Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • The Second Noble Truth & Coming into Skillful Relationship with Desire

    In previous posts we explored the First Noble Truth: That there is suffering in life. The Second Noble Truth says there is a cause of this suffering, and that cause is our grasping, clinging and pushing away of the objects, ideas, experiences and people that we either want or don’t want in our lives. Wanting.…

  • Why In Times of Crisis Meditators are Especially Grateful for the Practice

    As meditators, we are grateful for our practice that helps us more skillfully navigate this current financial crisis and all situations in our lives — not as observers untouched by the experience, but as conscious participants, fully engaged but clear seeing. Here are some examples of the kinds of differences in our daily lives that…

  • The First Noble Truth, as Told by Uncle Remus

    Let’s imagine there is universal energy all around that in its natural unaltered state is spacious, loving and supportive of life and a sense of joyousness.Then lets imagine that, through our lack of attention and habitual patterns, it is possible to compress this energy so that we experience it as something dark, dense and gooey…

  • Exploring the First Noble Truth: Delving into Dukkha

    In learning meditation, we focus heavily on direct experience. It really doesn’t matter what Buddhism is or if you’ve studied the Buddha’s teaching extensively. You can still benefit from simply sitting and paying attention to your breath.But we would be foolish not to draw from the teachings that give us guidance through the fog of…

  • Two Poems on Thoughts During Meditation

    Prodigal Mind When my mindreturns to the breaththere is such a senseof homecomingsuch a celebration ofthis most perfect union that I would not be surprisedif the invitations were sent outthe band hiredand the cake decorated were there only enough timebefore my wayward mindsets off to wandering again. – Stephanie Noble—————In the River of ThoughtIn the…