Articles
Reason and Practice
Bodhidharma, the great master who delivered the Meditation School of Buddhism to China, said that there are really two gates that lead us to the path to awakening. He called them the Gate of Reason and the Gate of Practice. The Gate of Reason is realizing through instruction and/or study, coming to understand our true…
Read MorePractice Circle: Keeping Your Practice Together
I won’t bore you with the details, but 2017 has been a tough year for me. Job loss, unemployment, an auto accident, the stress of adjusting to a demanding new job, physical injury, and more — it’s all come one after another. Dukkah, thick and fast. And, just as I needed my practice the most,…
Read MoreThree Paths for Secular Buddhists
Introduction As secular Buddhism has become an increasingly prominent trend in the U.S., it’s a good time to reflect on the diverse paths being taken by those of us who identify as secular Buddhists. While these paths are not mutually exclusive and thus practitioners may be involved, to some extent, in all of them, they…
Read MorePractice Circle: Lake Meditation
Continuing in our exploration of visualizations in contemplative practice, this Sunday at 8 pm CDST, Practice Circle will focus on the Lake Meditation. To join our video conference group, simply follow this link: https://zoom.us/j/968569855. Ted Meissner, MBSR teacher with Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Center for Mindfulness at UMass, will be leading this session’s half hour guidance and…
Read MorePractice Circle: Mountain Meditation
Visualization can be a powerful tool in meditation, and one of the visualizations used by both traditional Buddhists and MBSR practitioners is “becoming the mountain.” This Sunday at 8 pm CDST, Practice Circle will share a mountain meditation based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. I hope you’ll join us! To join our video conference…
Read MorePractice Circle: See Confusion as Buddha
I love the Tibetan Lojong slogans because so many of them provocatively explore the dharma from angles that we can tend to overlook. I often initially react negatively toward them, because they are trying shock us into understanding our practice in new ways. The slogan we will work with at Practice Circle on July 23,…
Read MorePractice Circle Live: Make Practice Your Whole Life
This guided meditation was recorded live at Practice Circle on June 25, 2017. If you’d like to learn how to join our online dharma practice group, check out the Practice Circle Page.
Read MorePractice Circle: Stay Close to Your Resentment
One of the interesting things about working with the Tibetan Lojong slogans is the way they so often seem strangely counterintuitive. The slogan we’ll be working with this week at Practice Circle is a good example: “Stay Close to Your Resentment.” What? As good Buddhists, aren’t we supposed to be releasing our clinging to illusory…
Read MoreThree Marks of Existence, or Three Factors of Human Experience?
Along with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, one of the core beliefs of Buddhists is the notion that there are three basic characteristics or “marks” of existence – dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), and anatta (not-self). In the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta and other discourses the Buddha avoided entering into a debate over many…
Read MorePractice Circle: Make Practice Your Whole Life
Those of you who have joined us at Practice Circle lately know that we have been working with the Tibetan Lojong text, fifty-nine slogans that present seven points of training the mind. There have been countless commentaries on the Lojong text; the one we’ve been working with is Norman Fischer’s wonderful Training in Compassion: Zen…
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