28. The Beauty of Gratitude

In this episode, David explores kshanti, or patient-acceptance, a pivotal concept in Buddhism. This approach is more than mere tolerance or passive resignation. Instead, it is a wholehearted embracing of our reality in those situations we cannot change. In this audio we dive into four aspects of patient-acceptance: acceptance, understanding, love, and fortitude, seeing how they collectively form a resilient mindset that keeps us anchored amid life's storms.

This is a guided meditation on patient-acceptance, which accompanies the previous episode 43. Using the power of our imagination, we see how approaching challenges with Acceptance, Understanding, Love, and Fortitude, ultimately empower us and bring us greater wellbeing in difficult circumstances.

In this episode, David explores the transformative wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist practice of the Four Opponent Powers. As tools for purifying negative karma, these four steps offer a pragmatic approach to understanding and amending past behaviours. Whether we'd like to purify negative karma or would like a more mindful way to address personal regrets, these Four Opponent Powers provide a structure for overcoming negative habits.

This is a guided meditation on Tibetan Buddhist practice of 'Body of Light.' This practice provides deep rest and relaxation to the mind and body, helping to relax the energy channels and balance the inner energies. It’s also taught as an entryway into more complex or advanced visualisation meditations.

In this episode, David explores the profound analogy of seeing life as like a river, and how this view highlights impermanence, acceptance, and the importance of living life in a flexible, fluid way. From understanding the nature of life's rapids to finding serenity in its gentle flows, David discusses how we can embrace the present and navigate life's ever-changing currents with grace and acceptance. 

In this episode, David addresses a question about how to deal with stressful situations. Firstly, he explores the internal causes of stress and frustration from a Buddhist perspective, and then looks at some opposing minds that can bring us greater peace and wellbeing in such turbulent times. Minds such as acceptance, understanding, and compassion can help us handle stressful situations with greater ease.

This is a guided meditation on reflecting on our growth in the last year. We often don’t notice the changes and growth we go through on a day-to-day basis, and it’s only when we stop and look where we were that we notice what has changed. In this meditation, spend time reflecting on and appreciating your life in the last year—the happy moments, the struggles, the doubts, the celebrations. Reflecting in this way can help us to cultivate enthusiasm and motivation for our continued spiritual growth. 

This is a guided meditation on Compassion (karuṇā in Sanskrit). Compassion is one of the Four Immeasurables, a rich compilation of practices that open the heart, counter the distortions in our relationships with ourselves and deepens our relationship with others. The essential nature of compassion is a yearning for the person we are directing our attention to be free of suffering. The object of one's compassion may be oneself, another human being, an animal, or any other sentient being. May all beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

In this episode, David explores how to attend to the sufferings of the world without falling into despair and feeling burdened. Using his own experience of compassion and despair, and inspired by the teachings of the Dalai Lama, he explores why we should cultivate compassion for the sufferings of the world in the first place, and how to avoid this crippling feeling of despair. 

The talk is from one of our weekly online guided meditation & discussion groups. The topic of discussion is 'expectations' - how our attachment causes us to grasp onto certain outcomes and thus results in us becoming upset when these expectations are not met. We invite you to join us live on Sundays to share in the guided meditation and discussion.