Posts by Mark Knickelbine
Practice Circle: Right Intention, Right Speech
Others may use these five modes of speech when speaking to you — speech that is timely or untimely, true or false, gentle or harsh, with a good or a harmful motive, and with a loving heart or hostility. In this way, monks, you should train yourselves: ‘Neither shall our minds be affected by this,…
Read MorePracticing with Technology
We recently did a survey among people who had signed up for Practice Circle to find out their most and least favorite things about our online mindfulness group. The likes were all over the map, but thankfully they were many: respondents rated Practice Circle 7.3 on a 10 point scale, with only 3 of 19 ranking…
Read MorePracticing Non-Self, III: Cultivating the Heart
All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? . . . For your brother is like you. He wants to be happy. (Dhp 129 – 130, Byrom) This happened to me last Sunday afternoon. I had just returned…
Read MorePracticing Non-Self II — Six Elements Meditation
This is the second of three articles on applying the principle of anatta, non-self, to our dharma practice. The articles support the next few sessions of the SBA Practice Circle, which meets via online video conferencing at 8 pm Central on the second and fourth Sundays of each month. If you’d like to come experience…
Read MoreTen Minute Sit with Music
This is a ten minute guided meditation with an ambient music soundtrack. I’d be interested to hear if you like it and would like to hear more of this kind of track. 10 minute sit with music
Read MorePracticing Non-Self, Part 1
This is the first of three articles on applying the principle of anatta, non-self, to our dharma practice. The articles support the next few sessions of the SBA Practice Circle, which meets via online video conferencing at 8 pm Central on the second and fourth Sundays of each month. If you’d like to come experience…
Read MorePractice Circle: Tonglen for the Winter Solstice
This week’s Practice Circle coincides with the weekend of the Winter Solstice, the darkest and coldest time of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere (mudita to our Aussie and Kiwi friends!) I don’t know about you, but I always have a tangible felt sense of entropy about now. The cold and…
Read MoreSome Notes on Mindful Dialogue
Mindful dialogue has become a regular element of our Practice Circle exercises. After we introduce our topic for the evening, we break up into dyads and take turns mindfully listening to our partner, and to our own minds and hearts as we try to speak what is true for us in the moment. Mindful dialogue…
Read MoreFrom Both Sides: Secular Buddhism and the “McMindfulness” Question
The debate over the relationship between Buddhism and the mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) has heated up recently to a red hot glow. On July 1, Ron Purser and David Loy published an attack on the mindfulness movement in the Huffington Post under the title, “Beyond McMindfulness.” As I write this, a Google search on “McMindfulness” generates…
Read MoreWelcome to Practice Circle: An Update
Back last fall, we announced the start of an experiment, an online dharma practice group called the Practice Circle. As I write this, Practice Circle has met 16 times in the course of seven months, and so I thought it was time to write a fresh introduction to our online community as well as report…
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