The medicine our world most needs is compassion, and it is crucial that this include all living beings. Our societal conditioning blinds us to the horror of suffering experienced by non-human animals through our cruel system of factory farming. This conversation looks at how facing and responding to this suffering is necessary for the freedom of our own hearts, and the healing of the world.

A talk given at the online retreat with Ajahn Anan on the 31 March 2022

A weekly drop-in group that focuses on bringing our Buddhist practice fully into our lives. We will meditate together, listen to Dharma teaching, and share the lived experience of our practice. We aim to create a radically inclusive space where all are welcome (especially those who might have experienced marginalization such as LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, disabled, and economically impacted people). All levels of experience are invited to attend. All are welcome.

Our mission is to find truth by turning inward to the space of the heart. We may think we know why we are here on this earth but we can only really know when we enter the sanctuary of this inner space and turn the world off. Then we will surely find the pearl of truth we long for. It is universal, not contrived nor concocted by our ignorant mind – and it gives us a peace and happiness that is unshakeable, incorruptible, and unconditional.

Aloka-Dharma-Zoom

Geführte Meditation | Aloka-Dharma-Zoom

On this 54th anniversary of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 55th anniversary of his talk, "Beyond Vietnam," at the Riverside Church in New York, we explore the nature of Buddhist practice to transform racism, in the context of examining the nature of awakening in the contemporary world. We start by asking whether we may be undergoing a kind of "Fourth Turning," in which there is emerging an expanded contemporary sense of awakening, which includes the transformation of forms greed, hatred, and delusion not explicitly identified in the traditional understanding of awakening. Answering the question affirmatively, we point to two broad areas of ignorance, related to psychological material, and to social conditioning and institutions. On this basis, we then use the traditional Buddhist framework of training in wisdom, meditation, and ethics (and action) to give a preliminary account of a Buddhist approach to transforming racism. From a wisdom perspective, we look particularly at the Buddha's response to the caste system, and his sense of caste divisions as arbitrary (and empty) constructions, followed by looking closely at the constructions of whiteness, blackness, and race in the colonies in the 17th century, linked with greed and the strategy of divide-and-conquer, which have been central to maintaining racism since then. We then look more briefly at the nature of meditative and ethical training in the transformation of racism. A discussion period follows the talk.

Especially when we’re stressed, we need pathways to an allowing, kind presence. This meditation guides us to relax and open through our bodies, and then meet changing waves of experience with a sea of awareness that is intrinsically allowing and tender.