Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • What’s Up with all the Buddha’s Lists?

    All matter and all experience is conditioned, dependent on something else having happened or existed. Try to think of any object and imagine it existing in isolation. What is it made of? Where did the things it was made of come from? Who made it? Who transported it? Who packaged it? Who sold it? A…

  • After the Retreat

    Last Thursday, our first class after our daylong retreat, one student entered quipping, ‘Ah, the laundry,’ referencing Jack Kornfield’s book titled After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.Once the retreat is over, is it over? Maybe yes, maybe no. We can’t expect the same level of relaxation, attention, appreciation, realization and awakening to the interconnection of being…

  • Come Home to the Senses — Day Long Retreat

    In the midst of a series of extremely cold windy days, the morning of our daylong retreat started with more of the same, but by the time the students arrived, the wind had quieted down, and by the end of the first sitting practice, the birds were singing, a sure sign of a calm day…

  • Coming Home to Our Senses

    In our many months of exploration of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness we have been balancing concepts and simple practice. It is important to keep in mind that the practice of anchoring our awareness in physical sensation and cultivating compassion is always more important than the concepts. You can have insight practice without the concepts,…

  • Annata — No Separate Self

    Last week we came to the fifth of the Five Aggregates and what did we find? That not one of these aggregates is us. Each is impermanent and insubstantial. None of them is governable. We looked straight into the jaws of the scary beast: ‘No Self’, Annata. But just as we were about to succumb…