We all want to help ourselves, help each other, support life, and look after things. It is very natural and basic. Life wants to live. This is the essence of compassion. Our heart responds to the world and vibrates with all existence. Looked at this way, compassion is a basic energy that we all have. But it is often limited by fears, concerns and our narratives. So we have a responsibility to expand the boundaries of compassion so it stretches out to those we do not know and to all living beings. The practice of awareness and mindfulness encourages a deep intimacy with all others, and also deeply resonates with the vulnerability and beautiful fragility of existence. This will empower our compassionate heart.

This guided meditation while lying, starts with ways of totally softening and relaxing all the parts of us, the stories that we carry, the tensions that accumulate, and the blocks in both body and mind. It goes on to explore the nature of trust and surrender instead of resistance, and uses the power of the earthe to reveal what it is like to let go into a vaster world.

This meditation explores a presence which is both inner and outer, our personal experience of the world of our body and mind, and the experience of he world around us, and the seamless connection and inimacy with both. It is a meditation that we can practice anywhere, while waiting in line or walking in the park. It opens worlds with kind awareness.

This is a complete sitting meditation of about 40 minutes, emphasising refuge, settling into presence, celebrating the life of the body and mind, and discovering the freedom of allowing everything to flow naturally.

The mud, or a better term would be compost, is all the stuff that gives us difficulty, that seems stuck to us, that we struggle with and sometimes feel drowned in. It could be social, personal, psychological, spiritual or the physical pains and issues with our body. These days, everything can seem muddy. In this talk, we explore how to work with the mud based on the great wisdom of the dharma, the Buddhist inspired teachings, to help us grow beautiful flowers and a fulfilling life in which the mud is a resource, not an enemy. This is beyond coping. It is about transcendence. And then we can also realise that the duality of mud and lotus, samsara and nirvana, are points of view, and we can embrace a non-dual ecological awareness that can hold it all.

The most sacred day of the Jewish practice, Yom Kippur, is a day of fasting and prayer when we remember and look directly at our existence in this world and ask ourselves what kind of world do we make, for ourselves and others. The words of Leonard Cohen, in his song, The Future, are relevant. He asks: "When they say Repent, Repent, I wonder what they meant?" He is right to ask. Instead of castigating ourselves for the harm we do, and then repeating the ignorance the day after, we can instead dive deep into our sources. There we can discover the seeds of light, in the Jewish and Buddhist traditional languages, the Tzaddik, or the Buddha Nature, hiding within under layers of conditioning. The same sources will show us how to live with purity, sensitivity and wisdom, and happiness will follow, as in the famous quote from the Dhammapada, as a cart follows the horse.

Jonah, like many of us today, was faced with an utterly impossible mission - to change a whole city that had gone into violence and crime. He sank into despair, but was saved by a kind of suicidal intuition to go down to his most basic place. The dark, primal basis of existence. Like a death. From which he was reborn into new powers and was able to achieve the impossible. We can find new power to make a difference in this world if we touch the basic sources of life within, and from that place, everything can change. Karma, fate is not fixed. It is a dance of possibilities. With awareness, transformation and compassion we can go beyond what we know.

#1 of "ליבת הלימוד הבודהיסטי"

הדרך הקלאסית בבודהיזם להארה הינה הדרך הנאצלת כפולת השמונה.השקפה נבונה, כוונה נבונה, דיבור נבון, פעולה נבונה, אורח חיים נבון, מאמץ נבון, מיינדפולנס נבון, סמהדי נבון.קל מאוד להיצמד לאחדים מהם בתחילה - כמו מיינדפולנס או סמהדי- אולם חשוב לשמור על איזון, פיתוח וטיפוח של כל אחד משמונת האיברים אשר יחדיו חוברים לדרך אחת המובילה לנירוונה.

"ליבת הלימוד הבודהיסטי" - #2 חוסר סיפוק וקושי - דוקהה בפאלי - מתורגמים לעיתים כסבל רב משמעות, אולם הדרך הבודהיסטית פשוט מדגישה שאלו מצבים שלא ניתן להדחיק, ליפות או להתעלם מהם. במקום זאת ניתן להשתמש בהם כחומר גלם, כמורים אשר יכולים לאפשר לנו לחקור ולהרפות מהשקפות ודפוסים שאנו נושאים שלא לצורך.

#3 of "ליבת הלימוד הבודהיסטי"

קל לראות את חיינו הרוחניים כדרך ארוכה שאמורה לקחת אותנו מהתודעה והלב האנושיים, המוטרדים והרגילים, אל אידיאל נשגב ורחוק – תודעת הבודהה. אך תרגול הוויפסנה, תרגול הראייה הצלולה, מזמין אותנו להביט בתודעתנו, בפנים הפנימיות שלנו, מנקודת מבט חדשה.

האם היא חייבת להיות מוטרדת?

האם היא באמת רגילה בלבד?

האם תודעת הבודהה נמצאת אי שם הרחק?