Podcast
Change Your Mind to Change Your World with Stephen Fulder
Hosted by Stephen Fulder · EN
Buddhist inspired practices and teachings that show paths to realization, freedom and joy.
15episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Illumination and Compassion as Default When Everything Seems to be Going to Pieces
Apr 1700:41:23Tap to summarizeWhen things get really difficult, whether personally, such as sickness, or socially, such as violent conflict, it can feel hard to engage in normal psychospiritual development practice. We may feel too exhausted, agitated or disturbed to sit in meditation, or we may feel numb, reactive and overwhelmed. In such situations, the dharma is actually needed more than ever. It can be lifesaving. But it is not practice as usual. Compassion can kick in when everything else doesn't work. We can feel compassion for our numb, dried-out and contracted heart and soul, and for all others caught in the same situation. We can radiate healing for ourselves and all others. We can go into the shelter when the rockets are falling with deep compassion and kindness for ourselves and others there, and for all caught up in it, on all sides. Illumination is simply the ability to see things clearly as they arise, even if difficult and disturbed, as a changing field of sensations and awareness, that doesn't need us to construct summaries, narratives and views. Something breaks through, and we can feel the sadness and the richness of these moments, however troubling they are. It takes us to a bigger place, and we can look at things both from above and below.
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Non-Dual Guided Meditation 1. Shining the Light on Our Experience. Dropping into Being.
Apr 300:27:40Tap to summarizeThis non-dual guided meditation is bilingual - English with some Hebrew. It is a reminder that if we drop completely into this spontaneous moment, we discover a completeness and a total presence. We see how we shine the light on everything that arises. We can get closer to the light itself. This is bodhicitta, awakened awareness.
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Non-dual Guided Meditation 2. Resting in Awareness. Surrender to What Arises. Welcome Everything As It Is. מדיטציה מונחית לא־דואלית 2: מנוחה במודעות. התמסרות למה שעולה. קבלת הכול כפי שהוא.
Apr 200:37:33Tap to summarizeThis guided non-dual meditation is in Hebrew and English. It emphasises deep resting in the primal awareness and presence that holds us. It guides us to trust and explore the nature of presence and awareness itself, not just what the awareness knows. In the well-known language of Krishnamurti, we can go beyond the duality of the observer and the observed and be within observation itself. This is a pure, open and free movement of knowing itself.
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Non-Dual Guided Meditation 3. מדיטציה מונחית לא־דואלית 3: נוכחות, מחסה ונינוחות בתרגול חיי היומיום. הקשבה לחייםPresence, Refuge and Ease in Daily Life Practice. Listening to Life
Apr 100:36:51Tap to summarizeThis guided meditation is mostly in Hebrew. It is designed to help us practice open non-dual awareness at home and in daily life. We can start with refuge and coming home to presence. We practice welcoming and allowing the richness of this moment, and let go of struggle to practice in a certain way or to fight distraction. We rest in is-ness, in the kaleidoscope of experiences that come and go, and we remain at ease and open and letting go into this boundless life.
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Shit Happens! Coping With Unexpected Difficulty
Feb 400:47:06Tap to summarizeWe are not in charge of things. We can live a peaceful, kind and aware life, and we get an unexpected beating from karma: whether from conflict, disease, relationships, and a host of conditions which can turn against us. We need to develop an internal protection, an internal steadiness, with which to meet uncontrollable life. We do this by a sense of inner freedom to dance with circumstances, like the Taoist image of grasses which are bent by the wind but cannot be broken. We develop a sense of being part of the universe, and a deep letting go into the big picture. We do this by deep meditative stillness and a steadiness that stays with us, whatever the challenges. We do this by love and compassion for whatever arises in this world.
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Dropping our Resistance and Meeting Things as They Are Empowers our Actions
Jan 1800:23:13Tap to summarizeWe usually resist and try to stop, prevent, deny or escapefrom difficulty. But often resistance creates more obstacles to action. We are busy avoiding the difficulty and finding ways around it, which uses a lot of energy and can make us feel lost and powerless. But meeting things as they are, even surrendering to them, can activate an energy from a deeper place. If we surrender to the earth beneath, the sky above, the nature all around, and the glorious mystery of existence, it all gives us back confidence, clarity and primal resources which empower us.
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How Can Presence Heal Our Body and Mind?
Jan 1800:55:35Tap to summarizePresence is a power that drives healing and transformation.It can help us look with new eyes at what we experience, including the pains and struggles of mind and body. The deep listening and caring that is part of presence will help us to hear what the pain is trying to tell us, what might be some wise and caring ways to respond, and where the healing might be. It is abit like our inner child that wants to be noticed and taken care of and will respond with love and joy.
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What Are We Doing With This One Precious Life?
Jan 1800:22:22Tap to summarizeWe can sometimes feel we are swept along by life, andespecially by difficult circumstances over which we have no control. As in the Buddhist image, we can feel like a man in a boat on a rushing river that is swept along by the current helplessly. He tries to catch hold of branches to stop, but each time the current is too strong, and he cannot stop. We need tolearn how to get off the boat, to choose a different way, to examine carefully what we are living for, and what is meaningful for us, to choose a life of wisdom, caring, and wellbeing, for ourselves and others. Sometimes this will be a quiet pool rather than the rushing river, but in any case, we need to committo looking deeply at what brings the beauty and of an awakened life to ourselves and all around us.
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Finding our compass in the chaos
Jan 1800:32:59Tap to summarizeSometimes life feels like it is confusing, chaotic and uncertain, especially today when we might feel that the kind of civilisationand values which have sustained us for generations are collapsing. And so many around us, including in the media, are responding with conflict and extreme views, or helplessness and despair. We are living in a post-truth era, and itmay not look so nice. So we all need our own compass to show us a way to live when things seem to be going to pieces. We need to carve our own path up the mountain. If things seem to be going to pieces we don't need to be going to pieces with it. We can direct ourselves to awareness and a life that makes sense, including a life of kindness and caring. Our compass is the development of qualities and capacities that we and those around us need at these times. The Paramis, in particular, are a Buddhist teaching of inner capacities derived from a bigger, freer view of reality, with which we go out in the street, we act and we relate to others and the world around.
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Are You Calling Me?
Dec 400:33:43Tap to summarizeWe all want to help ourselves, help each other, support life, and look after things. It is very natural and basic. Life wants to live. This is the essence of compassion. Our heart responds to the world and vibrates with all existence. Looked at this way, compassion is a basic energy that we all have. But it is often limited by fears, concerns and our narratives. So we have a responsibility to expand the boundaries of compassion so it stretches out to those we do not know and to all living beings. The practice of awareness and mindfulness encourages a deep intimacy with all others, and also deeply resonates with the vulnerability and beautiful fragility of existence. This will empower our compassionate heart.
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