Awake In The World Podcast

**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.

Michael talks about the magic mantra that ends the Heart Sutra. Transforming fear, cultivating compassion, not-knowing, how mantras work. London, 1 hour.

How to meditate when your are thinking a lot. Michael also explores language and emotions in children and how this gets internalized in adults. A very clear talk on mindfulness practices for transforming overthinking and identification with thoughts. Vancouver, 55 min.

Drawing on Freud, Jung, and the Buddha, and various ways of understanding what the ego is, how it develops, and why working with settling thoughts becomes a spiritual practice over time. Vancouver, 30 min.

How to become interested in how the mind functions rather than being caught in the content of our stories. Meditation is a physical practice and we use breathing to settle the mind and heart. 40 min. Vancouver.

Shift away from the content of the mind to the process of thinking. Mindfulness of thinking while sitting like a mountain. Vancouver, 25 min.

If you feel unsafe or unstable, this is a gentle 10 minute guided meditation in corpse pose, for taking care of yourself. Vancouver, 20 min.

Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity for meditation facilitation. Vancouver, 53 min.

Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on self-soothing and trauma awareness during the Meditation Facilitation Training. Recorded in Vancouver, 59 min.

Molly Boeder Harris co-teaching with Michael on trauma sensitivity during the Meditation Facilitation Training. Vancouver, 25 min.