We begin by inhabiting the body with presence, the way it feels right now. After a gentle body scan, noting any obvious areas of tension, we rest the attention on the sensations of breathing.

Coming Home to Ourselves is about orienting towards our experience and then meeting our experience with an warm heart. To be "at home," means to be here, at ease, in the present moment. Often we're "not at home" because we are experiencing difficulties and feel like we have to go outside of ourselves to figure it out or perhaps we have patterns of avoiding or distracting ourselves. The journey of coming home and connecting with ourselves in a friendly way might be a radical one because it requires letting of the idea that what the heart is yearning for can be found outside of ourselves.

Hearing awakening poems from those that have traveled this path before us can be an inspirational support for practice. In this talk, poems from the Therigatha, Theragatha and from Matty Weingast are shared.

By practicing with compassion we recognize that caring about suffering is a natural capacity that we all have. In this guided meditation we cultivate compassion for oneself and for others.

Sometimes it can be helpful to see the bigger picture and simplify practice to cultivation and letting go. In this talk we explore the power of cultivation in the context of balancing the five faculties. Specifically, cultivating wisdom as balanced by faith and supported by concentration is emphasized.

With metta practice we start where it's easy and expand the loving-kindness to more and more beings. In this session, we begin with the easy being, then expand to include oneself and then a good friend. Focusing on our intention for cultivating loving-kindness, rather than on having any particular experiences, supports the transformative power of this practice.