In this talk, Shaila Catherine suggests that everyone is responsible for their own state of balance. She explores several practical areas for cultivating a balanced approach to practice including: aligning the body posture with the force of gravity, recognizing how mindfulness brings a balanced relationship to sensory experiences, and cultivating a non-reactive attitude toward both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. We learn to quickly restore our emotional balance whenever we find ourselves entangled in stories or personal dramas. We refine our ability to apply balanced effort in the way that we engage with meditation. And we continuously refine the powerful balance in the meditating mind by perceiving how the five spiritual faculties and the seven awakening factors are affecting our attention and understanding.

This guided meditation touches into a fundamental quality that arose with the Buddha’s final realization – anukamapa, heartfelt sensitivity and sympathy for the welfare of sentient beings. We practice by generating perceptions and relating directly to the resulting experience.

Guided body meditation on the felt sense of presence.

If the back is not yet strong enough to sustain the sitting posture, standing offers relief. The feet, legs and ground sustain the upright posture so shoulders and upper body can relax. The key reference is balance.

This meditation calls on the image and felt sense of a smile as we scan through the body, and invites a receptive and caring presence, as we open our attention to the changing flow of life.

In this guided meditation we begin with a body scan, and rest in awareness with our senses awake. The key practice is to recognize when the mind immerses in virtual reality, reawaken our senses, and surrender again and again into the immediacy, vibrance and mystery of living presence.

Shelly Graf with Meski Mebatsion

Scientists have documented some significant and measurable changes that occur as a result of meditation. But Buddhist practice is not limited to calm, pleasant, relaxing states of meditation. The liberating path includes a broad range of practices that produce a wide variety of benefits. We learn how we encounter the world of the senses; we unravel distortions of perception. We weaken defilements. We learn to let go. In this talk, Shaila Catherine points to the liberating potential of the path.

Chant followed by guided meditation

Unser Alltagsleben ist nicht nur Ausdruck von Metta, welches wir in der Meditation kultiviert haben, sondern auch ein grosses Praxisfeld. Metta kann im Alltag kultiviert werden in Form von Grosszügigkeit, ethischem Verhalten, freundlicher Kommunikation, aber auch durch die Art, wie wir uns selbst und die Welt betrachten - nämlich mit einem Blick für das, was gut ist und mit der Einsicht in unsere Verbundenheit mit allen Wesen.

Exploration of the whole body via breath energy 'imagination' a la Ajahn Thanisarro

This guided meditation is an invitation to rest in Hereness—the immediacy and aliveness of full presence. We arrive and quiet with a conscious long deep breath, relax our bodies, awaken our senses, and then bring our attention to relaxing with our moment-to-moment experience. The poem ends with a beautiful poem called “Interlude” by poet Danna Faulds.

Gratitude arises when we are in sacred relationship with life—present, open and receptive. This talk explores how central gratitude is to our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and then looks at the ways we can directly gladden our minds with gratitude. We end with a guided meditation that includes sharings from the group, and a poem of blessing by John O’Donohue with a brief cut from Robert Gass – Om Namaha Shivaya.

Meditation with Chanting

Led by Mark Nunberg, Shelly Graf, Wynn Fricke, and Gabe Keller Flores The Buddha says that any position one takes including being attached to not having any fixed views is “a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by suffering... and does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening…” In this daylong workshop we will reflect together how necessary and unavoidable it is to use identity to illuminate the social dynamics of our lives, and at the same time how easy it is to become attached and confused by identity, taking it to be more than what it is. The same is true in terms of how the mind relates to any views. There is no way to function in the world without views about this and that. The relevant question is how one can use views without the suffering that comes with attachment. This recording contains the following parts - in order they are: 1 - Guided Meditation with emphasis on recognizing mind states and perceptions of oneself led by Shelly 2 - Introductions by teachers and participants: Name 1-5 identities that arise in our minds conscious or not, useful or not, led by Shelly 3 - Introduction to the workshop and the Buddha’s teachings on Views by Mark followed by Q&A 4 - Panel Presentation: Each teacher discusses skillful use of identity in their lives, 5-10 minutes each, followed by large group discussion facilitated by Gab