Equanimity is a crucial quality that we all need especially during these difficult and often threatening times. All beings know very well to apply an external shield in order to keep the threat at a minimum, to avoid problems and seek conditions of safety and well-being. But often the external shield is porous. We feel overwhelmed and vulnerable and sensitive to all the pain in the world. This is when we need to develop internal protection. It is an inner space in which difficulty is experienced but it doesn't knock us down or work inside us. This talk shows how to do this.

Patience is one of the paramis, the sublime qualities of skilful living within the Buddhist tradition. It takes us to places beyond anger, resistance and frustration, and beyond the pressure to control. By letting go of the nagging voice within us of dissatisfaction, and something missing, we can experience real peace, and this moves us to a nowness which is a liberated experience beyond time.

We have a beautiful soul but it is mostly hidden and ignored in the intense coping, activity and stress of daily life. We can meet ourselves with a kind and caring inner gaze, and discover voices and inner realities which we long to hear and have been overlooked. Here is how to bring them to life!

This talk is about the Wisdom Parami, pannya in Pali. It shows how we can access non-ordinary awareness, opening the door to endless insights that free us. It is a knowing about life that is intuitive, non-conceptual, non-analytic and with a clear agenda of liberation. It shows us life as a vast mystery.

We are so full of habits, patterns, addictions, positions, states of mind, and feelings like anxiety, and it can feel so hard to free ourselves from them. But it is easier to let stuff go if we look at it carefully and see that it comes and goes by itself and doesn't belong to us in the first place. Further, we can be reminded of our natural perfection, in which we are not lacking anything. And sometimes we can be active in renunciation, with a clear inner voice that says I don't need this any more.

We develop spiritually through meditation and many other ways of exploring and expanding our mind-body-spirit. But we often assume that how we are in the world is less important. But the Buddhist teaching is clear - who we are is how we are. If we do not pay attention to the quality, harmony and purity of our conduct and interactions in the world, it will ricochet back to and hamper our inner development. In this talk we will show how this works.

Emotional life can take us over especially if it is low level, such as worry, or if it leads to loops in the mind, and strong views and patterns. But we can see emotions as they are, coming and going, and be empowered by them not disempowered.

Interview with me on the current war in the Middle East.

This is a deep meditative exploration of our life of feelings and imagination. Let it take you away......

How Can We Understand Violence From A Bigger Point of View? Today's war and violence seems unstoppable, and we can ask how it is possible. A more inclusive, compassionate and wiser point of view will help us make sense of it.