Goenka continuously emphasizes the importance of sitting - sitting 2 hours a day, sitting a 10-day course a year, and sitting whenever you have free time. His message can be interpreted to mean that sitting will solve all of life's problems, and everything else is superficial. I've never met Goenka, so I have no idea …
Continue reading Relationships and Intellectual Understanding are Essential for Dhamma Growth
Meditation is more than a tool to decrease stress and increase productivity. As technology speeds up the world and opinions become more divisive, I believe meditation will be the tool that allows us to stay connected to our hearts and our communities so we can create a beautiful future for everyone on our planet. This …
Another mass shooting. We know there will be more. How do we feel? Anger? Fear? Apathy? How do we respond? Do we fight back? Do we hide? None of these thoughts and feelings seem to make me feel any better. I grew up in an America full of hope and promise; Now we seem to …
11 Jews killed inside a Pittsburg synagogue by a man yelling anti-Semitic slurs. This is less than a 5 hour drive from my house. The growing anger, fear, and divisiveness in our communities is palpable. I'm struggling to find an appropriate response. I feel anger and disbelief which makes me want to fight back, but …
Vipassana helps me connect with my personal path. In addition to clarity between right and wrong, when I'm connected to my practice and the sensations in my body it feels like I can feel God's plan for me. Logic is an attractive tool because it provides rules and guidelines to follow. I can determine a …
My wife and I moved to Delaware four years ago to support the opening of Dhamma Pubbananda, a new center less than 3 hours away from New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The unique property is nested in a suburban neighborhood surrounded by 30 townhomes and 30 single family homes. When you step outside …
Continue reading “A Hidden Gem” – Delaware Welcomes Vipassana
Goenka emphasized the idea of protecting and preserving the pure teachings of Dhamma for generations to come. For years I received this as direction to protect and preserve the 10-day course format and insulate this experience from the chaos of the world, but this is not at the heart of dhamma as I currently understand …
Meditating in Goenka's tradition is isolating. You attend a silent 10 day retreat full of profound internal discovery, and you return home to a life that supports a different purpose. You look for support from group sittings, but usually there isn't one close by or the local sitting is poorly attended. You might find some …
Taking 10 days to sit a Vipassana course is hard. Sitting 2 hours a day is even harder. But there is a hunger in our society to learn more about meditation. Our society is deteriorating because of the abundance of anger, fear, greed, stress, and anxiety, and meditation can directly reduce all of these negative …
I started this blog six years ago to challenge myself to articulate the many complicated thoughts I had in my head in the early stages of my Vipassana practice. One year ago I discovered that my vision for Vipassana as taught by SN Goenka was different from many within the tradition, so I started to …
Living Vipassana 