Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • Meditation: Coming into Relationship with our Thoughts

    There are various ways to be in relationship with our thoughts that can be helpful in meditation. One many people use is to imagine the mind as clear blue sky and thoughts as clouds floating through. Another, is to think of thoughts as a river or sea. As beginner meditators most likely we are submerged…

  • Meditation: Back from the Future

    I am in one of those periods in life where it is very easy to get caught up in anticipating the future. Recovering from hip replacement surgery, getting around with the aid of a crutch, having strict limitations on my mobility, it is challenging for me not to look forward to when I will be…

  • Precious Thoughts

    Sometimes we get attached to our thoughts in meditation, and if we are reminded to come back to focusing on the rise and fall of our breath, we get grumpy. We were in the middle of a brilliant idea, a creative solution, a lovely visual feast – and the teacher wants us to come back…

  • Thoughts During Meditation

    For most of us the challenge in meditation is to find our way back from deep within a tangled thought in order to focus on the breath. At first it might seem that the goal is to get rid of thought, but this is not the case. It is not a policing that is required,…

  • POEM: Metta at Midnight

    Awake againmulling overpainful events& poor decisions,I know thatrelatively speakingof course I am luckyto have such paltryproblems in a weekwhen tornados, cyclonesand earthquakeshave killed tensof thousands and leftfive million homeless,but I don’t want toneed the miseryof others tomake my lifeseem good.Still, the switchwith which I beat myselftemporarily loses its sting. But I am still awake, soI…