Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • Earth: The Element of True Compassion

    I have never read or heard anything about this, but it seems to me that each of the Four Brahmaviharas has an elemental quality. Metta (loving kindness) is like the radiant sun, shining on all without discrimination. Mudita (sympathetic joy) is like the sparkling water, dancing with reflective joy. Upekka (equilibrium) is like the sky,…

  • Karuna, Accessing Deep Rooted Compassion

    Have you ever been in a situation where people were feeling sorry for you? Perhaps you had suffered a great loss, had a serious illness or experienced a big upheaval in your life. Suddenly people’s eyes seemed full of pity or sympathy. And how did you feel? Like you couldn’t get away fast enough? Why?…

  • Meditation & The Four Brahmaviharas

    In the last post I talked about gratitude and how the gratitude we have for temporal things – possessions, relationships, situations – is rooted in fear. This fear I suggested is like a hard cakey soil that isn’t able to offer any nourishment. Whatever is planted there grows distorted and has a tortured look about…

  • Meditation on Gratitude

    Tomorrow we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, and for many of us it’s a very busy day filled with the three F’s: food, family and football. So filled, in fact, there doesn’t seem to be room for the G’s: gratitude, grace and giving thanks. So here’s a chance to focus on our sense of gratitude. What are…

  • Meditation, Spaciousness & Letting Go

    The tight tangle of our lives becomes more spacious through the regular practice of meditation. We find that increasingly we can see our thoughts and emotions as they arise. Instead of succumbing to their seduction or going into battle with them, we can more often simply notice them. It may seem as if there is…