After only 54 minutes of meditation divided over 6 months of school, my high school student completed a survey, and the results are impressive. I've added a page to the toolbar of this blog sharing the progression of events that lead to meditation in my classroom called "Ryan's Classroom." If you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, let …
Category: Personal Experiences
One-degree Warmer
“Did you sense the air you breathed out was one degree warmer than the air you breathed in?” On the 3rd day of a Vipassana mediation course, we focused on sensations of the tiny area between nostrils and upper lip. Theoretically, the air we breathe out is a little warmer, maybe only 1°F warmer, than …
My Vipassana Catholicism
I come from a devout Catholic heritage and navigating my spiritual/religious identity over the years has been a rich and complex journey. One of the more interesting turns was my discovery a few years ago that my Vipassana meditation practice actually enabled me to understand, appreciate and connect with Catholicism in a whole new way. …
Effects of Music and Dance on Meditation
I went to a 5 Rhythms dance about 2 weeks after sitting a 10 day course. The 5 rhythms is a free form dance style developed by Gabriel Roth which takes dancers through 5 distinct rhythms of flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness. These rhythms mirror the rhythms of nature and the seasons. It’s about …
“Don’t use your meditation practice to harm yourself, only use it to help yourself.”
Do you know about Dr. Paul Fleischman's recent Old Student talks? The title of this blog post is a quote from one such talk, available for streaming audio or download by old students on the website pariyatti.org. You can link to the talks here. I am not always 100% successful at accomplishing my twice daily …
Success vs. Love
One reason I believe daily meditation is hard is because it's not simply about setting aside time in your busy day to sit. It's about actively shifting the way you live your life. For decades, most of us have been taught to measure the quality of our lives by our successes and failures. This implies …
Vipasssana Mediation vs “USS Callister” Episode of Black Mirror
"USS Callister" is the 1st episode of the fourth season of the Netflix TV show Black Mirror which debuted on 29 December 2017. The episode follows Robert Daly, a reclusive but gifted programmer of a popular online game who is bitter over the lack of recognition he gets from his coworkers. He takes out his frustrations …
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Is This the Path?
When my practice starts to feel stale, or rote, or like a chore, it’s time to ask myself again—is this the path I want to walk? I need to dig deep and remind myself why my Vipassana meditation practice is so important to me, to tap into the inspiration I need to continue devoting 2 …
Community Building Through Insight Timer
Insight Timer is a great free app used by over 3,000,000 meditators. The app supports many different traditions by giving access to many different teachers and their teachings. I use the app because it allows me to log my daily meditations and connect to nearly 20,000 other Vipassana meditators trained by SN Goenka. I'm currently …
Wings of Desire-a Great Dhamma Movie
There’s a great Dhamma movie called Wings of Desire that I highly recommend, it came out in 1987. After finishing Peace Corps Sri Lanka in 1996 and sitting and serving in India and Nepal, I came back to Sri Lanka to settle at a meditation center near Kandy. I followed a daily schedule that …
Living Vipassana 