Episodes

With the First Noble Truth, the Buddha said made clear that dukkha (often translated as suffering) is an inevitable part of life and that this truth of dukkha must be reckoned with. How might we relate to this first Noble Truth in a way that reckoning with dukkha might be ennobling? Note: for the podcast we edit out the sharings the group offered on this question, but give the closing for your contemplation.

Using Rumi’s the Guest House as a starting place, what is needed in this moment now to welcome the guests that are here in our guest house.

The teachings of the Buddha start with the Four Noble Truths, the first of which is that in this life there is dukkha, often translated as suffering. In these challenging times, it is so helpful to understand how opening and encouraging engaging with this teaching can be.

This world – absolutely pure As is. Behind the fear, Vulnerability. Behind that, Sadness, then compassion And behind that the vast sky. -Rick Fields, written while working with terminal cancer

Cognitive Science is identifying different ways we relate to “self” that are very useful for untangling a challenging moment. This relates beautifully to Phillip Moffit’s quote: A crucial skill from minimizing emotional chaos and sustaining clarity in your life is the ability to distinguish between your experience in your interpretation of your experience. Your experience is simply whatever is happening in the moment— a sound, a taste, bodily sensation, and emotion, any kind of interaction, etc...

Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet wrote, “Work is love made visible.” That’s a beautiful description also of why and how we practice. What orientation is needed in this moment right now for practice to be making love visible?

This sharing explores how opening to our own resistance in a moment, even a seemingly innocuous moment such as dog training, can untangle a whole mess– or at least allow more space to befriend, or be friendly with, the mess…

Quote from Gil Fronsdal: Where in my life do I postpone kindness until non-wellbeing goes away— and what shifts when I practice wellbeing that includes non-wellbeing? A helpful way to practice this is to treat moments of non-well-being as worthy of care rather than as evidence of failure. When irritation, sorrow, fatigue, fear, or disappointment arise let them be included in the field of kindness: “This too belongs.” Then you notice what changes when you stop requiring the inner weather to be d...

In this reflection on Judson Brewer’s “gear 3”, we explore how useful an analogy of riding a wild horse is for understanding our own reactivity.

As we practice, we begin to understand an infinite receptive capacity of awareness to hold it all and allow our wisdom to come forward.

Continuing to explore Judson Brewer’s model– today’s sharing is a bit about “gear 2” and then a self-inquiry exercise. For the pdf of the exercise, click here.

Using the formal sit as a gift to invite the best friend of sati, mindfulness as a support in opening to our own selves.