Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • The Power of Loving-Kindness

    Over the past weeks we have been exploring the word ‘should’ and similar bully words that shove us around. We’ve practiced noticing these words as they come up and then using that awareness to explore where we get stuck in our lives, how we lose vital energy by relying on should thinking to determine our…

  • What would a ‘should’-free world look like?

    In all this discussion of ‘should’ I am sure there are those who are concerned aboutwhat a should-free world look like. How would removing the word ‘should’ from our vocabulary not result in an open ticket to lawlessness?Well, it certainly could. And if the idea of should-free living gets into the popular culture, it would…

  • Why do we procrastinate?

    Noticing the word ‘should’ when it shows up in our thoughts gives us creative opportunity for exploration. We hear the ‘should’ when we say it and we can pause to play with it. Yes, play!So, for example, we notice ourselves saying, “I should do (fill in the blank). Ah, ‘should!’” Here we can recognize an…

  • Should-free Parenting

    We have been discussing how the word ‘should’ and its fellow scolders like ‘must’ and ‘ought’ crop up repeatedly in the way we talk to ourselves and often to others as well. The ‘others’ we are most likely to use them on are our children. Thus we perpetuate this very shallow-rooted motivation into the next…

  • Shallow Rooted ‘Should’ – our exploration continues

    I have used this image of the tree and its roots system sinking deep into the nourishing soil to discuss finding balance in life. And it is an appropriate image to use again in our current discussion of words like should, shouldn’t, must, ought — the kind of words that may get us to accomplish…