of the clear light mind opens the space into the deathless.

Celebrating life through contemplating death. Knowing that you are dying, not knowing when, what is important in your life? What do you hold back? Where do you want to turn to at the time of death?

When we connect to the Stillness within, we move beyond our thoughts and emotions and discover great depths of peace, contentment, and serenity.

We usually think of our mind as just thoughts and emotions, but according to the teachings of Buddha, these make up only one aspect of the mind. The teachings tell us that the mind has two aspects: the appearance of mind, and, more important, the essence or nature of mind. The appearances of mind are like the rays of light streaming from the sun, while the very nature of mind is like the sun itsel...

No matter what kind of consciousness we might consider, the clear light of innermost awareness pervades it. Ice, even when it is solid and very hard, does not pass beyond the nature of water. In the same way, no matter how gross, tough, or coarse conceptions might be, the place from which they dawn and the place into which they vanish when we no longer think about them does not pass beyond innermo...

Guided meditation to settle down and call upon the help and support of all the Buddhas. Shifting attention from the content of your experience to that which is aware.

I have great interest in the statement by many wise persons in all the orders of Tibetan Buddhism that their systems come down to the same final principle, and I feel that this is what I should and must explain. Such an exploration may be controversial, but in any case, these great scholar–yogis say that all these systems come down to the same final basic insight, the same principle, because there...

Committing to our anxiety is the difficult work of training ourselves not to try to escape our anxious feelings. It even means to appreciate them, feel them, and see for ourselves whether they are as much of a problem as we think they will be. If anxiety is not a problem and if we understand that it's actually an essential part of our path of waking up, then we might want to practice this attitude...

Anxiety is a necessary part of our path. As we move in the direction of waking up, increasing our tolerance of more and more awareness or open mind, we will inevitably experience anxiety. At some point or another, anybody committed to the spiritual path may find it important to commit to the experience of anxiety as an approximation of an open state of mind. - Bruce Tift

In these six verses Tokme Zongpo describes how to practice in the face of injury, insult or the incomprehensible - situations that commonly provoke anger and rage. In all these situations you use anger as a basis for the taking and sending practice (tonglen).

Beings are numberless: may I free them all. Reactions are endless: may I release them all. Doors to experience are infinite: my I enter them all. Ways of awakening are limitless: may I know them all.