Dharma explorations by Stephanie Noble

From over fifteen years of sharing her understanding of Buddhist concepts

  • The Dhamma Brothers

    I recently saw the documentary The Dhamma Brothers. I had been following the news story over the past years of Vipassana retreats being held in Alabama prisons, so I was very interested in seeing this film about it, now available to rent. (If the word Dhamma is not familiar to you: Dhamma is the Pali…

  • ‘Go to the Places That Scare You’

    At the beginning of each dharma talk, after our meditation (so we are all primed to receive insight and wisdom,) I have been reading a page from The Pocket Pema Chodron, a diminutive and dear collection of the author’s teachings, usually one to three paragraphs long. This book was a present from one of my…

  • Opening Our Sangha

    This week, the students present had never heard this dharma talk: http://stefnoble.blogspot.com/2009/08/freedom-from-believing-we-are-our_05.htmlso I shared it with them and we discussed that moment when we have a choice to stay free from getting caught up in a thought or grab at its seemingly attractive lure.We also followed up on the nature of sangha. One of the…

  • What Makes an Effective Sangha Discussion?

    Last week we talked about the importance of sangha, our community of meditation practitioners, for keeping us on track with our own practice. But a sangha can support us in other ways as well. When we are going through something that is challenging, a sangha can provide insight and metta (loving kindness.)While it is the…

  • The Importance of Sangha

    The Sangha is the community of Buddhist meditation practitioners who support us in our practice simply by being present and true to their own practice.While I was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico this visit I was fortunate to find a meditation sangha that felt like coming home to me. This was a great gift…