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The joke used to be that every time Michael opened his mouth what he said was archived here. We couldn’t be more grateful for that now because it is one of the best ways Michael’s teachings will live on.
The Awake in the World Podcast is the heart of the Community Library. Talks are on a wide-range of topics, including: bringing mindfulness and meditation practice into daily life; personal and community issues regarding mental health; and social change.
This podcast has been created so that anyone can have instant access to Michael’s teachings. It has been made possible due to generous donations from members of the community. In the six years that the podcast has been available, over half a million people have pressed play as a way to be more—like the name says—awake in the world.
Each podcast is between 30-60 minutes long. As always, you’re encouraged to follow along weekly as part of your practice. The podcasts were recorded at live events so you might hear coughing, airplanes, cars, sirens, laughter, and peoples’ questions—all part of the intimate experience.
Best of Awake in the World: Buddha’s Last Word
This week we’re revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. In the Zen tradition, there is a saying, “Reaching the mystery is nothing but breaking through and grabbing an ordinary person’s life. The mystical experience turns out to
Best of Awake in the World: Spiritual By-passing & Mindfulness of Thinking
This week we’re revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. Michael integrates a discussion of spiritual bypassing (using practice to avoid dealing with painful feelings and unresolved emotional habits) with a teaching on using labeling to let go
I Had to Stop Reading
In this talk Michael explores anatta (not-self) and emptiness as strategies versus “things.”He argues that sitting practice is required to get beyond language and investigate the habits of mind that obscure our understanding.
Do People These Days Need Enlightenment?
Michael considers the final lines of the first pada of the Yoga Sutra through the lens of a Buddhist koan: Case 62 of the Book of Serenity.
What Can You Do About the World?
In this talk Michael looks at the five kleshas and their corresponding cultural samskaras through the practice of working with a koan–an exercise in not knowing. He also describes Bernie Glassman and Grover Gauntt’s street retreats and their three guiding
Enter Here
This meandering talk starts with a story about “Entering the Way” and flows around asana practice, pranayama, the role of a teacher, the five kleshas and the importance of healthy doubt (the kind that comes with faith).
Best of Awake in the World: Emptiness, Self, Depression & Narcissism
Michael gives a talk on the ways mindfulness meditation can help with the spectrum of mental illness and also some signs to watch out for as practice deepens. Part of a series of talks on Shantideva’s Guide to a Bodhisattva’s
Who Are You?
In this talk (on the first lines of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra) Michael explores the mistakes we make as we try to ground ourselves and construct identities based on stories, desires and fears.
In that Lump of Flesh and Bones
In this talk Michael argues that yoga and mindfulness are best practiced via the body versus striving for the attainment of philosophical or intellectual concepts. He encourages trusting that the body is the natural world and listening with the heart,
Best of Awake in the World: Ahimsa (Non-harming)
This week we’re revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. Michael interviews Pat Smith, physician and abortion provider, on the precept of non-harming. Michael and Pat discuss ethics versus political ideologies, the relationships between how we are in
The Walls of the Mind
Michael explores the line in the Heart Sutra: “With no hindrance in the mind. No hindrance therefore no fear.” He covers the three “traditional” hindrances: karma, the kleshas and anaya, and talks about creativity, groundlessness and the importance of community.
To Stop the Estrangement Between Us
In this talk about the Heart Sutra Michael explains how it functions to counter what John Cage calls “the authoritarian structures” of our minds, including the tendency to create “frames” and contract around our sense of separateness.
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The Community Library will continue as long as we have supporters. The more support we have, the more we can ensure that the teachings Michael left behind can be available for free to anyone in the world.