Podcast

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.

Mindfulness of Feeling Tone

Michael teaches the 2nd foundation of mindfulness and how all of our experiences comes down to pleasant and unpleasant tone in the body and how important it is that we know how to feel the unpleasant. He also speaks about

Appreciation & Joy

Michael teaches a group of clinicians (with Brian Williams) on the Buddhist teaching of Mudita – Appreciative Joy. He speaks of the ways that joy is contagious and how we can train to notice it more often.

15 Minute Guided Tonglen Meditation

This is instruction for a meditation practice called tonglen. Tonglen is a Tibetan term that means giving and receiving. In this practice you send out happiness to others and you take in any suffering that others feel. (Lojong Teachings #2)

Training Your Heart (Lojong Teachings #1)

Michael teaches Tibetan practices for training in empathy: Turning what’s arising into the path, see everything as a dream, don’t get stuck on peace, rest in an open mind, and after meditation just become a beginner.

Making Friends with Your Mind

Meditation, how the mind functions, and contra-indications for meditation are the subject of this talk. Michael explores karma and also the delay of gratification, borderline personality, and the difference between practices that uncover repression and practices that strengthen the personality

Digital Era Lecture Q & A

Discussion about technology in culture and its effect on us personally and socially. Recorded at Semperviva in Vancouver, BC.