Blog

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In this week’s “Minute”, I want to focus on an important energy that we inevitably encounter in our meditation practice. It’s the same energy we encounter when we procrastinate any worthwhile habit, whether it be regular exercise, a dietary regime, or an artistic venture. This energy is called resistance.  If you’ve ever skipped meditation because you […]

This week, I wanted to offer a very effective recommendation for supporting your meditation practice (or any other  worthwhile habit you want to develop). The Fall season always reminds me of the first days of school: nostalgia mixed with dread.  To manage those disruptive first days, I laid out the next day’s wardrobe (Tough-skins, Izod […]

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?” […]

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 […]

This week’s practice will investigate the experience of impermanence (anicca).   On some level, we all recognize that life is a constant flow of relentless change.  And yet we rarely live in accordance with that Truth. We tend to pursue a strategy for happiness that attempts to impute solidity upon the flux.  We try to stake […]

Last week’s newsletter elicited many positive responses.  Thank you for sharing your struggles with balancing the use of techno-media. Personally, I found it remarkably challenging to pull back from unbridled emailing and news snacking.  But at the same time, that very difficulty only reinforced my hunch that this is something that would dramatically improve the […]

Greetings from the end of Summer! This is a great time to slow down, pause, evaluate and re-assess.  One fruitful theme to reflect upon is your consumption of technology.  I recently heard a Postive Psychologist discuss how studies now show a direct correlation between increased consumption of television and internet with increased symptoms of depression. […]

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 […]

This week we opened our field of awareness to include feeling tones, or vedana (in Pali). ‘Contemplation of feelings is a meditation practice of considerable potential.  This potential is based on the simple but ingenious method of directing awareness to the very first stages of the arising of likes and dislikes, by clearly noting whether the present moment’s […]

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 […]

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 […]