Let’s Talk About Mettā and Service

By David Cohen | 6/22/2022

During a recent committee meeting at my local Dhamma center, we discussed alternative ways to encourage service because our meditation center, like many other Dhamma centers, is working through server shortages. This essay is my attempt to dive deeper into mettā and service and how they are essential for a complete practice.

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Kindness

By Andrée François | 6/4/2022

Andrée François

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Citta

By RSM | 6/4/2022

This mind

waits to enlight,

to befriend.

Simply remains still

holding close,

for a moment of awareness from within.

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The Big Umbrella

By Pierre Robert | 6/4/2022

Elaborating on the assertion that all beings seek happiness, the Buddha declared it impossible for anyone to be truly happy if he or she does not refrain from whatever harms the peace and harmony of others.

Since his teaching entered my life, I have recognized in my quest for personal happiness a social responsibility: my duty to be happy for the welfare of others. After all, no-one is interested in the hurtful things that I sometimes say about them, in enduring my blame and annoyance, in witnessing my worries and anxiety attacks, or in my insistence that things go my way.

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Nirodha

By Ke Ton | 5/23/2022

The title is “Nirodha”. The seal in the upper right says: “Buddhist doctrine teaches: take all things as Impermanent and Imaginary”

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Busted, Adjusted

By Luke Matthews | 5/23/2022

In 1980, after the hot season from April to June, few Westerners remained at Dhamma Giri. And during the rainy season that followed there were fewer still. Most of the Indian servers too had departed. Goenkaji himself had gone to conduct courses in Europe and North America. During the monsoon Dhamma Giri is a magical place enswirled by leaden clouds and buffeted by pounding rain that abruptly gives way to dazzling sunlight. The parched hills turn emerald green with fresh grass and newborn waterfalls cascade off the surrounding mesas. How to dry your clothes and keep them from becoming mouldy, however, was an enduring problem.

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Reflections on the Noble Eightfold Path in Practice and Daily Life, Part 4 of 4

By Bruce Stewart | 5/23/2022

The final installment of the essay on the Noble Eightfold path concerns the cluster of factors that address the cultivation of wisdom, or paññā. In the Buddha’s teaching, with a strong base of sīla, one is well-grounded to more easily tamp down the hindrances, which leads one to more easily develop strong samādhi. And with the sharpened mind, one can penetrate into the laws that govern existence, and uproot the tendency towards experiencing dukkha at the deepest level of the mind. Paññā is also called “insight.”

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A Buddha for All Colours

By Mosami (11 years old) | 5/9/2022

Mosami

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Re-Awakened Reality - Day 11

By Manish Chopra | 5/9/2022

I handed the instructions for the location over to the chosen driver and we started making our way to the destination. I closed my eyes for a few minutes in the back of the taxi and the meditation process started spontaneously despite all the sounds outside and the bright sunlight. I was delighted to note that I was able to meditate in an unusual setting like a car ride. Taxis and flights were a big part of my work week so it was comforting to know that I could meditate in such environments.

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Finding Joy in the Practice of Insight

By Bhikkhu Anālayo | 5/9/2022

From the viewpoint of cultivating liberating insight, a central distinction to be made is that between avoiding the types of joy that lead to attachment while at the same time recognizing that there are commendable forms of joy. These are in particular the wholesome types of joy that come from deepening insight and learning to let go of clinging and attachments. Finding joy in such letting go can provide an important inspiration for dedicating ourselves wholeheartedly to the continuity of practice and for this reason should not be underestimated.

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Ashoka: An Ideal Ruler

By Patrick Given-Wilson | 5/9/2022

For centuries Ashoka and his reign were forgotten in the mists of time and history, his name hardly known, his monuments broken, burnt and buried. It was only in the 19th Century, as India opened up to the West that a series of scholars, epigraphers, and archaeologists began to reassemble and understand his achievements and his message.

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Boatman

By Ke Ton | 4/24/2022

Ke Ton

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Faces

By Varsha Patel | 4/24/2022

On the mind's screen
Faces unknown are seen
Strangers from the past nameless to my conscious mind
Strangers from the future whom I might meet sometime
Or just random images in meditation time.

