Tag Archive for: Meg Gawler

04/11/2019 “Happiness and the Arising of Samādhi” with Meg Gawler

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There are two audio files available: a dharma talk and a guided meditation.

If you would like to download the talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

If you would like to download the guided meditation, please right click and select “save as” here.

Happiness (sukha in Pali) is the proximate cause for samādhi (collectedness, concentration). It is also traditionally taught as one of the factors of absorption (jhana). On this evening, Meg will explore the various meanings of happiness in a Buddhist context and the role it plays in our practice of meditative awareness.

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01/10/2019 “Cultivating Joy” with Meg Gawler

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There are two audio files. Here’s the dharma talk:

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

And here’s a guided meditation:

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

Buddhists on the path to liberation practice meditation to train the mind in mindfulness and samādhi. The Pāli word, samādhi, although often translated as ‘concentration,’ is better rendered into English as ‘unification.’ While concentration is an essential skill, the Buddhist practitioner cannot produce a state of samādhi through concentration alone. This is because the self needs to get out of the way. Rather, the Buddha teaches that samādhi arises naturally when the supporting conditions – all positive mind states – are in place. Joy is one of these positive mind states.

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10/04/2018 “Conditions that give rise to Liberation” with Meg Gawler

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The Buddha’s Teaching on the Conditions that give rise to Liberation

There are two audio files. Here’s the dharma talk:

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

And here’s a guided meditation “Mindfulness of Breathing: The Door to Freedom”:

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

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03/08/2018 “Tastes of Freedom: Poems from the Therīgāthā” with Meg Gawler

Tastes of Freedom: Poems from the Therīgāthā – the poems of awakening of the Buddha’s first female disciples. A central message of this canonical text is that Nibbāna – complete release – is possible for practitioners of all sorts: women or men, lay or monastic, old or young, rich or poor, from all classes of society including slaves, from many different walks of life from the queen to the prostitute, for those gifted in meditation but also for those with wild minds unable to concentrate, and for individuals lost in grief, despair, or even madness. This ancient text was the subject of Meg’s Master’s thesis, which examined how the Therīgāthā might be used by Dharma teachers today to inspire practitioners, particularly in regard to the Third Noble Truth, the truth of freedom.

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here.

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