From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts
-
Bare attention, interconnection and the artist Will Noble
In a recent article in Tricycle magazine, Cynthia Thatcher looked at George Seurat’s neo-impressionist painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, as an example of the nature of our interconnection. In her rich exploration, she said that her meditation teacher, Achan Sobin Namto, once wrote, “If we could focus precisely on…
-
You can focus like Siddhartha under the ficus
Twenty-six hundred years ago, under a tree, a seeker named Siddhartha Gautama sat in meditation, determined not to stop meditating until he awakened. In his meditation he was taunted, terrorized and tempted by all manner of thoughts and emotions that came in such convincing guises that it was a challenge to not believe they were…
-
Dharma, dharma everywhere — even in my just published short story!
Yay! My short story The Homecoming is in the Fall 2018 issue of the Birdland Journal, an online publication that celebrates the voices of Northern California. Why do I mention this in a blog about meditation and Buddhist teachings? Because, while a work of fiction is very different from a dharma talk or post, we can…
-
𝅘𝅥𝅯A tick a tick a tick a good timing𝅘𝅥𝅯 and why being in the moment makes us happy
Because last week we did an exercise, using the little emojis to represent the Five Hindrances, this week in class I checked in with my students to see how the experience of exploring in that way and working with what they found. If you tried out working with them, I’d love to hear from you!…
-
A fun way to learn to focus
When we sit in meditation, the untrained mind naturally runs amok. No fault there. We live in a culture of constant distraction and short attention span. The mind, even in silence, gets caught up in thinking or gets lost in a fog. Cultivating inner calm, ease and balance, we become better able to focus on…
STEPHANIE NOBLE 