Written by Jessica Wright I was very grateful to find this blog recently, after sitting my third course. At times on the course, I thought that I wouldn't overcome the doubts and resistance that I was struggling with and continue to practise, so I was keen to read about other people's experiences of establishing long-term …
Being Impatient.
A few days ago I was facing a couple of situations that I considered to be rather difficult. In my care-giving job my client, an old lady, was creating problems with just about everything – she refused to take the pills, and she behaved completely irrationally, which she showed by verbal accusations. There were also …
2 Years of Blogging!
I started this blog 2 years ago, and I'm proud to say that I've written at least once a week for 104 weeks straight. I started writing because I needed a way to process through my Vipassana experience. Shortly after I started publishing my blog because I felt so alone in my journey, and I …
Love Thyself
I do now, but for a while I didn't know how. What after all, am I? Who am I? I would go to the assistant teachers asking this. Is this me, this emotion, these thoughts? How can I give love to myself? Often superficial, during times when I wasn't fit to give metta to others, …
Listening with Empathy
Apparently we all like to talk about ourselves. I don't know why it took me 60+ days (not consecutive!) of being quiet to become aware of this. Yesterday I met with a friend after years. She is surfing through some serious vicissitudes right now. As our evening progressed, I realized my frustration with not getting …
Is Balance Bogus?
My five-year-old nephew begs me to pick him up over and over again and spin circles till we fall over, dizzy and laughing. His delight, I think, is rooted in the same reason I used to roll down hillsides and rock my canoe so fiercely it’d flip. As kids, we playfully seek a loss of …
Results Don’t Matter
We have very little control over the results of our actions. The physical products of our choices depend on a large group of people and how they respond to each other. For example, if I build beautiful sculpture, it's possible that someone will dislike it and destroy it, or maybe someone will transport it to …
One Step
I think that as long as we do our best in each moment we are on the path of Dhamma. That doesn't have to be direct meditation. It has to simply do with being good to ourselves and anyone else. Everyone has the potential for that, just like we can all become Buddha. We all …
Attachment to Pain
When something deeply stirs me up in the realm of fear or pain, I outwardly express my internal emotions by smiling less or not at all, by feeling and being impatient with myself and others, by staying to the point in communication and speaking in monotone so much so that it may easily be perceived …
The Interior Castle or Why We Meditate?
An intelligent person is always available to hesitation. The more intelligent you are, the more easily you become available to hesitations; because each hesitation is a new beginning, a new search, a new inquiry. (Osho, Talks on Kabir) I was staring at the small book in Buddhist library in Kopan: it was the book I …
Living Vipassana 