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Tearful Liberation - Day 10

By Manish Chopra | 4/24/2022

The New Year’s Eve party across from our campsite continued well into the early hours of the morning and the sounds of the live band and the revelers were intermingled with the chants in the courtyard. This was probably the first New Year celebration I had spent alone and in a quiet manner. I reflected on the relevance of “the party’s over when the music stops” to my condition coming into the camp having lived for all these years in ignorance, reveling in the party of my unaware and indulgent consciousness.

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Reflections on the Noble Eightfold Path in Practice and Daily Life, Part 3 of 4

By Bruce Stewart | 4/24/2022

This third installment of my four-part essay on the Noble Eightfold Path explores the cluster of factors that fall under the umbrella of samādhi. Samādhi is commonly understood in this tradition as collecting and calming the mind so that it can be focused on the observation of reality for the purpose of cultivating wisdom/insight. However, it can more broadly be defined as the calm abiding of mind and body.

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Reflections on the Noble Eightfold Path in Practice and Daily Life, Part 2 of 4

By Bruce Stewart | 4/8/2022

Sīla is not merely about moral and ethical considerations; it is also spiritual in nature, the very foundation on which any strong practice is built. It is interesting to note that the tenets of sīla are not intended as commandments. Rather, sīla is undertaken as a “training.” The Buddha seems very clear about the importance of sīla, which comprises three of the eight steps of the Noble Eightfold Path. So in conformity with that teaching, our tradition gives great importance to maintaining sīla in our lives.

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Equanimous Mind - Day 9

By Manish Chopra | 4/8/2022

At this stage, I was now completely convinced that hard as it may be, I would continue to put in every effort humanly possible to maintain the practice of Vipassana meditation when I resumed my regular life. The significant changes in my energy level, concentration power, attention span, creativity, mind-body coordination, temperament, and numerous other faculties I had experienced through the use of this technique were palpable, especially when I didn’t even know that such a big delta was even available as headroom for potential improvement.

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Riding the Waves of Samsara

By Luz Donis | 4/8/2022

On birth waters giving
way to ruptured membranes

the waves of samsara

Crying with pain
not knowing
what is to gain

riding the waves of samsara

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Buddhaful

By Mosami (11 years old) | 4/8/2022

MosaamiMosaMosamimi

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Surrender

By Halina Sobrado Wydrzycka | 3/27/2022

There is no way to sit and meditate hour after hour without renouncing, surrendering. Surrendering to the process itself. To continue to hold on to the mind is an ordeal. There is no way to attend to stillness while clinging to the mind, this wild animal pulling in all directions.

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Leaves of Gold

By Silvia Escorel | 3/27/2022

Leaves of gold shine

on the fresh white snow

and my heart soars as my boots sink.

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Reflections on the Noble Eightfold Path in Practice and Daily Life, Part 1 of 4

By Bruce Stewart | 3/27/2022

In November of 2018, I gave a talk on the Noble Eightfold Path at an Annual Old Student Meeting at Dhamma Patāpa, a center in rural Georgia in the tradition of SN Goenka, or Goenkaji as he is affectionately known. My intent was to present a perspective about how the Eightfold Path intersects with our meditation practice and daily lives, based on my teaching experience, practice, and reading over the decades in this tradition.

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Contemplation

By Patrick Given-Wilson | 3/20/2022

Patrick Given-Wilson

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Saturated with Awareness

By Paul and Susan Fleischman | 3/20/2022

As a spring-fed pond wells up with water from its cool depths,
and also receives rain from above
sent by the rain-god from time to time,
so that the rain from above and the spring water from below
mingle,
this pond will become washed through and radiant with fresh
water.

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Following Dreams with Equanimity - Day 8

By Manish Chopra | 3/20/2022

I lunched quickly and went back to my room to think through a few questions I intended to ask at 12:30 pm after the formal Q&A session open to all students was over, as I had prearranged a private meeting through the server managing the course. I headed up eagerly to the Dhamma Hall at 12:20 pm so I might get an extra minute or two with him in case he wasn’t meeting with another student and I could also catch the tail end of the official Q&A period.

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