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In Memoriam: Rick Woudenberg


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Martin Aylward's Dharma Talks at Gaia House
Martin Aylward
2012-05-25 Letting Go - Three Practices for Heart, Body and Mind 29:59
Anupadana, meaning non-clinging (often translated as letting go), is the very essence of Dharma practice. This introductory talk looks at the specifics of cultivating a non-clinging attitude with respect our physical, emotional, and mental experience.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Unburdening the Heart
2012-02-25 Happiness - Beyond Differentiation 49:46
However we describe our practice, we are longing for happiness and ease. This talk explores how we get in our own way with that, pursuing ideas of happiness while missing something fundamental about our very existence which can bring us back into the freedom of being which beckons us. Like the Sufi poet Hafiz says, "Ever since Happiness first heard your name, it has been running through the streets crying out to you."
Gaia House Loving What Is
2012-02-24 Opening Talk for Retreat Entitled Loving What Is 1:11:14
Gaia House Loving What Is
2011-09-11 Talk Five - The Heart Free of Clinging: Four Expressions of Love 1:21:01
The series of 5 talks from this retreat explore a central feature of Dharma practice and teachings: How we get uptight and reactive (Upadana / Clinging) around our experience, and the transformational possibility of letting go. The talks cover the Buddhas teachings on the 3 main realms of experience that we cling most tightly to, as well as exploring and pointing towards the nature of the heart that is free from clinging. This fifth and closing talk looks at the affective quality of our experience in the heart. This explores the subjective experience of clinging as greed, hatred and delusion, and Martin points out how as the heart clarifies, it naturally rests into the expanded states of different forms of love.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Freedom From Clinging
2011-09-10 Talk Four - To Be Or Not To Be : Is There a Self or Isn't There? 41:40
The series of 5 talks from this retreat explore a central feature of Dharma practice and teachings: How we get uptight and reactive (Upadana / Clinging) around our experience, and the transformational possibility of letting go. The talks cover the Buddhas teachings on the 3 main realms of experience that we cling most tightly to, as well as exploring and pointing towards the nature of the heart that is free from clinging. Starting with the existential, progressing towards the personal, this fourth talk explores the Buddhas teachings on the third realm of clinging - to existence and non-existence. Martin explores what we identify with - as well as what we dont, and our limited capacity to only conceive in terms of is or isnt, exists or doesnt, while pointing to a way of meeting life that isnt constrained by this reductive dichotomy.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Freedom From Clinging
2011-09-09 Talk Three - Beyond Belief 48:20
The series of 5 talks from this retreat explore a central feature of Dharma practice and teachings: How we get uptight and reactive (Upadana / Clinging) around our experience, and the transformational possibility of letting go. The talks cover the Buddhas teachings on the 3 main realms of experience that we cling most tightly to, as well as exploring and pointing towards the nature of the heart that is free from clinging. This third talk explores how our ideas, beliefs and opinions obscure our true knowing of reality. Martin progresses through our views about life itself, unconsciously conditioned by both scientific and religious cultural myths, our views about and in relation to others, and our painful, evaluating views of ourselves. The encouragement is to examine our beliefs so as to make them transparent, to see life clearly, to recognize its freely unfolding process that cannot be defined by mere idea or view.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Freedom From Clinging
2011-09-08 Talk Two - Freedom and Desire 43:34
The series of 5 talks from this retreat explore a central feature of Dharma practice and teachings: How we get uptight and reactive (Upadana / Clinging) around our experience, and the transformational possibility of letting go. The talks cover the Buddhas teachings on the 3 main realms of experience that we cling most tightly to, as well as exploring and pointing towards the nature of the heart that is free from clinging. This second talk explores the powerful force of wanting, and how to meet, explore and understand our clinging to desire. Martin encourages us to inhabit the movement of wanting more fully, leaving aside the objects of our desire in order to be more fully with the wanting itself. Offering three different ways for working with desire, we are pointed towards a freedom from both the obsessing about what we want, and from its opposite; the denying the dynamism and depth at the heart of our longing.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Freedom From Clinging
2011-09-07 Talk One: Opening Talk for Live and Let Go - Freedom From Clinging Retreat: Inhabiting the Heart, Body and Mind 1:21:22
The series of 5 talks from this retreat explore a central feature of Dharma practice and teachings: How we get uptight and reactive (Upadana / Clinging) around our experience, and the transformational possibility of letting go. The talks cover the Buddhas teachings on the 3 main realms of experience that we cling most tightly to, as well as exploring and pointing towards the nature of the heart that is free from clinging. This introductory talk looks at the broad 3-fold field of our experience corresponding to the experience of body, heart and mind; Sensation, Feeling and Thought. Martin explores the differences in meditative approach to working with the different elements of experience, and invokes the teaching of the Middle Way in avoiding the extremes of on the one hand obsessing / wallowing in our experience, and on the other rejecting / denying / shutting down to what is happening.
Gaia House Live and Let Go: Freedom From Clinging
2011-05-08 Top Ten Retreatants Questions 64:25
An exploration of the ten most frequently raised questions, concerns and issues of Dharma practitioners, in sustaining and deepening practice in their everyday life.
Gaia House Whole Life, Whole Practice, Nothing Left Out
2011-05-06 Freedom From Obsessinig and Rejecting 52:31
This talk uses the Buddha's model of the Middle Way to explore our tendencies to get caught either in obsessing about self, others and world, or in trying to reject and deny the same. Martin points to a creative, dynamic engagement with experience which reflects the title of the talk.
Gaia House Whole Life, Whole Practice, Nothing Left Out

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