The Truth I Wish Everyone Could Learn from Vipassana

We seem to determine our happiness by comparing our lives to our peers. These comparisons lead to competition. Competition can lead to jealousy, anger, conflict, and division. It seems like human nature and it's causing our communities to unravel. It all starts with the problem that we determine our happiness by comparing our lives to …

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Benefits of Kindness

Students tell me that we live in a selfish world where everyone only cares about themselves. They conclude that if everyone else is only looking out for themselves, the only path forward is to do the same. They know this will add to the decline of society, but they don't know what to do about …

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Unconditional Love, Not Liberation

With all the intellectual quarreling about different religions and philosophies, I was drawn to the universal nature of Vipassana. Regardless of your background or beliefs, observing the breath and scanning the body while living a moral life seems to help everyone reduce their agitation. These components of Buddha's teachings - sila, samadhi, panna - seem …

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Balancing Hiking, Meditation, and Friendship

Societies connection to unconditional love is diminishing. Simply meditating two hours a day and surrendering to dhamma has not produced the changes in my life and community that I've been hoping for. Meditation helps me purify my mind and eliminate the anger, fear, and greed. This helps me to personally grow in unconditional love, but …

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Balancing Social Connection and Goenka Vipassana

Balancing inward growth and outward growth is challenging. There are certainly benefits to shutting everything down for 10+ days to practice Vipassana. By slowly releasing agitating emotions, we become more open, peaceful, and compassionate. We start to understand ourselves more deeply while opening the door for deeper and more meaningful relationships. Unfortunately, just like when …

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Let’s Start From Scratch

I'm a practical dreamer. I like to fantasize about the outstanding possibilities for humanity, and I'm willing to confront the big challenges that stand in the way. Recently, it has been extremely difficult to curate an optimistic vision with so many barriers. The fundamental challenge we're facing is the division. Twenty-five years ago, we felt …

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