Awake in the World Podcast

Michael explores what it's like to feel like two people; how Jung felt alone as a kid; the place of religious images in life as a child; how do we relate to the vastness of the unconscious and memory; the gods are on the inside now. This dharma talk is from our archive and was recorded September 11, 2012.

Michael talks about Jung and Freud's split, dreams, work, the unconscious as a process of compensation, madness and meditation, and what it's like going into cellars. This dharma talk is from our archive and was recorded September 4, 2012.

Zen teacher Paul Haller guides a gentle and clear meditation on noticing what it is to attend to experience. Recorded on retreat co-taught with Michael Stone, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, California in June 2016.

Because the Self is absent when we are awake, we cannot know if we are awake because we are one with our activity. So how do we know when someone is awake? Isn't it all projection? This is the final talk in our Diamond Sutra series recorded at Spirit Loft in Toronto in June 2016.

**BONUS** Love and compassion are necessities for basic sustainability. Norman Fischer gives a lecture to a packed house in Toronto on the importance of love, care, and ordinary suffering. This episode is from our archive and was recorded March 16, 2014.

**BONUS** Norman Fischer talks on not speaking destructively, not criticizing the faults of others, and working with conflict. This episode is from our archive and was recorded March 16, 2014.

Norman Fischer facilitates discussion about meditation, prayer, loss, compassion to oneself, and the liberation of sitting still even when it seems useless. This episode is from our archive and was recorded March 16, 2014.

There are hungers we just can't satisfy. So how can we open to desire without grasping? There’s no satisfaction at the end of the money or fame path. Meditation is controlling your posture and mind in order to let go of control. Spirit Loft, Toronto, 20 min. 

Michael talks about the five kinds of fear, community and how it grows, a poem by Leonard Cohen, generosity, and then he reads his own poem about his mother. This talk is from our archive and was recorded in May 31, 2011.

Michael talks about wedding Vows in community, labeling our thoughts so we can honour them, and how generosity is about the way we give our attention. The most profound gift we can give others is our attention. It’s a form of love. Spirit Loft, Toronto, 30 min.

The benefit of our practice must be wider than the benefit to our body. How wide do you draw the circle of self? Self-soothing. Michael talks about “a secure base” and how to manage reactivity that’s both inside and outside. Spirit Loft, Toronto, 30 min.

What does being alive feel like? Michael tells the story of Subhuti and the questions he asks the Buddha about how to practice. Haven’t we been blessed with greatest of trusts? Aren’t we all blessed? Isn't meditation learning how to trust? Spirit Loft, Toronto, 28 min.

The first in a series of six talks on the Diamond Sutra. Michael speaks on the three aspects of ourselves we can let go of through practice: Possessiveness (This is mine); Conceit (This is me); and Beliefs about what the self is (This is what I am). He connects this to both meditation practice, daily life, and the teachings of the Diamond Sutra. Mental states are not inherently fixed, and you can hold them much lighter than you are now. Recorded at Spirit Loft in Toronto, June 2016.

As the breath becomes smooth and slow, the mind settles and we become less interested in wanting “an experience.” Be kind to yourself, cultivate an un-agitated heart, and live a life that connects. London, 50 min.

Michael explains how we can cultivate a field in which anxiety can arise and change, surrounded by spaciousness. We have forces of good inside us, we aren't fated to live out our history, and we are loveable just as we are. London, 55min.