Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • Mother’s Day Dharma

    I am every kind of mother — a step-mother, a biological mother, an adoptive mother, a mother-in-law and a grandmother. And I am blessed in all those close loving relationships. But I’m also a daughter, and on Mother’s Day, that’s where my heart goes. My mom hated Mother’s Day. She thought it was just Hallmark…

  • Eight Fold Path Meditation

    Now that we have explored the Eightfold Path, the next step is to incorporate it fully into our practice. Using our analogy of the Cooking Pot from the previous post (review if you’ve forgotten or haven’t read it), we can build the fire of mindfulness in our meditation practice. (Only use this visualization if you…

  • Eightfold Path: The Cooking Pot Analogy

    This blog is titled Open Embrace Meditations, and in the first post I explained why, but that was over 50 posts ago (!) so I’ll repeat it here and add a little Eightfold Path twist. For many years now my intention in life has been to hold the world in and open embrace. The visual…

  • Eightfold Path: Right Concentration

    The eighth aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Concentration.How is this different from Right Mindfulness?The best way I can phrase it for myself right now is that Right Concentration is a dedicated practice that builds the muscle of mindfulness. Why isn’t it taught first, not last?The Eightfold Path is seen as petals on…

  • Eightfold Path: Right Mindfulness

    In the practice of meditation, we learn to continually bring our thoughts back to the present moment whenever we find them wandering. We learn to use our many senses to engage our minds in the moment. We tell ourselves, ‘Be Here Now.’ It is challenging to go against life-long habits of the mind where the…