Josh Summers

Yin Yoga | Meditation | Path

Wise Effort

Typically, the Buddha’s teachings on Wise Effort involve directing one’s awareness in four ways: To prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states To abandon the arisen unwholesome states To arouse unarisen wholesome states To maintain arisen wholesome states The Buddha seems to be implying that there’s a lot to do here in cultivating the ‘good’ and expunging the ‘bad’. […]

Wise Livelihood

Wednesday is often coupled with the moniker: ‘hump day’.  Middle of the week.  Half-way done with the mind-numbing banality of workaday existence.  Half-way to the weekend when we can kick back, forget the week, and try to remember what it’s like to bealive. For many this is an all-too familiar scenario: at best, we work […]

Wise Action

Wise Action is where the rubber hits the road in our spiritual life.  Put simply, we can ask, “Do our actions find alignment within Wise View?”  Are we acting in ways that create suffering for ourselves and others?  Or are we acting in ways that promote connection and harmony? The Buddha framed Wise Action in terms of five training […]

Wise Speech

The Third Limb of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path looks at Wise Speech.  In many respects, our speech emerges directly from our view of and our alignment towards the world.If we hold ourselves as separate from all we see, then our speech reifies and reinforces that sense of separation.   Or, if we align ourselves with […]

Wise Intention

Last week, we explored the central core of the Buddha’s teachings: Wise View, or seeing things as they really are. Flowing out of Wise View, Wise Intention emerges to establish our internal alignment with this view.  In other words, we align our Heart’s aspiration to be in accordance with the understanding of how things are, particularly with respect […]

Wise View

This week, my classes have emphasized the first limb of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path: Wise View. Wise View simply sees things as they really are. In the beginning, Wise View aligns our energy with the direction of the path, towards a freedom that is independent of conditions.  In a sense, Wise Viewharnesses our energy towards a deeper understanding of how […]

To Self Or Not To Self

Without fail, probably the most commonly misunderstood concept in all of Buddhism is the teaching on Non-Self, or Anatta. This teaching asserts that there is no permanent, stable, abiding entity at the center of our existense. Clever students often quip, “Yeah, but if there’s no self, then what’s sitting here right now? Isn’t that a self?” […]

Dukkha, Dukkha, Dukkha

This week, my classes have emphasized opening to the contemplation of dukkha.  Dukkha is the second characteristic common to all conditioned existence, and it is often translated as ‘suffering’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. But the literal translation of dukkha is ‘that which is difficult to bear’.   So this flavor of experience covers the entire spectrum of the obvious sorrows such […]

The Three Marks of Existence

This week’s practice focuses on the Buddha’s Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness: ultimate realities (dhammas). The Three Marks of Existence: The Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena (ie. sensory experience) are 1) impermanent, 2) incapable of providing lasting happiness and 3) void of a permanent self. Not seeing these characteristics, we easily enter into an unskillful […]

Contemplative Thinking

This week, we opened our contemplation to include the experience of thoughts and emotions. This is an immensely rich area to investigate. And I hope you enjoy these reflections. Core Concepts: “The mind is not our own, but we’re still responsible for it anyway,” says Sayadaw U Tejaniya.  This statement acknowledges the out-of-control nature of […]

Reflections on Practice

It occurred to me that my original intention of having this newsletter has yet to be fulfilled.  That intention was to offer meditation/yoga related content that would offer support, inspiration and some direction in the development of your own spiritual interests.  And, unfortunately, that intention has fallen short, for which I apologize.  Instead, this newsletter […]