Walking Through Tender Ground Of Our Suffering
“We call this ‘practice’ and it’s called practice for a reason. We’re practicing how to meet life, how to meet our experience. And meditation is[…]
Leaning Into Stillness: Winter’s Call To Wonder
The cool, wet weather has arrived here in town. This, and the many tasks of a modern life, kept me from spending as much time[…]
Making Our Practice Personal
“No one can ever explain to us how to have an experience. If they could, we would all be enlightened by now. Our task as[…]
Aligning With Resilience: The Web of Life That We Are
I once read a quote somewhere about how nature’s pace is always slow to medium, in stark contrast with the ever-quickening multi-tasking of modern human[…]
Seeing Through The Mirage
Throughout my many years of meditation practice, I’ve discovered that the simple yet profound concept of curiosity has brought some of the most transformative changes[…]
Planet Practice: Love, Resilience & Engaged Hope
It is no secret that this past summer produced the warmest temperatures on Earth in recorded history. Though this season’s wildfires in the North Bay[…]
Supporting Ease in Difficult Times
As we continue to adapt to this difficult time on the planet, we are being asked to create new ways of living and being— to[…]
The Healing Balm of Nature: Intimacy with Life
With the seemingly constant barrage of news of political unrest, racism, violence, and climate emergency, amongst the everyday challenges and joys of our individual lives,[…]
Liberation Through Love
It is this way that we must train ourselves: by liberation of the self through love. We will develop love, we will practice it, we[…]
Sitting With Sylvia
We’ve all experienced some pretty powerful emotions since Tuesday evening and I wanted to share the experience I had at Spirit Rock on Wednesday… Having[…]
Why Practice?
Since January, the Napa Valley Insight Meditation community has spent many a Tuesday evening exploring the teachings of the Noble Eightfold Path– the Buddha’s map[…]
Cultivating Our Capacity for Kindness
I began my meditation practice in earnest about 11 years ago. I was originally motivated to practice because of a desire to overcome anxiety and[…]
Who’s Keeping Score?
“Falling down is what we humans do. If we can acknowledge that fact, judgment softens and we allow the world to be as it is,[…]
Cultivating Our Capacity for Kindness is Key to Our Liberation
I began my meditation practice in earnest about 11 years ago. I was originally motivated to practice because of a desire to overcome anxiety and[…]
Mindfulness: Going Beyond The Current Trend
It seems mindfulness has become the tour de jour in 2015. It is everywhere. Parade Magazine called mindfulness meditation the number one health booster, the[…]
Mindful Communication: The Gift of Wise Speech
The Buddha singled out wise speech as one of the important factors for awakening. It is part of the eight fold path, leading to the[…]
Judgment vs. Discernment: Moving From Preferences to Wisdom
When I first began practicing mindfulness meditation, I was surprised by the constant chatter of thoughts running through my head. What I found most disturbing[…]
The Gift of Loving-Kindness
There is a belief, I’ve often heard, repeated that meditation practice, and metta or loving-kindness practice in particular, is self-indulgent. That by focusing so much[…]
Cultivating A Relationship With Stillness
In my experience, one of the most poignant benefits of walking a spiritual path is the opportunity to cultivate a relationship with stillness. In the[…]
Cultivating Joy in Daily Life
The Buddha taught that joy and happiness already reside within us. To cultivate these qualities, we just need to develop wholesome states of mind that[…]