This talk explores the benefits of these often tricky challenges and what Buddhism and relational science offer us in dealing with them. Idealised or romantic love is dualistic and relates to the other, Harmonic love relates with the other. Rather than being in love, we become love ..read more

Meditation: Opening To Love, by Jack Wicks by Andrew Tootell ..read more

Awakened awareness is not about special experiences – it is about recognising the simplest form of conscious experience that is available to everyone. Joko called it “Simple Mind”, Shunryu Suzuki called it “Beginners Mind” or we could simply call it awareness of awareness or “Pure Awareness”. We could say that the purpose of meditation, both silent and guided, is the process of dis-identifying from the suffering that is generated by identifying as a personal separate self with the flow of impermanent, interdependent phenomena and recognising and returning to our home base of Simple Mind. By So ..read more

This guided meditation offers a chance to gain clarity around our thoughts and emotions. Taking a few deep breaths, we can name our experiences. Then we gain an opportunity to fully experience them without being overwhelmed by them. We can then move on the investigate them if it feels safe to do so. Remembering to nurture ourselves by coming back to the awareness of the breath ..read more

This session gives an introduction to the Buddha’s first discourse on Turning the Wheel of the Dharma. In this discussion we focus on the four truths or practices ..read more

This session gives an introduction to why it is important to study philosophy and an overview of the course ..read more

In this guided meditation Sono introduces three types of Zazen: Mindfulness of a mental object; Mindfulness of the field of all objects; and Just-Sitting ..read more

In this talk I reflect on the “Voice from the Heart”, why the referendum lost and what has to happen next. It provides a brief historical background to the Voice and it includes some reflections on the One and the Many from a Zen perspective and applies the concept of “spiritual bypassing” at the collective level when a nation denies the truth of its history. It concludes with the following quote from James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”. Caveat: There was some technical problem with the recording so the quality is not very ..read more

This talk guides us through a journey of embodying the connections we have with our place here …the earth, the elements, and the beings we share life energy with. Exploring the fundamental Buddhist truths that everything is connected and everything is impermanent. Being present with the emotions that arise and coming to the spaciousness that allows anything to be possible ..read more

This meditation guides you from the experience of your breath to some old zen parables. The first story is a re-telling of “A Parable” from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki. Two koans are featured, both are from The Gateless Gate by Koun Yamada. These are, Case 30 “Mind is Buddha”, and Case 36 “Meeting a Man Who Has Accomplished the Way”. Influences for this talk are also SN Goenka and Paul McKenna ..read more