I live in a seasonal town that gets EXCEPTIONALLY busy in the summer: theatre shows, coffeehouses, bands, canoe trips, birthdays, and a myriad of "special events". On top of that, I'm in the middle of finishing the creation of my first solo show. Again, I have been missing more sittings than making them. How to …
Category: Personal Experiences
Accepting the Hypocrisy
I've been questing toward a complete alignment of my values with how I spend my time; the time I’m paid for as well as the time I’m not, and it will still probably be a number of years before I get there. Till then, in order to live a secure and balanced life my choices …
The joys of meditation
Why do people come to a Vipassana course? In talking with people who come to our Center in the Southeast on registration day and Metta day, I find there are almost as many reasons as there are people. There are some common themes, including life crisis, emotional trauma, and long-term need for ‘something more’ in …
Selective Attention
It used to be quite important to me how my day went. I'd learned that attitude is everything so if I had a bad day I thought I simply needed to change my attitude. I was learning how to ignore what was happening deep inside so I could force myself to have a good day …
Corrective Lenses
Meditation has helped with my perception of the world. When I meditate, I see things closer to the way they actually are. When I don't meditate, my vision gets distorted. Without the centering practice, I start to divide people into better and worse, rather than seeing them as the truly magnificent creatures that they are. …
Dhamma to the Rescue
Painful sensations of sickness can bring a really intense focus to my practice, save the day, and make me much more aware of my default state! I used to have a lot of digestive problems when I was younger; I learned to correct them by listening to my body rather than to doctors. I designed …
Long-Term Service
After my first course I was ecstatic by the potential Vipassana brought to my life but I didn't continue a daily practice because I was overwhelmed by the difficulty of sustaining my practice. The gap between the life I was living and the life Vipassana was teaching me to live was huge. I lacked the wisdom, …
On the road with the Buddha
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” says an old Zen story. This is simply the Zen way of saying, in dramatic and obscure form, that whoever you may meet along the way whom you think to be Buddha is really just your own delusion and should be annihilated. But I have …
Vipassana the difference between Knowing the path and walking the path
In my last post, I talked about the difference between knowing the walking the path. Today, I would like to explore it further. For example, As a neophyte Vipassana meditator, I used to wonder - I know what is anger, I know a great deal of the disastrous effects of anger, yet when the situation …
Continue reading Vipassana the difference between Knowing the path and walking the path
Be Present, It Will Change
As a child, I was taught that if I wanted something to be different I needed to change it, and if I didn't do anything things would just stay the same. These lessons still seem to be true but there is a problem. I don't know what's best for me. I can identify a problem, …
Living Vipassana 