Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • Three Aspects of Mindfulness Meditation Practice

    Last Thursday we spent more time than usual in class practicing, exploring and clarifying three aspects of meditation practice. (Blog readers should know that these dharma talks — over 160 now — are only one part of the class. The core of the class is experiential, the practice of meditation itself. I encourage anyone who…

  • Gratitude – a gift, not an instruction

    Thursday morning my dharma talk was about gratitude. All week I had been noodling around about the concept of gratitude. At my Toastmasters club meeting,one club member gave a great short speech about research into the causes of true sustainable happiness. He said that one cause is meditation practice. Another is gratitude. Just two minutes…

  • Day Long Retreat

    Last Thursday, instead of a 90-minute class, I led a day-long silent retreat at the guest house and gardens of one of my students. In the development of a meditation practice, a retreat of any length is so helpful. Coming into a seated meditation six or more times in the course of a day really…

  • Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds

    In exploring the Buddha’s teaching stories and analogies, I find myself elaborating and embellishing. It feels to me as if I am re-hydrating sharings that over the years had become single sentences or bare-bones concepts without sufficient details to make them juicy and alive for us today. It is up to each of you to…

  • Buddha’s River Analogy cont’d: Poetry & an Exercise

    In our exploration of the Buddha’s river analogy to talk about the Middle Way, we are looking and questioning what’s true for us, what is our experience of the shores, the boat and the river itself. Because we are so often lost on one shore or the other, it’s useful to see how we keep…