Dhamma has become the foundation stone of my life but I've had little clarity regarding how to build a life around dhamma. It took several years to understand where I naturally fall on the path. I've always tried to figure out how to maximize what's important to me so it would cross my mind that …
Making the time
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 …
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 Right Type of Encouragement
I've always found the question of proper encouragement to be an interesting topic because determining what's right and wrong can be subtle and personal. For example, a Christian missionary believes people who don't believe in Jesus will go to hell so he or she is willing to do whatever it takes to convert people. She is …
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 …
The Myth of the Serious Meditator
I was talking to a new meditator about her understanding of what it means to commit to he practice and discovered that she believed all serious meditators meditated two hours a day. In addition, to be a good meditator, she felt obligated to sit two hours a day. She was concerned and overwhelmed by the …
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, …
Living Vipassana 