Having reflected on the heart-wish and decided that meditation is what you want to do, commit yourself to the discipline of a regular meditation schedule. It takes conscious thought and planning to establish and maintain a meditation practice. Our initial resolve to meditate can easily be eroded by the busyness of our daily lives, by our commitments and by the force of habits pulling us … Continue reading How to set up a regular meditation practice
Each person is a mandala centred on the heart which continues through life and death and into future lives. Each person has a unique pattern of relationships with all other beings all of whom meet in the heart – all our hearts interpenetrate. Continue reading When someone dies, are our heart connections with others strengthened by our shared loss?
“In a way the whole of samsara is like blockages in the flow of the life energy – you could think of it like that! Depression is just a very intense experience of just how bad that kind of blockage can get… even if thinking of impermanence doesn’t help, all mental states are impermanent and so sometimes all we can do is hang on in there and learn how to navigate our way through them.” Continue reading How can we practise with the energy of depression?
You are right that we have to strive for the good and reject the bad. The question here is what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. It means we have to give up the mind that gets attached to what it perceives as good and that reacts against what it perceives as bad. From the point of view of that kind of reactive mind, it has to learn to just relax and let whatever happens happen… Continue reading Why does it sometimes say in Buddhist teachings to give up both ‘the good and the bad’. Surely we should strive for the good and reject the bad?
Here, there is nothing to remove and nothing to add. The one who sees the truth of being, as it is, By seeing the truth, is liberated. In our group meditation sessions at the Awakened Heart Sangha, this verse is read out by the person leading the session (the Omzay), about five minutes before the end of each session. It is a verse from the … Continue reading What is The Meditator’s Verse?
The panic reaction is as deep as samsara [the endless cycle of birth and death] itself. There would be no samsara if there were no panic. Sometimes we let things get so close to the edge that the panic manifests as raw panic and we have to start working with the reality of that – not running away or trying to avoid it. Continue reading Why can an insight arising in meditation cause panic?
Lama Shenpen gave a teaching in November, giving an overview of her Living the Awakened Heart Training, describing how Dharma is taught in the Awakened Heart Sangha. In the video Lama Shenpen explains all the different areas of practice and training, and how they relate to each other and the tradition. Continue reading Video teaching: Overview of Lama Shenpen’s Living the Awakened Heart Training
If impermanence meant that everything changed all the time so there is no point in doing anything, then life would be pretty meaningless wouldn’t it?
What gives life meaning is connecting to our Heart Wish and aligning our intentions with it. As we align we commit to a particular direction and then let go into that direction and see what happens. When we make a commitment to others we want them to believe in and trust our commitment to our intention and for them to co-operate with us on that basis.
Continue reading What is the difference between commitment and not seeing the reality of impermanence?
Adhistana [blessing] is a power we all have because it’s the power of the Buddha Nature itself. When we say to someone we are with them in our hearts it is more literally true than perhaps we realise. Continue reading How can our prayers help people?
We meet at/in the interface, in our presence there, in the heart’s awareness – that is the ‘space’ we meet in. That is why it feels so intimate. That is how we know the ‘other’ inseparable yet distinct from ‘self’ Continue reading What does it mean when you say we ‘meet in the heart?’
