Ask the Friend for Love – exploring living prayer

Ask the Friend for Love – exploring living prayer

Prayer, when cultivated consciously, energizes and guides us on the spiritual path. This talk investigates the difference between wanting, with its narrow fixation, and the prayer that arises out of our deep heart’s longing. We explore how living prayer, the prayer...
Conscious Prayer – Finding Refuge in Loving Awareness

Conscious Prayer – Finding Refuge in Loving Awareness

Prayer is a communing with our enlarged being. This talk examines less conscious forms of prayer, and how we can evolve the power of our prayers by opening into the depth of our longing, and reaching toward our true belonging. (given at the 2016 IMCW Spring Retreat)...
Compass of Our Heart

Compass of Our Heart

All of our actions, our entire life experience, arises from the energy of intention.  While it’s natural that our intentions are shaped by egoic wants and fears, when we bring this into conscious, compassionate awareness, we can discover the deep aspiration that...
Nourishing a Liberating Intention

Nourishing a Liberating Intention

The Buddha taught that this entire world arises out of the tip of intention. Intentions can arise from an egoic wants and fears, and they can arise from the wisdom of our heart that is calling us home. This talk explores the qualities that signify a liberating...
Blog: The Transforming Power of Mindful Prayer

Blog: The Transforming Power of Mindful Prayer

Although not always highlighted in the West, prayer and devotion are a living stream in Buddhism. The earnest wishes expressed in the practices of lovingkindness and compassion—May I be happy, May You be free from suffering—are forms of prayer. The aspiration to find...
Blog: Prayer in the Face of Difficulty

Blog: Prayer in the Face of Difficulty

Ask the friend for love Ask him again For I have found that every heart Will get what it prays for most. Hafiz When offered with presence and sincerity, the practice of prayer can reveal the source of what your heart most deeply longs for—the loving essence of who you...
Part 2: Wise Intention: Living In Truth

Part 2: Wise Intention: Living In Truth

Evolution has conditioned us to identify as an egoic self and to protect that identity. A key strategy is trying to control how others perceive us through pretense and deception. This talk explores the ways we disarm though dedicating ourselves to truthfulness,...
Part 1: Wise Intention: The Compass of Our Hearts

Part 1: Wise Intention: The Compass of Our Hearts

One of the most powerful spiritual practices in the world is to reflect on your heart’s deepest intention. These two talks look at the way that ego-based intentions perpetuate thoughts, feelings and actions that keep us imprisoned in feeling separate and...
Nourishing a Liberating Intention

Part 2 – The Lion’s Roar

The Buddha taught that faith–trust in our true nature–is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant...
Nourishing a Liberating Intention

Part 1 – The Lion’s Roar

The Buddha taught that faith–trust in our true nature–is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant...