How do you feel when you open yourself to the suffering of others? Does it leave you with a hopeless feeling? Do you find yourself closing off very quickly? Since others are always going to suffer is it possible ever to experience complete joy and freedom from suffering? The Buddha, the Awakened One, said it was… Continue reading How do you feel when you open to the suffering of others?
In the short video below Lama Shenpen talks about the importance of having clarity of intention and following through on whatever intention you have – when things get tough, we don’t have to abandon our goal, we just return to the original intention. “…That’s a really good message for this time, that it isn’t all hopeless and useless… Continue reading Video: The importance of having clarity of intention – our intentions in this life carry on to the next
Notice moments when you have a strong impulse to deny, resist or try to ignore change. Instead of trying to ignore or shut off the experience, stay with the feeling and let there be a gap or a space for that feeling to spread into. Continue reading Reflection Exercise on Responding to Change/Impermanence
On Saturday 25th April, Lama Shenpen gave a wonderful live teaching on the Metta Sutta as part of the Love & Compassion Practise Day, broadcast live from The Hermitage. The recording of the teaching can now be viewed above or on our YouTube Channel. Continue reading Video: Teaching on the Metta Sutta
Loin Lama Shenpen and the Awakened Heart Sangha for a 4 day retreat with daily meditation sessions and teachings on Lojong mind training and Tonglen.
The retreat starts on Friday 1st May at 7pm BST and continues until Tuesday 5th May at 1pm.
The retreat is available to everyone and will be broadcast live on Zoom and YouTube. Continue reading Limitless Love & Compassion Online Retreat 1st – 5th May
Reflect on the poignancy of impermanence and on the inevitability of death. Let the significance of that really strike to your heart and reflect on what is most important in life in the light of that fact. Notice how this thought heightens your awareness and how it could be used to intensify your heart wish for clarity and confidence in relation to the path of awakening Continue reading How the Inevitability of Change & Impermanence Heightens Our Clarity/Awareness
Sharing Lama Shenpen’s advice on doing a home retreat from her booklet about practising at home. During this difficult and uncertain time of the coronavirus pandemic, many of Lama Shenpen’s students are using this time at home for retreat purposes. Continue reading Setting Up a Retreat at Home
Samsara always was, is and will be uncertain and as long as we cling to it we will be trapped in fear even if we temporarily feel secure sometimes… let the crisis galvanise us into realising it’s true that death can come at any time and be as ready for it as we can with a heart full of love, compassion and confidence in our true nature. Continue reading A Conversation About Buddhist Practice During the Coronavirus Crisis
There are three stages to all Buddhist practice called listening, reflecting and meditating. In fact these three stages are integral to any effective learning or process of discovery, even if usually we do no more than touch on each stage. The art is to give sufficient attention to each stage…For Buddhists, meditation is attentive viewing that opens into a process beyond the conceptual, thinking mind. Continue reading Listening, Reflecting & Meditating – Meditation as Integration and Attentive Viewing
When we talk about meditation in terms of letting go of thoughts, it can seem as if it is a matter of setting oneself up as an observer of one’s mind and to root out thinking. This is a misunderstanding of the whole process. Setting up a watcher in this way perpetuates our false sense of what we are and what our experience is. The observer might well be well intentioned, but the problem is that it is heavy-handed and believes too much in itself. Continue reading Meditation: Recognising ‘the watcher’ as thinking too
