I'm on my psychiatry rotation in medical school, which is mostly concerned with identifying constellations of symptoms of severe mental illness in order to make a diagnosis and prescribe medication. Additionally, here and there, we apply snippets of psychodynamic theory in order to better understand our patients. "Psychodynamic" is the term we use to describe …
Category: Helping Others
I’m The Root Of The Problem
Watching the news can be difficult with all of the violence in the world. One wonders, "What would drive someone to do that?" Most people feel helpless to the inertia of the world, but some start thinking, "How can I help?" For a long time I was one of these people. I was searching for …
Any Writers Out There?
The aspect of this blog that I've enjoyed the most is the opportunity to inspire new students to establish their daily practice. I thought this blog could provide more inspiration if a group of people from around the world with different backgrounds could share their personal experiences and thoughts about meditation instead of only hearing …
Giving Without Losing A Part Of Myself
Trying to help people can be very complicated. The goal is usually to support and encourage someone to live a "better" life but this is more difficult than it first appears. I see two major obstacles. First, I see a lot of people who don't want help or don't want to change. Instead of taking advantage …
Loving The World
My Vipassana practice is changing my understanding of what it means to help people. The injustices of this world and the apathy of the people living in it have always stuck out to me. For over a decade I've tried to figure out how to fight against these injustices and to inspire apathetic people. While …
Group Sittings Map
Group sittings are critical for establishing your daily practice, creating a supportive community, and helping dhamma spread. So how do we help these group sittings get established and grow? While I've seen people working hard to develop and support the centers, and to provide outreach events for potential new students, I haven't observed many supports for …
Diving Into Chaos
I'm impressed by leader like Mother Teresa and Gandhi who walked alongside the weak, sick, and poor communities of our planet and inspired change and love. It's one thing to be sitting in my apartment, driving my car, and attending graduate school in beautiful Chapel Hill, North Carolina while contributing to my community. It's a whole other thing to travel …
Selfish Service
Before Vipassana I looked at giving service as a selfless contribution. We live in a world of finite resources so in order to get something I needed to give up something else. In order to help the community I'm going to sacrifice some time and energy to work on this project. I'm going to work for a non-profit or …
Taking Action
I got tired of school in college because it seemed like all we were talking about things and I wanted to take action. What better organization to join than Americorps who's slogan was "Getting things done." I've joined many organizations and groups to promote positive change with mixed results. Sometimes I felt like I made a …
Prison Courses
Prison courses are awesome. There appears to be an unlimited upside and very little downside to teaching prisoners how to meditate. Our prisons are incredibly overpopulated and the "lock them up as punishment so they change" model isn't working. In 2002 the first 10 day course was held at Donaldson Correctional Facility, a high security …
Living Vipassana 