Mindful Inquiry: A Path of Freedom and Joyful Responsibility
A good teacher can point to the teachings and ignite our wakefulness, but it is up to each one of us to find the willingness to embody our practice in daily life. We are...
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Reflections from our teachers
Awakening Joy: Practice as a Path of Happiness
Despite pervasive images of the smiling Buddha, the practice and teachings of Buddhism often have a reputation of being rather more somber than joyful. With so much emphasis on “suffering and the end of...
Vast view, fine attention
Dharma practice invites us to hold an expansive view of our own lives, and of all reality. Like the sign in Thai monastery reminds us: Relax: In 100 years, all new people! However caught...
Coming Home To The Body with Breath
Imagine not being able to find your way home to your loved ones, to your friends and family. Imagine how traumatic this would be. This is the same trauma we experience when we have...
The Surgeon’s Probe: Healing with Mindfulness
I am uncomfortable with the way that ‘mindfulness’ has been packaged and sold as a cure for everything. I have an ongoing argument with some modern definitions of ‘mindfulness’. I feel that these definitions...
From Mindfulness to Dharma: The Fourth Foundation
Mindfulness in its original definition and understanding is a practice which is quite specific. It is basically shining the light on our genuine experience rather than running on automatic pilot. But in the growth...
Other People Are the Path: Relationships as Practice
When I was a novice nun, I was attending my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, whom his students call ‘Thay,’ which means ‘teacher’ in Vietnamese. It was always a great privilege to be able to...
Receptivity: Deep Listening as an Antidote to Reactivity and Violence
In these hyped up divisive times, there is an ever-greater need for tools to de-condition ourselves from reactivity. The practice of listening – within ourselves and with others – is much more significant than...
The Relative is the Absolute: Touching Race, Injustice, and Love
When we engage in the distortion that the relative plane is separate from the absolute – that it is something to transcend or ‘just an illusion’ – we ignore the reality of the illusion....
Towards Liberation of the Voice
Spoken or written, our words have a significant impact upon others, as well as upon ourselves. It is vital to bear in mind that the exploration of the middle way applies equally to language,...